New Britain herald., 1916-12-12
COMMUNICATED.
10, THE MUNITION WORkER.
An Economist Attributes to Him the Prime Cause of the High Cost
 of Living.
New Britain, Dec. il, i

New Britain, Dec. Il, 1916 To the Editor of the Herald:
 The wealth of any nation is deter mined according to production. With an enormous production and an equally enormous demand the people of that nation need have no fear of being fed and enjoying everything in plenty
 The same condition applies to the United States, but instead of having plenty, we have little, the prices of different comm odities are abnormal Why is this you ask? Times are pros porous Of course they are prosper ous. We never had so much business Then why this high cost? Listen! Everybody realizes that we have spectators who are making large profits. Of course they are, they al- ways have, and there is no more use for the people to accuse them than if it had been a hundred years ago.
 Look to yourself and around you and you will find the reasons for ex- orbitant prices. The munition work CTS are almost wholly responsible for conditions as they are.
 The market of this country was fine until they started to make munitions, We had all the steel, copper, iron, etc. ,\ that We could use but now you can hardly find any of it. Where has it gone? Well, there is one thing clear and that is this It has not gone to ! our benefit, as it should, for did we not produce it. No, it has been used to tear down society in Europe, and also to kill many a man.
 That is why we should call a mu- l nltlon worker a parasite because in- 1 stead of using his energy to supply | the needs of society, he takes the production of this country and uses it | to destroy 1t.
 Now, do you realize why the prices are so high? Yes, but you say it is no reason why the price of food is so high. Now, then, according to what has been shown you above. the mu- milton worker is not a producer, but he is an enemy to society, and for being that he draws a wage much | larger than what his fellow workers | all over the world are getting, they who are the real producers.
 What does he do with his wage Why he goes out and buys from the market anything he needs. Think of the irony of it. Goes out and buys something that someone else has pro- | duCed.
 The result is that he is a constant l buyer on the market and all of the | producers have to feed and clothe | him. You cant satisfy him. because there are too many like him. The upshot of it all is that we are working full time and enjoying prosperity as 1 it were; we are filling the mark l but just as fast as we fill them, they | are bought out, not alone by ourselves | we who do the producing, but by those parasites who are not worth anything at all to us. Therefore they are the creators of high prices, because of | their demands on society for susten- ance, not only in clothing and food, l but also in all comm odities relative to the manufacturing of munitions
 Instead of receiving value for their work of destruction, they should dig down into their own pockets and pay Us for the right to work.
 But the day is coming when all such manufacturing shall end, then will the ! parasites be thrown upon their own 1 resources and come begging from l society It would be a whole lot better if thcv all starved to death than to : bear upon their name the stigma that they helped kill many man.
 This is only one of the causes for abnormal conditions, but think you will find it is one of the greater ones, so please don't go around the streets tearing your hear and calling all sorts