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Show MISERY BROUGHT ON BY THE WAR In tho last issue of Literary Digest is an article from Die Gleichhelt. a woman's paper published in Stuttgart, Stutt-gart, disclosing conditions in industrial indus-trial Germany from which the following fol-lowing is reproduced: "Like a child's soap-bubble which bursts at a touch, so ha6 the legend been dissipated that the war would be a short 'military promenade' to Paris and Petrograd We know that we are in the midst of a world-war which will last a very long time, a.nd we must face the fact that Germany for many mohtba to come will remain re-main cut off from commercial intercourse inter-course with other nations, and will be compelled to feed her own people from her own reserves. "Therefore we women must be as economical aa possible and must husband hus-band all existing resources. More than that, we must see to It that these resources are equitably and widely distributed. It does not. benefit the farm-laborer or the small official to tell hlro cheerfully that the harvest of corn and potatoes is said to have been large enough to feed the Empire until next summer If the price he has to pay for hla meals continues to rise to breaking-point The war has robbed many families of their chief support: it has shaken the economic fabric of the nation to its foundations. and has brought unemployment and I low and uncertain earnings to many. Million of women, children, aged par-enta, par-enta, and people in weak health must henceforth rely for their means of existence upon the pittances they receive re-ceive from public funds and charity. "The cattle are fed the poor man can not buy food. "Millions are In want; millions more trembling before the menace of greater hardships still to come. In the hour of the greatest danger speculator specu-lator are profiting by the wretchedness wretched-ness of the poor. "These facta are officially confirmed con-firmed by the efforts of municipalities and tome military authorities to regulate regu-late price that la, to fix maximum prices for the staple articles of food. At laat, too, after representations from newspapers, corporations, trade unions, and so forth, the imperial gov-ernneot gov-ernneot has taken similar atepe and "" ' '' w 1 has issued regulations to fix a maximum maxi-mum price of bread " nd we must, of course, accept this. Better something and late than 'nothing never.' Everybody agrees that the goernment measure comes limping far enough behind the rise of prices The delay has brought about untold suffering. The famine prices of today are now becoming normal prices, and as such are quoted today In Berlin " The Berlin Vorwarts. referring to economic conditions, declares: "Business in many towns is com-pletely com-pletely closed down. A small part of the men thrown out of work are leading lead-ing a miserable life, with paltry wages, at emergency jobs. The remaining re-maining thousands and ten thousands have nothing but the trifling support sup-port of their trade unions, which is hardly enough to stay the hunger of their children with dry bread." Xo American, after reading the foregoing, can commit himself to war, unless it be a war of self-preservation. All the horrors of the conflict are not enacted on the battlefield, but millions of Innocent women and children are made to suffer mentally and physically. |
