Business: Current Situation: Oct. 22, 1923

A familiar occurrence was seen last week regarding the future prospects of American business. The West is prosperous and optimistic; the East is prosperous but rather pessimistic and cautious. Which view is correct only time can reveal. But in cases where this contradiction in judgments has occurred before the East has invariably been nearer the truth. In the Spring of 1920 the stock market turned downwards and the West declared its fears ungrounded. But that Fall disastrous liquidation set in practically all over the country.

Two fundamentals to prosperity, however, after several years of dangerously bad circumstances, are definitely beginning to improve. Rents are at last falling quite generally over the country, and the end of Germany’s mad experiments with worthless paper currency is apparently reached. With real estate liquidated and the eternal European situation on the way to recovery, American business will really have a change for the “long continued period of prosperity ” so frequently discussed in the last few years.