power of this
invisible something, you will mobilize a force, not only for his or her
good, but for the good and perhaps the very salvation of your own
business.

IX

WHAT FIGURES SHOW

Panics are caused by spiritual causes rather than
financial. Prosperity is the result of righteousness
rather than of material things.

The large black areas on the adjoining chart are formed by combining and
plotting current figures on New Building, Crops, Clearings, Immigration,
Total Foreign Trade, Money, Failures, Commodity Prices, Railroad
Earnings, Stock Prices and Politics in order to give a composite view of
business in the United States. (When Interstate Commerce reports of
earnings of all United States railroads became available, January, 1909,
this record was substituted in place of the earnings of ten
representative roads which had been used previous to that time. Revised
scales for monetary figures were also introduced, in August, 1912.)

[Illustration]

The line X-Y represents the country's net gain or growth. Based on the
economic theory that "action and reaction are equal when the two factors
of time and intensity are multiplied to form an area," the sums of the
areas above and below said line X-Y must, over sufficiently long periods
of time, be equal, provided enough subjects are included, properly
weighed and combined. An area of prosperity is always followed by an
area of depression; an area of depression in turn is always followed by
an area of prosperity. The areas, however, need not have the same
shapes.

It will be seen that each area is divided into halves by a narrow white
line. This is to emphasize the fact that the first halves of areas below
the X-Y line are really reactions from the extravagance, inefficiency
and corruption which existed during the latter half of the preceding
"prosperity" area. Contrariwise, the first halves of areas above the X-Y
line are really reactions from the economy, industry and righteousness
developed during the hard times just preceding. The high points of the
stock market have come in the early part of the prosperity areas and the
low points have come about the beginning of the depression areas. In
1914 the war held down prices of all securities. The highest prices of
bonds have usually come about the end of the depression areas and high
money rates, and lowest bond prices at about the end of the prosperity
areas.

But what causes these fluctuation