REPUBLICAN MATHEMATICS

Statistics may not actually help matters but they are comforting. When I most every part of the country is wailing against hard times and when banks are closing faster than the government can examine them. Secretary Hoover comes forth with the blithe statement that the fiscal year 1925-1926 has been the most successful in the history of the United States; successful economically, in volume of production and consumption, in quality of imports and exports, and in rate of wages. The nation, according to this report, is in excellent condition. More to the point, Mr. Hoover backs his diagnosis by figures which, though one wonders where he got them, show ebullient prosperity.

The middle west, New England and the south ought to be heartened by this glowing description of national health. Farmers may have had doubts concerning their ability to avoid bankruptcy, bankers may have hastily condemned the Federal Reserve System, or anything which might be responsible for the present financial disasters, and manufacturers may have looked askance at trade: but now everything is settled the doctor has declared the patient to be in the best of form and therefore there can be no possible excuse for lamentations. But Mr. Hoover should travel west, north and south. He might see more than the rolling countryside: and he might return to investigate his accountants and to add up once more the figures denoting the national welfare.