The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1909-12-29
High Cost Of Living Has Been
Caused by the Trusts Says Pinchot


made repeated attacks on the United
States forest service and these attacks
have increased In violence just in pro-
portion as the service has offered eff
sectlye opposition to predatory wealth.
has aroused the keenest interest all
over the country. Mr.. Pinchot took as
his subject for his speech at the Peo-
pies Forum, Conservation and Equal
Opportunity Mr.. Pinchot said:
THE American people have evidently
made up their minds that our natural
resources must be conserved. That is
good, but it settles only half the ques-
ton. For whose benefit shall they be
conservation the benefit of the many
or for the use and profit of the few?
The great conflict now being fought
will decide. There is no other question
before us that begins to be so import
an, or that will be difficult to straddle,
as the great question between special
interest and equal opportunity, between
the privileges Of the few and the rights
Of the many, between government by
men for human welfare and govern
ment by money for profit, between the
men who stand for the Roosevelt poll
cies and the men who stand aaginst
Them This is the heart Of the con-
servation problem today.
1.-THE conservation issue is moral
issue. When few men get possession
of one of the necessaries of life, either
through ownership of a natural re-
source or through unfair business
methods, and use that control to ex-
tort undue profits, as in the recent
cases of the sugar trust and the beef
packers they injure the average man
without good reason, and they are
guilty of a moral wrong.
ut does not matter whether the I'M
due profit comes through sitting COM
petition by rebates or other crooked
devices, through corruption of public
officials or through Selling and mon
opolizing resources which belong to the
people. The result is always the same
"a toll levied on the cost of living
through special privilege.
Average income Under $500.
"The income of the average family
in the United States is less than $500
a year. To increase the cost of living
to such a family beyond the reasonable
profits of legitimate business is wrong.
1t is not merely question of few
cents more a day for the necessities of
life, or of few cents less a day for
wages. Far more is at stake-the
health or sickness of little babies, the
education or ignorance of children, vir-
tue or vice in young daughters. honesty
or criminality in young sons, the work
ing power of bread winners, the in
tegrity Of families, the provision for
old age-in a word, the welfare and
happiness or the misery and degrade
ton of the plain people are involved in
the cost of living.
"To the special interest an unjust
rise in the cost of living means simply
higher profit, but to those who pay it,
that profit is measured in schooling,
warm clothing, a reserve to meet all
emergencies and fair chance to make
the fight for comfort, decency and for
right living.
81 believe in our form of government,
and / believe in the Golden Rule. But
we must face the truth that monopoly
Of the sources of production makes it
impossible for vast numbers of men and
women to earn a fair living.
Right here the conservation ques-
ton touches the daily life Of the great
Body of our people, who pay the cost
Of special privilege. And the price is
heavy That price may be the chance
TO save the boys from the saloons and
the corner gang, and the girls from
worse, and TO make good citizens of
hem instead of bad; for an appalling
proportion of the tragedies of life
spring directly from the lack of a lit
A. rFsl- a.
Of the poor fall into the hands of the
white slave traders because their pow
srty leaves them without protection.
Thousands of families, as the
Pittsburg survey has shown us, lead
lives of brutalizing overwork in return
for the barest living. 1t is fair that
these thousands of families should have
less than they need in order that few
families should have swollen fortunes
at their expense? Let him who dares
deny that there is weakness in grind
ing the faces of the poor, or assert that
these are not moral questions which
strike the very homes Of our people. If
these are not moral questions, there
are no moral questions.
1.-THE people Of this country have lost
vastly more than they can ever regain
by gifts of public property. forever and
without charge, to men who gave moth
ing in return. 1t is true that we have
made superb material progress under
this system. but Ii is not well for us
to rejoice too freely in the slices the
special interests have given us from
the great loaf Of the property of all the
people.
Victims of Grab System.
"The people of the United States
have been the complacent victims of
a system OF grab, often perpetrated by
men who would have been surprised
beyond measure to be accused of
wrongdoing, and many of them of
whom in their private lives were very
model citizens. But they have suffer-
ed from a curious moral perversion by
which 1t becomes praiseworthy TO do
for corporation things which they
would refuse with the loftiest scorn
to do for themselves. Fortunately for
us all that delusion is passing rapidly
away.
president Hadley well said that the
fundamental division of powers in the
constitution of the United States Is be-
tween voters on the one hand and
property owners on the other When
property gets possession of the voting
power also, little Is left for the peo-
pie That is why the unholy alliance
between business and politics is the