Show I Meeting the Issue I ID Washington has at last become aroused to the fact OFFICIAL D' D that there is increasing unrest in this country a result of the ev ever advancing high cost of living It has ceased eased to be a joke an and and bids fair to become a tragedy if relief i is not afforded t P The he same conditions have existed for many months but coiN congress s h has s kept its eyes closed and devoted d most of its its its' time timeto timeto to p iii y colored oratory designed principally to promote certain p political vitic tl Interests ter Now specific developments have jolted congress and anti official official l Washington as a whole to a realization that something m must st be lone be done to relieve the situation I t he The situation is is' is admittedly omin ominous ominus us but th there re is s J no no reason wILY why it should sho should d b become ome alarming The problem can be met and so ed with without viole violence ce or an upheaval of social and ln industrial conditions con con- diton dions but it will require prompt action If congress will consider con con- sider Z t the e matter wi with h. h the same fearlessness ss and l lack of k of partisanship no as it gave to affairs while the war was in progress there need beno be beno beno no fear of the res result t A fo We can can recall recall that on December 4 1917 Wilson Vilson ap appeared red before before congress and in iii his address said Rec Recent nt experience has convinced me that c congress must go further in authorizing the government to set sett limits to prices The law of supply and demand I am ami ami t i i sorry to say has be been n replaced by the law of unrestrained f selfishness While we have ave eliminated profiteering inI in I several branches of industry it still runs runs runs' impudently ramt rampant ram ram- t 1 P pant ant in others i I What the then president said sald Is equally true tnie today Ev Every ry government report on the matter that has been made public has hasold laid old bare profiteering in one form or another But despite these reports report and they have come repeatedly there has been no official action to remedy the evil o- o oThe The people know that something Is wrong They know that certain prices are exorbitantly high and that they are being gouged morning noon and night They have not sought to offer a so solution solution u- u tion for the problem They have to the contrary been unusually patient patent in waiting for their official representatives at Washington to bring ing forth the solution But patience is ra rapidly ceasing to tobe tobe tobe be a a. virtue and there Is an insistent and unanimous demand today th that t definite action b be taken toward the end that prices be restored to a 2 just figure 5 r t. t We have seen the prices on staple articles of drop on OR the Eastern exchanges because of th the threat of oe government g v adl action n. n If the threat will wilt bring a drop how much more can be expected when a definite program is set forth rw We have seen these same exchanges flooded ded and exploited byi speculators who seek to control the market so th that t they can further rob the people And naturally the people are becoming di discontented contented 1 r T The same speculator who seeks to corner the essential essential foods of the world pounds down the financial market so that the goven government government gov gov- en nent bonds which the people of the nation so patriotically pui purchased to aid the government to to carry carryon on the war are forced be below ow par Every financier is ready to tell you that the govern m ment t bonds are the safest investment in the world that they are are bound bound to go above par but speculators ar are playing with them as though though they were so many toys and forcing the moderate investor tor torto to suffer a loss f. f The The he people know there is much that is ro rotten en in the present in industrial situation and they have a right to demand that congress corr correct the evil And the evil must be corrected immediately fort forto for t to tod d elay until the hard days of winter when unemployment reaches it its n maximum will be to imperil the v very ry safety of our inq industrial industrials s s' sy Gehl jJ ehi c |