New Britain herald., 1917-07-12
PRICES TO BE FIXED ON
 ALL WAR COMMODITIES

He will give freely and with as un- stinted self-sacrifice as they. When they are giving their lives will he rot give at least his money? 1T hear it insisted that more than just price, more than a price that will sustain our industries, must be paid; that it is necessary to pay very liberal and unusual profits in order to stimulate production; that nothing but pecuniary rewards will do-re- wards paid in money, not in the mere liberation of the world. ! T take it for granted that those who argue thus do not stop to think what that means. Do they mean that you must be paid, must be bribed, to make your contribution, contribution that costs you neither drop of blood nor tear, when the whole world is in travail and men everywhere depend upon and call to 1 you to bring them out of bondage and
 make the world a fit place to live in 1 again amidst peace and justice? Do 1 they mean that you will exact a price, 1 drive a bargain with the men who 1 are enduring the agony of this war i on the battlefield, in the trenches, amidst the lurking dangers of the sea, or with the bereaved women
 and pitifu1 children, before you will
 come forward to do your duty and 1 give some part of your life, in easy ] peaceful fashion, for the things we
 are fighting for, the things we have
 pledged our fortunes, our lives our
 sacred honor, to vindicate and de-
 fend-hberty and justice and fair ] dealing and the peace of nations?
 "Of course you will not It is in conceivable. Your patriotism is of
 the same self-denying stuff as the
 patriotism of the men dead or
 maimed on the fields of France or else 1 it is no patriotism at al Let us
 never speak, then, of profits and of | patriotism in the same sentence, but i face facts and meet them. Let us do sound business, but not in the 1 midst of mist. Many grievous 1 burden of taxation will be laid on
 this nation, in this generation and in
 the next, to pay for this war. Let us
 see to it that for every dollar that is
 taken from the peoples pockets it
 shall be possible to obtain a dollars l worth of the sound stuffs they need. l Let me turn for a moment to the 1 ship owners of the United States and 1 the other ocean carriers whose eX- l ample they have followed and ask l them if they realize what obstacles l what almost insuperable obstacles, 1 they have been putting in the way of 1 the successful prosecution of this
 war by the ocean freight rates they 1 have been exacting. They are doing l everything that high freight charges l can do to make the war a failure, 1 to make it impossible. I do not say
 that they realize this or intend it. ] The thing has happened naturally ] enough, because the commercial l processes which we are content to
 see operate in ordinary times have,
 without sufficient thoueh+
 i tinued into a period where they have
 no proper place. I am not question:
 ing motives. I am merely stating a 1 fact, and stating it in order that at- l tention may be fixed upon it.
 l The fact is that those who have
 fixed war freight rates have taken the most effective means in their 1 power to defeat the armies engaged l against Germany When they realize
 this, we may-I take it for granted- ] count upon them to reconsider the
 whole matter. It is high time. Their
 extra hazards are covered by war | risk insurance.
 Slackers to Get Just Deserts.
 II know. and you know. what re- ! sponse to this great challenge of duty
 and Of opportunity the nation will ex- l pect of you; and I know what re- ] spOnse you will make. Those who do
 not respond. who do not respond in
 the spirit of those who have gone to
 give their lives for us on bloody fields
 far away, may be left to be dealt with
 by opinion and the law-for the law ] must, of course, command these ] things. I am dealing with the matter l thus publicly and frankly, not because
 ] have any doubt or fear as to the l result, but only in order that in all
 our thinking and in all our dealings | with one another we may move in .
 perfectly clear ;l" of mutual under
 standing.
 And there is something more that
 we must add to our thinking. The ) public is now as much part of the { Government as are the army and
 navy themselves; the whole people in
 all their activities are now mobilized
 and in service for the plishment
 of the nations task in this war; it is
 in such circum stances impossible
 justly to distinguish between industri-
 al purchases made by the Government
 ahu HluuSlildl pufcldSeS l1aue Dy tHo
 managers of individual industries;
 and it is just as much our duty to
 sustain the industries of the country,
 all the industries that contribute to it's life, as it is to sustain our forces
 in the field and on the sea. We must
 make the prices to the public the
 same a. the prices to the Government.
 Prices mean the same thing every
 where now. They mean the efficiency
 or the inefficiency of the nation, l whether it is the Government that
 pays them or not. They mean victory