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CHAPTER 14Saving the X Industry1The lobbies of Congress are crowded with representatives of theX industry. The X industry is sick. The X industry is dying. Itmust be saved. It can be saved only by a tariff, by higher prices, or bya subsidy. If it is allowed to die, workers will be thrown on the streets.Their landlords, grocers, butchers, clothing stores, and local motionpicture theaters will lose business, and depression will spread in everwideningcircles. But if the X industry, by prompt action of Congress,is saved—ah then! it will buy equipment from other industries; moremen will be employed; they will give more business to the butchers,bakers, and neon-light makers, and then it is prosperity that will spreadin ever-widening circles.It is obvious that this is merely a generalized form of the case wehave just been considering. There the X industry was agriculture. Butthere are an endless number of X industries. Two of the most notableexamples in recent years have been the coal and silver industries. To“save silver” Congress did immense harm. One of the arguments forthe rescue plan was that it would help “the East.” One of its actualresults was to cause deflation in China, which had been on a silverbasis, and to force China off that basis. The United States Treasury83