Show PROBLEMS FACING STRICKEN WORLD shall chaos or reconstruction in europe follow the great corid war MEN CHANGED BY BATTLE soldiers have learned what can be accomplished by the use of force sternly and efficiently applied article IX by FRANK COMERFORD making a soldier out of a civilian does more than cliance the clothes he wears it changes the man men who had never owned a revolver or rifle who had never even shot one off who had never killed anything in their atves were ghen firearms they were drilled taught to shoot taught to 1111 the education was thorough and scientific they learned to look down the sight of a rifle pick out a human libart for a target fire and eagerly watch for the man to fall I 1 hey were trained to rush madly at a wall of human beings and drive bay conets into mens heads and bowels man of these men a few years before would have fainted in a stock yards where cattle were being killed for four years they have been in a human slaughterhouse not only as spectators but as part of the place it steeled these men many of them contracted the undertakers point of view towards life a fatalism without fear experience in battle taught them the meaning of the word force they discovered that the individual was only important and efficient when he acted in concert with a great group everything depended upon team work men learned that a group of men working in harmony with nerve and rifles with fixed bayonets could do wonderful things they could take an objective in other words take the thing they wanted and needed when these men came back into civil lle and took off khaki and put on averi alls the taking oil of the khaki and the putting on of mufti did not erase from their minds this lesson the war had taught them this lesson has borne fruit the men look at the employer as an enemy the employer thinks of them as a commodity hatred 1 cordial the men want something they demand it the employer refuses their objective Is to get the thing they want and need the war taught them there Is a way a weapon force today in europe men reason lf we cant get what we want and need we must take ft we have he farce having grown habited to suffering ac customer cus tomed to blood and death they look with indifference on the question alt danger of price they saw that when could not agree they resorted to force they discovered that victory generally went to the nation possessing the greatest force threat of direct action in the labor movement of europe we have this fidei in what is called direct action action Is nothing more or less thin applying war methods to peace conditions it Is an effort on the part of great groups of working men to compel recognition of their demands they seek to secure their objective by force no allowance Is made for the tact that methods justifiable in war are not right in peace few people will deny that war Is the supreme expression of force many men got their first taste of fresh air and decent food while in the army very properly the allied governments ern ments gave the best of everything to the men in the armies it isn t cult to get accustomed to good food and fresh air it Is bard to go back to poor food and the tenements back home many ot the de mobilized sol adlers are not eating as well or as much as they ate during their service notwithstanding the rigid discipline of army life men are treated as men the humblest man in the ranks has rights eliat must be respected this Is not always the case in civil life then too while in uniform the vate was made much of class als unction was obliterated he was looked upon a one of hs country s defenders since he has been demoll lazed he has been and neg tills has soured him he re it social distinctions have come back he is only a working man now another causo of unrest among the working man of europe grows out of the war mobilization took millions of men from their jobs A great short age of labor resulted employers were forced to compete to get men the usual competition was among men to get jobs the law of supply and demand affected the labor market wages went up the soldier went off to war while he was in the trenches the wages back home were high ills pay was small our fighting men were not interested in pay they wont to fight for a principle with the coming of peace a large quantity of labor was dumped upon the market the de mobilized men rushed for employment comrades competed for jobs the same old law of supply and demand sent wages to bogg aning the number of men who wanted joba was much greater than the number of places available the returning soldier seeking a job was offered a much smaller wage than he knew was paid for the same work alle he hid been fighting it in ceased censed him lie figured eliat he had given four ears out of his life had come home tired and broke lie looked upon the decline in wages as a positive discrimination against him comparison breeds discontent everywhere I 1 have heard these men say we are out of luck the bands played and we were applauded when we left to fight while we were gone the wages went up we don t begrudge the men who stayed at homo the wages they got but its damn funny that when we come back down go wages the cost of living dont go down I 1 guess were out of luck I 1 found two phrases inseparable in the speech of the discontented the high cost 0 living the profiteer with whom I 1 talked freely admitted that some of the high cost of living was the legitimate result of the great demand tor everything and the natural shortage but in the same breath they insisted that much of it was due to the mercenary ghoulish profiteer the profiteer took blood money during the worlds greatest tragedy lie exacted usury from the toller at home and the fighting man at the front he drew dividends out of the tears and walls of broken hearted women and fright stricken children he minted his gold out of agony stana alon heartaches he stands today the judas of the war the most de man of earth the profiteer Is not an englishman a frenchman italian or american he Is found in every country of the world a man without nationality without conscience without humanity he Is the pimp of he la still on the job the profiteer has given the united states a terrible black eye A common comment of europe Is the united states made money out of the war these people do not refer to the money we made legitimately they point to the fact a fact that has been given great publicity in eu rope that in august 1914 there were about millionaires in the united states while at the time of the signing of the armistice it was estimated the millionaire colony had increased by making a total of millionaires in the united states the profiteer Is still on the job he Is holding up the world a starving cold world profiteering case in point under date of november J S bache co members of the new york stock exchange in their financial letter say in mercantile circles there Is proceeding at the present time a vast amount of speculation on a very large scale in commodities an incident Is cited to us of one concern that Is carrying 15 worth of vegetable oils which are in great demand and the concern Is holding them tor prices this Is a distinct damage to the consumers and keeps living prices in these things used dally at top and increasing levels speculation of this kind Is a real detriment to the community the pair of shoes the workingman once bought for 3 50 are now 8 and 10 it Is true that the cost of labor and material have gone up but not enough to warrant any such tant prices business men have taken advantage of the situation and justify their larcenies larce nies on the ground of the law of supply and demand A shoo man with a prominent chicago firm a man long in the business told me that the present unwarranted and outrageous price of shoes was due to the fact that american alioe manufacturers bould get almost any price for shoes from the barefooted people of europe governments are blamed for not dealing with this species of holdup the discontented why profiteering treason why these fagans be sent to the wall with a firing squad as an escort copyright petern newspaper New paper union |