The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-04-14
he American people should

With these facts in mind, we turn to the extraordinary scenes. of Thursday in the Chicago wheat pit with something like exasperation. Here in the same city where short time ago women and children were clubbed when they rioted over the high price of food that made it unavailable to them. are wealthy speculators engaged in sending the staff of life still to greater heights to the end that. they may make millions and also and inevitably that hunger and want may become general. We turn in vain to discover the government in this crisis taking care of the United States first as it would ap- pear to be the obvious duty so to do. And we would expect that this gambling in food stuffs. which is stalking the bangs of hunger of one against the bangs of hunger of the other. should cease.
 IS food to be mobilized for the Entente nations as dispatches would appear to indicate. and America to be footed to that end? It may be held that the interests of the En- tente nations and the United States are now identical. and lest worse be- fall it is essential that the Entente armies and peoples be fed It may be urged that as they are also in directly aiding the United States in this war. The United States is in duty bound to see that lack of food does not render the nations fighting Germany Americas enemy, inef- fective
 That is not the point at all. If that were all that was at issue, the position of the administration would at least be not unreasonable to in- telligent persons. The point is that while there is an admitted insuffi- ciency to go around. the hap haz- gard system of distribution is al lowed and the thrice iniquitous system of speculation and gambling in food supplies is allowed to pro- ceed unhampered.
 If the food is short. the proven tion of waste is the prime essential and the prime essential towards the elimination of waste is the prohi- bition of private speculation ir wheat and corn and other food grains. To allow the present system less distribution. and the present 1 buying and selling and gambling il the staff of life is morally iniquitou. and socially fatal.
 Every writer who wrote with an, | insight at all as to the European war has pointed out that the indus trial efficiency and the industrial or ganization has been the prime factor I of success-as much and as i'm | portant a factor as the operation! on the battlefield. To supply thu army of workers with food is a pre- requisite to such efficiency, withou which it cannot exist. What strike! at the root of that efficiency is thi! gambling in food: this allowing i | to be the subject of sale and bartel , and speculation which results in pri vation. which ends in physical ineffi ciency and which benumbs industria organizat ton of any kind. That i
 common sense But those who ar, affected by this condition and ou of whose hunger and suffering ant privation millions are to be made
 have never been the object of gov
 ernmental attention. It is high tim
 that they were now. We have point
 ed out in other issues that govern
 ments of the nations under tn
 stress of war have been driven t,
 attend to the workers condition
 as never before. This war ha
 doomed property. private propert
 to a place of secondary cans'dera
 tion and life and labor of first con
 sideration. This war is being tough
 by lives and labor. and propert.
 has to be seized in al! the nat;an
 to conserve lives and to aid labor
 Only disaster can follow fa;IIr'
 to follow thus also in America. ant
 it is about time the Pit should go.