Arizona republican., 1917-08-11

impossible and wi!l stabilize prices Indulgence in profiteering in this hour Of national danger is far from the wish or the will of the vast majority of our business people and I am con- vinced that while we must have ready in reserve the corrective powers given us, we shall by these powers free the great majority from necessity to con- pete with operators whose sole effort is to inflate prices and bring into dis repute the majority of honest traders. We propose to proceed as rapidly as possible with constructive regulation in various commodities and to an nounce each program as quickly as it is properly formulated. We hope with in the next few days to announce the h "d of wheat and flour control.
 "The deep obligation is upon us to feeu lhe armies and the peoples asso- ciated with us in this sJrugg e. The diversion of 40,000,000 of their men to war or war work; the additional mill lions of women drafted to the places Cf their husbands and brothers, the toll of the submarine, have all con- spired to so reduce production that their harvests this autumn will fall 500 900 900 bushels of grain below their normal production. Always dependent upon import from other countries for a substantial part of their food goods our western European allies, because of the destruction of shipping by sub marines and the isolation from the normal markets by belligereat lines, are forced to a large degree upon our markets, not only as tne nearest but as the ony market capable of relieving their bitter necessity.
 tod Io fore the war but S00O0000 bushels of wheat per annum, this year, by one means or another, we must find Tor them 225,000,000 bushels, and this in the face of a short crop. Our best will but partly meet their needs, for even they must reduce their bread consumption 25 per cent, and it will be war bread they must eat-war bread of which a large portion consists of other cereals.
 Already the greater cal for meat and animal products, due to the stress of war on the millions of men in the fighting line and the enhanced physical labor of populations ordinarily sub sisting on lighter diets, coupled with the inadequate world supply, have compelled our allies to kill upwards Of 8, ,060, ,000 head of their stock animals.
 HIS IS llit Cetilult ct Doli ends, for they are thus stifling their annual production. Therefore not only must we increase their supplies of meat as war goes on to meet an even greater demand for these necessary com mOdities.
 France and Italy formerly produced their own sugar, while England -and Ireland imported largely from Ger many. Owing to the inability of the first named to produce more than one third of their needs and the necessity for the others to import from other markets they all must come to the West Indies for very large supplies and therefore deplete our own resources.
 Because Of the shortage of shipping only the most concentrated of foods, wheat grain, beef, pork and dairy products and sugar can be sent across the seas. Fortunately we have for our own use a superabundance of food stuffs of other kinds-the perishables fish, corn and other cereais-and surely our first manifest duty is to substitute these for those other products which are of greater use to our fellow fighters.
 Our second duty is to eliminate wastes to the last degree Seventy per cent of our people are well known to be as thrifty and careful as any in the , world and they consume but little or no more than is necessary to maintain their physical strength They can, however, substitute foods as above It is not too much to ask the other thirty per cent, by simpler living, to reduce their consumption. The substitutions we ask impose no hardships and the elimination of waste is today no more than a patriotic service.
 Every ounce of waste is a contrlpu- tion toward starvation. Our allies have reduced consumption by the most drastic measures, but it is impossible to reduce consumption to tbsse in war work and engaged in other physical labor
 | Therefore the incidence of this dras- tic reduction among our allies falls upon the old people and the women and children, and any shortage in the SUD- plies we may send them will fall upon 1 this class and this class only, for until ! they are reduced to starvation they 1 themselves will insist on every sacrl- i flee in order that their fighters in the | the munition factories may be main- 1 tained
 1 This war is a struggle to assure the dominance of democracy. Every flag l that flies against the central powers is by proxy the American flag. Every