78 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
ration that there “must be a return to normalcy.” This 
statement, as a matter of fact, was the slogan of the Repub- 
lican party in the Presidential campaign of 1920 and was 
subsequently adopted as the most sound course of pro- 
cedure by conservative industrial and financial interests. 
With the exception of the protests put forward in wage 
arbitrations by representatives of employees, this attitude 
had been, as a rule, accepted without analysis, as meaning 
a revision to pre-war wages, industrial conditions, and 
prices. It was argued that all inflation and extravagance 
brought about by the war should be eliminated, and, when 
this was done, not only industry and trade, but life in 
general might be resumed upon a normal basis. A “return 
to normalcy,” as thus conceived, was thoughtlessly made 
synonymous with a return to prosperity. 
A NEw THEORY OF PROSPERITY 
Despite the protests of the advocates of a more enlight- 
ened policy, these views as to “normalcy” and prosperity 
prevailed, as has already been described, until the latter 
part of 1922. After more than two years of loss and 
depression, industrial and financial leaders, for the first 
time since the war, began to realize that the prosperity of 
the country really depended upon the prosperity of the 
individual citizen instead of the prosperity of the indi- 
vidual being conditioned upon the prosperity of the 
country, The fallacy of wage-cuts as means of heading 
off threatened depression or reviving prosperity had 
already been vividly and disastrously demonstrated by the 
adverse conditions following the business collapse of 
1920-1921. Cut off from foreign markets by European 
inability to buy, it became evident that future prosperity 
was dependent upon the consuming power of our own 
markets. It was also realized that the road to prosperity