Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-01-09

Ever since the father of us all was
condemned to eat his bread In the
sweat of his face. the most vital prob
lem of all ages and of the vast major
ity of men has been that of the cost
Of living. For thousands upon thou
sands of years it was an individual
problem, but now that the genius of
the inventor has made brothers or all
men il has become a community prob
lem. For the first time since there
was a recognized civilized world the
attention of all that world is focused
on the same thing at the same time.
The time is the present and the thing
is the higher cost of living.
In the United States and in all other
civilized countries the wisest and most
learned men are engaged in earnest
efforts to discover the cause, as well
as to measure the effect of this
gradual but steady increase in the cost
Of things that men must buy to live.
That the scores of official and scien-
tific Investigations have not solved the
problem conclusively is disclosed by
the fact that with all the light they
have thrown upon the subject there
seems TO be as wide a division of Opfn-
ion as ever before. both as to the cause
and the effect of high prices. For in
stance. there are some who say that
the increased cost of living falls un-
equally upon the people. The average
wage Garner realizes that he has en-
Joyed an increase i'm his yearly wages,
and yet he asserts that his days work
does not buy as much In 1912 as it
bought in 1900. The salaried man de-
clarcs that his salary has all but stood
still during the past decade. while the
prices of the things he buys have in
creased greatly.
i ):
There is a wide difference of opinion
as to the cause of the increased cost
Of living. None
Output OF Gold tary experts de-
Blamed by Some. nIanation lie
in the increased production of gold.
They assert that the law of supply
and demand affects the market price of
gold much as it does the market
price of sugar and beef. One banker
declares that the explanation of the
increased cost of living is that food
and clothing and other things COM
prised in the average family budget
are not higher. but that dollars are
simply lower. He declares that If gold
were as plentiful as coal, a pound of
1T would buy no more than pound of
coal. although it would pay off as
many debts as now. He considers gold
as the yard stick of finance, and says
1T is simply case of u shorter yard
stick This view is Endorsed by Prof.
Irving Fisher and Prof j. Peas Nor
ton. two of the leading political econo-
mists of the country. Prof. Norton ad-
vocateS a new standard of value to be
called the dill The value of the
dill shall be equal to the purchasing
power of one gold dollar. covering
specific quantities of certain staple
commodities. He would have Congress
create "a board on the dill standard"
This board would fix the standard at
certain recurring periods, say five
years apart. In this way Prof Nor
ton would overcome the fiuctuation In
prices arising from the increased pro.
duction of gold.
Others attribute the increased prices in
this country to the influence of the
tariff They insist that the tariff is
levied Tor the purpose of making the
American citizen ray more for his prod
ucts than he otherwise would have to
pay: that the entire theory of protection
is based upon the principle of preventing
foreign goods from coming into the
American markets and underselling
goods produced at home. This conten-
ton IS answered by the friends of pro-
lection with the statement that the cost
OF living has increased in other countries
as well as in the United States They
say that even in free-trade England the
cost of living has kept pace with other
countries.
Still others insist that the problem is
not one Of higher cost of living but of
cost of