The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-02-23
HIGH PRICES.


 Lamp were to exert the power of it's genii and obtain enormous wealth in gold coin, transferring 1t to Nome with his own precious personai't%--- if furthermore Aladdin in the los- session of such fabulous riches were ;o Ceposit the same in one or both Cf the local banks--if ha:ins done this he woud thereupOn sally forth to the various storek@cper5 hdylnS up without regard 70 production costs, wholesale prices or anytCinS else, the various commodities which the commercial men of Nome had to Offer-where do you suppose the Nome Toms and Dicks and Harrys would with their wives and families get off at? Tn the first place the storekeepers being men trained to business and knowing that he o1 the Wonderful Lamp was willing to pay all that they asked for thelr stock would sweep it's price out ot sight. and the money that Tom and Dick and Harry held in their jeans would have its purchasing power reduced to terms of the untold wealth of Aladdin: as much and no more.
 It is a hypothetical case but it reveals what is precisely taking place in the United States today, The belligerent nations of Europe want food. want clothing, want shoes. want machinery, want raw material Most of their own pro ductigc workers are engaged hlHhS up each unforgiving minute in kill ing one another off as Tast as they noesihlv can with the aid of science, pravers and human ingenuity. They have gold. They have it in supply that is practically unlimited and they come to the United states 10 buy. much as our friend AlaadlE uf the wonderful Lamp in the ny rotbetiral case We have cited, might come to Nome, They buy evrythlhg in sight. They contract for the out mt of the canneres, for the entire stocks of the commission men, TOT the products of entire acreages. And the American people have to plt their monies against the monies ol the belligerent nations. The demand is intensified beyond any such thlhg as the normal, and the supply mas moi increased at all, while II mas III ,ona eases decreased percepuDly. In such a condition what could nap nen does happen. Storekeepers ana proyision dealers and manufacturers and cannerv men and commission agents and grain brokers are not Ill business for their health. The goio .supply that the belligereht hatlohS ,,o,,o on hand is tasked to its utter most for their profits and prices go up-they go up so that they pear m relation in the least to the cost of production, to the actual iaooi yalues of the commodities to 'h' first costs, but direct relalioh u the reproductive capacity of the ha- tion and the unusually proiih' spending capacity of the peliser' ents.
 After two years of war alter l"' ,.aare of the most prolific squander inq of the hoarded wealth of the ha tions in the history of the Wolio after two years of constant noo' of gold streaming into the uhl'e' States from countries wantlhe buy up everything in sight ana ash ing nothing about prices, the lhe'l' able has happened. The norma condition of prices has been super seded by an entirely unnaturai con dition and the necessaries or llle well as the unnecessaries have soh away out of sight.
 To be sure here and there spec ,lator or a dealer has aggravate this condition by their undue a'ai ice and covetousness. But on tn whole these cases are negilgiple'
 The condition which we face to day is not that the consumer IS ro' he'd but that the producer IS ut trauded-as usual and as aiway' There would have been no suc crisis reached today had the pro ducers, the workers, received thel proper and proportionate increase their share, relative to the increase