The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-06-09

human being in the United States ample and secure accommodation against any sort of the elements that may drive to shelter. American labor applied to the coal and me- talliferous mines, to the arts ana the industries is more than doubly ample to supply American people with everything from their greatest to their smallest need, in a quan- tity far in excess of the individual needs of any one Of them.
 These are easily demonstratable truths. They are facts as easily as- certainable as it can be ascertained when will be the next new moon or when the sun will rise of the mor- rom. They can be shown by fact and figure to be mathematical as we'll as industrial certainties. There is not an element of doubt or perad- venture about them. Government figures and commercial statistics can be referred to in ample proc: of their correctness and the figures reduced to decimal parts.
 Now as against this we are con- fronted with another fact and that is that side by side with supe,- sufficency of food we have chronic starvation Side by side with an actual excess of textile fabrics pro- duction we have iIl-clad millions. Side by side with this a condition ol housing that rouses the city wrath throughout many popular centers, we have fine houses to rent and many more not to rent which are vacated by the owners who have more houses as they have moro servants than they know what to do with.
 Against and over all of this we have high prices going higher all the time, with every little preteXt seized upon to gouge up the prices another fraction or another whole number and to keep them there long after the preteXt that put them there is forgotten.
 Isn't all that much more seri- ous question than preparedness against a bunch of bankrupt na- tons that now are jumping side ways to maintain enough credit to buy @ stand of arms? Isn't it much more important whatever way you look at it to have an American nation well fed, highly leisured, comfortably and seasonably clothed and well sheltered, than to begin speculating upon what will happen when the war is over and the thrice bankrupt nations of Europe are bandaging up their wounds ana cursing the God of War as they cursed. that divinity never before.
 The war sentiment has died out of every country in Europe. Every nation in Europe is now in the heartbreaking condition when en- thusiasm is over The red lust of conquest has left every eye and in- stead there is the droop of grief or the horror that fingers after Hell's terrors have been witnessed. There is no nation now but thinks Of say ing from the wreck of the cata- hot hn orable peace. And it is this bunch of battered derelicts of civilization that the people of this country arc scared into a war madness to pre- pare against: the echo of the craze that has died out in Europe year ago.
 It does not mean a trifiing mat ter that to the feeding and cloth ing and sheltering of the people Of the country the attention of the nation should be directed. It :s upon the health of the people today that the future status of coming generations depends. It is upon the degree of leisure and education that the masses enjoy that the de gree of American civilization must be judged and will be gauged.
 High prices in themselves are not so important. They can be met under ordinary circumstances by the wages being increased to cover the higher cost of living. That is surely obvious. But It Is not an unimportant commentary on the system that many who work hard est tn nroducA in nleufY WhAra