Norwich bulletin., 1917-08-08
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Food Control or Hunger7


 AIr. Editor: Will we have food con- troI or hunger? There is a nation wide demand and urgent need that the government take over the food question to the end that unnecessary and inn proper hoarding of food, speculation and distribution at the will of the storage interests may be corrected and regulated.
 While the people want action, what are they doing in Washington? The need of getting something done has brought a multiplicity of committees, making confusion worse confounded- everybody looking for something for himself at the expense of the people Washington swar1ns with press agents the raiders of the grafters, the demands of the politicians, red tape, the evasion of authority, the shifting of responsi bility, playing safe, the grandstand play of some and the unbridled loQuaci- ty of others. The cliques and the ca bals, the caging contractors, the com mission brokers, the crafty middlemen, the patriots who do not want more not least, the gentlemen who are dying to serve their country in some per- fectly unexposed position.
 In enacting effective food control leg islation the attitude of congress was and is exactly as it always has been on any general question that threat eneG to prove disadvanta geous in some degree to any one particular section. Shortsiglted legislation, engineered by sectional legislators, who seem bent on linking the people a hook, and hitching them to the speculato tors loco- motive, to be crushed by it's well oiled machinery.
 Congress must realize that 1t is sup posed to work for the greatest good tor the greatest number. Few of them seem big enough to undertake the task. They are wasting days of price less time, and fasten a tax on all of us, that their own precious political future may go on unchecked.
 The spectators and congress have one hand on the peoples throat and up to the people to make them let loose. High sounding objections to placing the power in the person of the president is so much talk to switch at tention from the main purpose of cer- tain senators and congressman.
 How much sincerity is there when they must debate each issue time and again with the same old speeches and tlarney that sound well but don't mean thing?
 We learn that we are paying some. thing like s115,000.0oo month to the speculators who manipulate food prod ducts. The wheat pit went so far in excesses that it closed down of it's own accord in fear of public wrath. When they reach the point in their opera tions where they become afraid of themselves and suspend, it ie safe to ray there is something rotten in their camp. When the robber is afraid of | is loot and surrenders, there is no need to hunt for evidence of his guilt. This is the situation. and it hits us with force at this time. The dollar kept dwindling in peace times so that the wage worker could not keep up to it, and now the wage and it's pur- chasing power are so far apart 1t seems hopeless to attempt to bring them to- gether. We recognize the laws of sup ply and demand and their effects on prices generally, but we cannot agree that it is necessary to protect food speculators by saying that supply and demand alone have increased food prices. We know better.
 We need food control for two puf-. poses: To regulate prices and to i'm crease the surplus. After aproviding for our normal consumption we will have, together with Canada, a surplus equal to only 50 per cent. of the food the allies require from us. With broad measure of control we can fur nish an additional 20 per cent. If, however. the whole world. allied and neutral, is to have the unrestricted run of our markets in competition with each other and in cooperation with the speculator In this country. we may expect to see $5 wheat before the veal