The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1917-06-05

Every patriotic citizen owes MS serN-
ices 20 his country in one form or an
other. His life. his fortune and, above
All his intelligence. We nave en-
barked in 4 great war. We are told IL
is TO denocratize the world. We nave
been a great democratic nation in most
everything but real action. Now we
should not let our enthusiasm get the
better of our intelligence. This war
is being carried on three or more thou
sand miles away. Distance lends en-
chantment to the view
We are going to feel IT right here
AZ home and feel it mighty hard. We
are feeling it now We know II "hen
We pay SIT for barrel of flour. 40 cents
for a pound of bacon. 81 for oushel
Of potatoes. s. for pair of shoes ana
other things in proportion. True our
nav envelopes are q little fatter, pu'
even at that we are much poorer tnan
yre were a few years ago with smaller
nav checks because our purchasing
mower has diminished more than 81 per
cent while our wage increase has not
reached half that.
So YOU see. while the country has
been getting richer, the average people
have been getting poorer. This Is not
a psychological fact, but cold hard
mathematical fact. The richness OF
this country has not been distributed.
We are not here to argue on that point.
We are going to face some facts.
This war is going to cost lot Of
money. Congress has already appropri-
ated seven billions of dollars You and
I cannot comprehend the vast sum- We
are more used to thinking in dollars
or hundreds of dollars. Those seven
billions of dollars have to be paid some
how by some one. There may be more
billions to pay. War prices have al
ready placed the average American in
a financial position where he cannot de-
Gently be asked to pay for the war.
was very conservative when I said
our purchasing power diminished more
than 81 per cent. Dun's index figures
show the increase between April l. 1914.
and April /. 1917:
Dairy and garden products .s4
Meat AZ
Clothing ------------------ AZ
FoodStuffs --------------lU9
Coal --Indetermfnate
The increase in wages and small in
comes has been insignificant in COM
parison. The index figures published
in the April Review of the U. s. Bureau
of Labor Statistics show that in the
large field of union labor there has
been a raise of only nine points from
1912 to 1915 inclusive. Index figures
for 1917 are not available. but suppose
we are real extravag CANT and double &c
for 1917 We have only 1s per cent.
Figures for non-union or common labor
are not available. but from my own
persona1 knowledge the increase has
been from twenty-five to fifty cents per
day. which would probably average 20
per cent Again we see when we stop
10 think and are not carried away by
Aowery speeches and bunk headliners
that we are getting poorer very fast
Actual mathematical facts are some
times hard to swallow. and II is pretty
hard to sugar-coat this pill.
our population is estimated at about
one hundred and ten millions of people
Professor King of the University Of
wisconsin states that per cent Of the
! people of the United States own IS per
cent of the total wealth
We now have men in Congress fran
ing a revenue OIL " pioQUNV fiOhNS "
/ finance this war. Those men voted to
conscript men to do the fighting. Now
it is UP to those men to vote 10 con
| script wealth to pay for that fighting
1T is not fair to ask the waEe-earner
to do the fghting and pay the bill be-
! sides. That is just what is going tc
4 happen If we don't watch out.
Remember in this democracy of ours
there are several things happening that
! don't spell Democracy with big ID.
| Only for the alertness of our press
| Congress would have slipped something
/ over that would have killed the WORD
4 and made it spell Autocracy.
] There is a powerful lobby at Wash
/ ington fighting taxation on special in
! terests. There are very few fighting
| the ordinary mans battle along thai
line 1t is true there are some men