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Show THE CITIZEN 14 Stalking The Profiteer SOMEONE warned the Washington a few weeks ago that the high cost of living problem wps more important than the League of Nations. It was at about the time the people of Italy were pillaging storehouses and shops and threatening revolution unless the government took some action to stop profiteering. The people ruined thousands of dealers, making them poorer than The government hasthemselves. tened to do what it could to reduce the cost of living in Italy. The pillaging might be considered rather as a publicity demonstration than as a corrective. In itself it did no good to the great mass of the public; as a warning to the government it had an advertising value. By other means we have at last stirred our government to action. For months the war department officials and others of high position at the capital have been talking bluffing. Now they will act. They may do the weak and the wrong things at first, but soon they will have to get down The main trouble is to brass tacks. that few of us know just where the brass tacks are. Everyone has a different theory. government has decided to do most obvious thing sell at the lowest possible price about $124,000.-00- 0 of war supplies. A few months ago the government could have sold goods of a vastly greater value, but millions of dollars worth of supplies have gone to waste. In Baltimore alone many tons of bacon were spoiled because stored in unsuitable warehouses. Some months ago the government agreed with .the packers to withhold $100,000,000 worth of canned goods so as not to disturb the market this season. Now the government proposes to sell at cost what remains of the canned goods because the public wants the market disturbed. Admittedly there is danger in disturbing the market. When prices begin to fall the legitimate dealer is injured. He has bought at a high price and is forced to sell at a low price. If he is a profiteer it is a bit different. He has made so much during the fat days of plundering the public that he can endure the lean days of low prices. THE the government tells us it is going to sell $120,000,-00worth of foodstuffs at cost so as to lower prices it sounds silly. That WHEN is about a dollars worth of food per capita. Apparently it cannot have much effect. If the government confines its correctives to this one act it will get nowhere. The people believe that nearly every dealer is profiteering. Many believe that most of the high cost should be ascribed to this cause. At all events, the public has at last impressed the sleepers in Washington. The administration must begin a real inquisition into the high cost of 0 living. It must determine how much profiteering there is and do what it can to enforce just prices. T' O the government is to be at--tributed much of the increase in L prices. When the United States entered the war the government stimulated production by permitting everyone who had anything to sell to become a profiteer. Then the government began to waste the materials it had stimulated the producers to turn out. Only the other day credible witnesses testified that airplanes worth a million dollars had been burned in one big bonfire in France. Suppose that you owned $25,000,000 worth of airplanes and burned a million dollars worth. The rest of the machines would sell for $25,000,000 if you had a monopoly and raised the price of each machine, but there would be fewer machines to go round. Our own government went into the and roads were built. The waste at Fort Douglas is an indication of the waste on a larger scale all over the country and in France. And the government is not the only offender. In Chicago 15,000 carmen are on a strike. That is waste. If government paid for wheat and the lower price at which wheat was expected to sell. The Grain Corporation has not been called upon to spend a cent in that way because the selling price of wheat has not fallen below the price guaranteed to the farmer. in Illinois struck just 15,000 farmers A measure known as the Kenyon-Anderso- n at harvest time we could appreciate bill has been presented to waste we because could calculate Congress. The most radical feature the just how many bushels of grain had is a provision that a federal receiverbeen left to rot. And yet the waste ship be established to handle the busiof the Chicago strike, although not as ness of the packer who becomes a The receiver moral obvious, is just as real. bankrupt. would be appointed by the United are being proposed. States circuit court upon the submisMANY remedies want the government to sion of proof that the packer had violispend the billion dollars given the lated the law or the terms of his the receiver would and Grain Corporation in such a way as cense to the busicontrol to subsidize the American table. This continue assurances until adequate money was to be used to make up ness the difference between the price the had been given the court that the Gandies IF Pastries Light Lunches price fixing business. It fixed the price of wheat this year by guaranteeing the farmer $2.26 a bushel. That kept up the price of corn, which, in turn, increased the price of live stock. In 1913 a hog sold for a little more than $8. Now it is selling for about $20. The packers point with pride to this increase because it permits them to defend the hundreds of millions of profit which they have made in the last few years. The government put a premium on profiteering. From one point of view, of course, the governments action was necessary. It stimulated production so that the war might be fought successfully. But along with the good that it did the government did what was unnecessary. It wasted what had been produced. . It is said that the Democrats have already invented a campaign slogan, War is Waste. You and I and all of us are to be told that the waste was unavoidable. Cest la guerre, as the French, say. built six mills for THE government production of spruce for air- planes in the northwest. All the spruce that was turned out came from the mills already in operation. The six government mills cost $6,000,000 and did not turn out any spruce. Before we entered the war the British and French governments had been buying finished spruce at $150 a thousand feet. Our government stimulated production and prices to such an extent that spruce laid down at the airplane factories cost $650. a thousand. factories were waste. Men back from France say that perfectly new motor trucks and automobiles are sticking in the mud at Brest over the axles and have been there for months. If an automobile part was missing and was not to be obtained at once a new automobile was thrown aside and never used. In this country many millions of dollars of useless buildings, tracks The six ELECTRIC TRAINS START MONDAY SCHEDULE. No need after Sunday to wait 45 minutes for a train to Salt-ai- r! Just amble down to the station most any old time and a train will be waiting for you. Then, Zip! Away you go to the good old lake to take your cooling float. Return trips are made on the same schedule. Morning trains at 8, 10 and Noon. Fifteen minute service 2, 2:15, 2:30, 2:45, 3, 3:15, 3:30, 3:45, 4, 4:15, 4:30, 4:45, 5, 5:15, 5:30, 5:45, 6, 6:15, 6:30, 6:45, 7, 7:15, 7:30, 7:45,8, 8:15, 8:30, 8:45, 9, 915 9:30 9:45, 10, 10:15, 10:30, 10:45, 11 p. m. Make Your First Trip On The Powerful Electrics Monday! |
