The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-09-27
FROM OTHER PENS
PERnoUs COMBINATIONS.

There can be no difference of opinion
as to the baneful, the injurious nay,
they can be classed as criminal, effects
of ordinations formed to restrict the
supplies of food of the people of any
district, any nation or any continent.
The fact that these com bination are
clasSed as commercial or trade associ-
atoms gives them no license to pro-
duce their excessive profits at the cost
of our citizens, either collectively or in
dividualIy.
For more than a year past our peo-
pie have offered protest after protest
against the eXorbitant prices of living
in the land of plenty, but their pro-
tests as yet have produced no relaxa-
ton in prices for supplies of the staple
articles of their daily food.
1t has grown to be a menace to our
entire industrial situation, to our peace
and prosperity in the cities of our land
and to our ability to transact business
abroad in the outputs OF our manufac
lures.
That these combinations to exact IN
due profits do exist there is full evil
dence. and yet despite the activity of
state and national officials, no relief
from their eXactions had yet come to
the masses of the people.
Dear food makes dear production
and finally kills business that en-
ploys large numbers of people
Dear foods may exist under natural
conditions such as are found in unpro-
ductive, isolated districts, as mining
camps, pioneer stations or in countries
swept by violent disease where in
habttants are unable to obtain sup
plies.
That the people of the United States,
in the very midst of the harvests, in
the very center of the most productive
region of the globe amply furnished
ixx-it6 4T-ar n facilities
pestilence, full of energy and vigor, are
held up daily by trade combinations,
forcing them to pay unprecedented
prices for the products of the land
they live in. is almost past belief.
Yet that this is the case the house
hold bills of every family in the cities
of the Union give full and direct testi-
mony.
1t is high time, full time, that the
food supplies of our people be freed
from the control of these combina-
nations, which are paralyzing the in
duStrial population of the country and
threatening the peace and prosperity
of all classes through their avariciouS
xactions.-Cincinnati Enquirer.
EXPERIMENT ON CONVICTS.
A knotty ethical question is raised by
the efforts of Indiana health officers to
secure a pardon for any life prisoner
| consenting to be made the subject of
human beings are liable to infection
from the milk or flesh of tuberculous
cows. Can a crime against society
/ punishable by life Imprisonment be
condoned by a service to the public
| health? And can society justif1ably ex-
! pose even a criminal not doomed to ex-
| termination to the risk of death in the
| interest of medical science?
Apart from ethical considerations the
point of interest is the offer of a bride
| for service which in an ideal state OF
| civilization should be voluntarily per-
formed without hope of Interior re-
ward Some day there may exist a
! peace soldiery enlisted for service OF
| the kind and ready at any time to
! furnish volunteers to establish a medi-
cal theory for the public benefit.
| There is as much glory in wal
| against crime and disease as in one
| for conquest, and there is a. higher
| courage in risking death for the ad-
vancement of science than in military
valor No doubt the material for such
body exists DR.. Wiley's poison
| squads showed the drift. and a real
| service of this nature was performed
by United States soldiers in the war on
yellow fever. In the more or less re-
mote future it should not be necessary
to bride convicts with a pardon to un-
dergo infection for the benefit of hui
lrnanity.-New York World.