Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1916-11-05


Akiko Yosano, whose success as a poet
and a reformer has led some to call
Eer a poetic Mrs. Pankhurst.
Writing in one of the national maya
zines of japan, Mrs. Yosano says:
ITO those who are eating the bread
of idleness, relying upon the interest
of their money, the advance of prices
is a blessing, for they are hoping for
the continuation of the war as long as
possible. These upper and middle
class people do not care fig if mill
lions of Europeans should perish and
billions of the third class people all
the world over should starve in body
and spirit, so long as they can wax
rich and thereby increase the wealth
of the country, as they say This is
their true state of mind This is the
kind of international and commercial
morality actually entertained today by
those upper and middle class nationals
of this benevolent and chiyaITpus
country, who are supposed to be the
guardian deities of the principles of
Bushido.
In short" wrote Mrs. Yosano,
those on whom the heaviest burden
falls as a result of the advanced prices
are our third class people who are
earning their bread with their brains
or with the sweat of their brows. These
are the people who scorn the con-
temptible psychology of thieves, usur-
ers, spectators and those who expect
wlndfalls, and strive with their own
hands or brains to ensure their own
living and advancement We never
hope for luxury. What we want is
only the means sufficient to enable us
to live and progress to educate our
children and to buy medicine in case
of illness. But even in ordinary peace
time We find it difficult to get these
requisites, and now in this war time
we find our labor can scarcely keep
pace with the rapid advance of prices
There is a limit to our capacity for
work; and though our pay has risen
by ten or twenty per cent, it is far
from meeting the emergency of those
NJ Nuio NH pIN vsc \
and 100 per cent"
The writer remarked that many
good and respectable persons had been
kind enough to recommend what they
called the simple life" as a remedy
for the existing situation These peo-
pie are crying: Economic and save"
but it was not easy to follow that adj
vice. She declared that the tendency
to luxurious life was one of the mark
ed traits of modern Japan and feared
that it was spreading throughout all
classes, each person catching the in
lection from his fellows. She added
But among the people for whom I
speak, luxury is out of the qcestion,
we never think of it these days, and
do not think we can make our life
more simple than it is. We are fight
ing with difficulty to buy the essentials
OF life. If simpler life than this is
wanted, we must seek it in the grave"
She goes on to seize an illustration
from her own existence. "As | am
writing tonight" she said, my hus,
band and one of our children as we'll
as myself are troubled with a cold
and some fever. know very we'll that
the doctors powder and water are
quite powerless to subdue the fever,
and l should like to use for us all the
aspirin which We bought before the
war at 30 sen Us cents) per ounce;
but it now costs 3 yen 70 sen ($1.85)
per ounce-the price for my elder
boys. boots And as for my boys boots
they have risen so per cent.
Our simple life is gradually becom-
ing more and more simple till az
length we are almost at TIE extreme
end of 1.-THE actual want of nourish-
ment. Can you find for us, women of
the third class homes, a simpler life
than this?
Mrs. Yosano has sought the causes
CT this condition and she believes she
has located one of them in the retail
system of ceiling necessities in vogue
III japan. The retailers who supplied
the necessaries of life, namely, rice
dealers, grocers, fish mongers, meat
sellers, druggists, green-grocers, drap-
ers, confectioners, stationers and 9th
ers, and did not sell the consumer the
good straight from places of produc-
ton or manufacture. On the contrary
most of them represented the penulti-
mate stage of the long, devious transit
ton process their wares undergo be-
tween the place of production and the