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Show PROBLEMS FACING STRICKEN WORLD Shall Chaos or Reconstruction in Europe Follow the Great World 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 change 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 lives, were given firearms. They s ere' drilled, taught to shoot, taught j to kill. The education was thorough and scientific. They learned to look down the sight of a rifle, pick out a human heart for a target, fire and eagerly watch for the man to fall. They were trained to rush madly at 1 a wall of human beings and drive bayonets bay-onets into men's heads and bowels. Many of these men a few years before be-fore would have fainted In a stockyards 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 undertaker's 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 life and took off khaki and put on over-nils, over-nils, the taking off of the khaki and the putting on of mufti did not erase from their minus this lesson the war had taught them. This lesson has borne fruit. The men look at the employer as an enemy. en-emy. The employer thinks of them as a commodity. Hatred is cordial. The men want something. . They demand de-mand 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, "if we can't get what we want, and need, we must take it. We have the force." Having grown habited to suffering, accustomed ac-customed to blood and death, they look with indifference on the question of danger, of price. They saw that when nations could not agree they resorted re-sorted 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 thlfi Idea In what Is called "direct action." "Direct action" is nothing more or less than 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 se-cure their objective by force. No allowance al-lowance is made for the fact 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 aiv and decent food while In the army. Very properly the allied governments gov-ernments gave the best of everything to the men in the armies. It isn't difficult diffi-cult to get accustomed to good food and fresh air ; it is hard to go hack to poor food and the tenements. Back home, many of the demobilized soldiers sol-diers are not eating as well or as much as they nte during their service. Notwithstanding the rigid discipline of army life, men are treated as men. The humblest man In the ranks has rights that must be respected. This Is not always the case in civil life. Then, too, while in uniform the private pri-vate was made much of. Class distinction dis-tinction was obliterated. He was looked upon as one of his country's defenders. Since he has been demobilized demobi-lized he has been forgotten and neglected. neg-lected. This has soured him. He resents re-sents It. Social distinctions have come back. He is only a working man now. Another cause of unrest among the working man of Europe grows out ot the war. Mobilization took millions of men from their Jobs. A great shortage 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. His pay was small. Our fighting men were not interested In pay. They went to fight for a principle. With the coming of peace a lanro Quantity of labor was dumped upon the market. The demobilized men rushed for employment. Comrades competed for jobs. The same old law of supply and demand sent wages to-ogJain, to-ogJain, The number of men who wanted Jobs was much irenter than j the number of places available. The returning soldier seeking a Job was i offered a much smaller wage than hj j knew was paid for the same work while he had been fighting. It Incensed In-censed him. He figured that he had given four years out of his life, had come home tired and broke. He looked look-ed upon the decline in wages as a positive discrimination against him. Comparison Breeds Discontent. Everywhere I 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 home the wages they got, but it's damn funny that when we come back down go wages. The cost of living don't go down. I guess we're out of luck." I found two phrases inseparable In the speech of the discontented, "the high cost of living;" "the profiteer." Workingmen with whom I talked, freely admitted that some of the high cost of living was the legitimate result re-sult of the great demand for everything every-thing 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 biood money during dur-ing the world's greatest tragedy. He exacted usury from the toiler at home and the fighting man at the front. He drew dividends out of the tears and wails of broken-hearted women and fright-stricken children. He minted his gold out of agony, starvation, starva-tion, heartaches. He stands today the Judas of the war, the most despised de-spised 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 civilization. He is still on the Job. The profiteer has given the United States a terrible black eye. A common com-mon 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 Europe, Eu-rope, that in August, 1914, there were about 7,000 millionaires In the United States, while at the time of the signing sign-ing of the armistice It was estimated the millionaire colony had increased by 23,000, making a total of 30.000 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 17, 1919. 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 con-cern that is carrying $15,000,000 worth of vegetable oils, which are in great demand, and the concern is holding them for higher prices. This is a distinct damage to the consumers, and keeps living prices in these things, used daily, at top and Increasing levels. lev-els. 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 exorbitant exorbi-tant prices. Business men have taken tak-en advantage of the situation, and justify jus-tify their larcenies on the ground of the law of supply and demand. A shoe 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 shoe manufacturers manufac-turers could 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 ask "Why isn't profiteering treason why shouldn't these Fagans be sent to the wall with a firing squad as an escort?" (Copyright, 1920. Western Newspaper Union) |