Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-07-13
Non for Action!


Now that the prohibition issue in the Food
Control bill has been settled, that all important
should be pressed to the speediest possible
enactment. 1t has been debated fully and fairly
and from every conceivable angle of public and pri
vate interest Further talk would be idle parley-
ing. The moment for action has come. and action
there must be if the country is to be saved from
distress and disaster
Not until we are protected at this vital point
can we go forward efficiently and assuredly with
any of the tremendous tasks of the war. We
cannot feed our own armits and our own people,
much less aid in provisioning the Allies, II our
supply of food and other necessaries is in the
clutch of reasonable spectators. What VIII IL
avail to build a great merchant fleet Tor trans
atlantic service if cannot obtain at reasonable
prices the cargoes to fill them? What will 1t avail
tn send a million or more men to the front, If we
are unable to feed them? What will all the
splendid preparation the Government is now max
ing and all the workmanly patriotism the coun-
try is manifesting be worth, If thousands Oh our
people are reduced to suffering and starvation?
Congress should face the fact that powerful
and sinister forces are seeking to gain control OF
the country's food supply; and may we'll be-
Ieve from what we know of Prussian methods,
that amongst those forces are men and agencies
that have their orders straight from Berlin. Ger
tainly the German Government knows that IL IL
can keep us from solving the food problem IL can
keep us from winning the war and there is no
Mot too desperate for the German Government TO
undertake.
Wholly aside, however, from the question OF
German intrigue and military necessities it is OBJ
vious that the American people cannot bear tnelr
RESPONSIBILITIES in the war they should, If they
Of a month
gamblers and monopolists. Mr.. Herbert Hoover
smoke conservatively when he recently told the
Senate that in -four alone spectators, by arDl-
trarily advancing prices, have taken fifty million
dollars a month from the public for five months
or longer. What an injustice, what an outrage
what a crime it is that wolfsh pack or wheat
SPECTATORS should be allowed to add to the cost
of living at the rate of more than half billion
dollars year, while thousands of families strug-
gle against ever increasing odds to get daily
bread And the millions that are mulcted in the
arbitrary advances -four are but one item in the
mountains of extortion which have been piled
upon this country.
If any member of Congress fancies that the
people do not understand this issue and do not
appreciate the need of food control legislation he
is soreIy mistaken. The pSople understand 1t be-
cause it is relentless and wellnigh crushing prob
lem in their daily lives. They know nothing and
care nothing about the Constitutional TECHNICAL
ties of the queston-whether statesmen dead and
gone over a hundred years ago would have ap-
proved this measure for their particular time.
But the people know that they are being made the
victims of ruthless system of specu-
lation and monopoly. They know that crisis
overhangs their nation--the gravest crisis in the
history of the world-and that it cannot be mas
tered If reasonable interests are to control the
necessaries of life and of effective warfare.
Therefore, they demand that the Government,
representing the interests of all Americans take
charge of this perlous situation and see to it that
the common rights and the national security are
safeguarded during the period of the war. There
must be fair and reasonable food control by the
Government, or there will be despotc food control
by the speculators-and that will be equivalent to
control by the Kaiser. This is the choice before
the country; it is the choice now demanding an
answer from Congress