New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-26
The Main Thing
Is Maximum Output

The Main Thing
Is Maximum Output
+ We need all the food and iron
and steel and other supplies which
it il possible to produce. If we
could import now a million or two
million raw workers from India or
China or elsewhere to meet the def
cit created by the stoppage Of i'm
migration we might perhaps def
nitely look to a triumph of our arms
within twelve months. But the
spirit Of Denis Kearney and the
Sand Lots agitators still rules in
the United States and in the Amer
lean Congress; and any such
straightforward sanity as this
would be impossible.
If the authorities at Washington
lad the foresight and courage to
guarantee 81 wheat and $3.50 corn
and $50 for ship plates and $40 for
steel rails and % cents for copper
for the nert three years, it is con-
ceivaDle that this might be suffi-
cient considerably to stimulate and
increase production, though it is
probable that these prices are, in
general, too low to achieve this re-
suit.
Consider what we purpose to do.
Within the next twelve months the
government will take from the chan
nels of business ten billion dollars
or more, and put this back into GER
tain specified lines of industry.
That is to say, it will create forced
draft in certain lines, as, for ex-
ample, the production of army uni
forms, army boots and shoes, army
supplies of every kind. All these
r!ust necessarily be at prices
which will get the goods" Our
armies must be fed, clothed and sup
piled, and, it may be added, highly
pampered as well, just as practi-
cally every army in history has
been. If they were not, war would
be unpopular.
The government at Washington
proposes to meet this situation by
6iscomuging production. True, this
is not what Mr.. McAdoo and Mr..
Daniels and Mr.. Baker and the rest
Of the price fixers think they are
going to do. But that is what they
will discover in six months or year
that they actually have done. For
there is only one way to speed up
production, and that is to raise
prices so that more people will
work, at longer hours and more
days, to produce what is needed.
A price fixing programme, at suf-
ficiently high levels, and guaranteed
for three years, might meet with
success, if intelligently and cour-
ageously carried out. But the prac-
teal fact probably is that the vot-
ers Of the country would not stand
for it. SO, as it is, we are creating
all the conditions for a further in
tensive forcing Of many lines of
business; an inevitable initiation to
the limits of our banking resources;
an inevitable further rise in the
cost of living, and hence in the
wages of labor; and at the same
time we are trying TO put an iron
hand on the throat of the men with
the money and the brains to do the
one thing that will make it posi-
bic for America to win this war.
That is: INCREASE PRODUC-
TON.
A war cannot be fought on low
prices, for the most obvious reason:
You cannot have the tremendous
borrowing and buying which mod
ern war involves, and, at the same
time, withdraw a million or more
picked workers from industry, and
rot have high wages, dear food and
dear capital. If a reasonable"
prise is set on one commodity, as
steel or copper or wheat, imme-
diately capital and enterprise will
seek fields where prices are not
fixed and profits are greater. And
Immediately iron and copper and
wheat production will be checked.
Can we afford this, now?