The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-04-14
THE PIT.

days is still the staff of life. Even if men have found that they can live on bread alone. still they cannot live without bread as Victor Hugo pithily has said. It is the prime food essential of any nation and when it is deprived the people. the people suffer.
 The most essential element of our civilization ought primarily to be the feeding. clothing and shelterlng of the people. That first assured, other development will follow. is the bed rock upon which progress, mental, moral. social and physical Is, built up. The woes of nation are 10 be recorded as these things are denied or as they are afforded in plenitude and most of the strug- gles of the nations for bettermen' have begun and have been carried through upon the fundamental urge of being fed, being clothed and be- ing sheltered.
 II may be confessed that you never would believe this to observe the activities that seem to be carrlec on with legal and conventional sane tion.
 It is not so much the necessity of seeing that society has suitable shelter, comfortable clothing and ample food that is the incentive ot industrial operations. but the fact that gain can be made by those who own the means whereby society IS fed, clothed and sheltered.
 No people regularly beset by famine or the uncertainties or ex- istence ever did progress; and when the ordinary necessities of life are not forthcoming progress usually stops.
 .Ill faces the land to hastening ills
 a prey
 Where wealth accumulates and men
 decay
 said the Irish poet, but men decay only when they are deprived of pro- per sustenancc and denied access to the means of subsistence,
 We may logically argue from this that where food, though it be plain, is abundant. though clothing be homespun it is sufficient. there also will be the most progress recorded
 It is a wonder that people never give a thought to the reason why America has been progressive. pros porous and more generally content ed than other nations. Most people believe that it is by reason Of the Declaration of independence or the American Constitution. Few ever really recognize the fact that the reason is much more material and Il is because of the fact that food has been more plentitully distributed clothing more easily and universally obtained and shelter for the masses more comfortable than elsewhere The result of this condition pro duced men who were imbued with the principles embodied in the De claration of Independence and were prepared to go to some lengths tt make secure the rights to life, fiber ty and pursuit of happiness they knew of, and they knew how to ap preciate. There can be no progress where poverty is general and wher anything tends to bring about sufr ering and famine. there will arise discontent and there will follow reaction.
 America produces ample wealtl of food and other necessities tC feed all it's people comfortably. Blu they are not fed comfortably. Or the contrary there is continual CT, of distress, now taking the form O. food riots. now of strikes and othe1 labor demands so that men may ge enough wages to buy the things tha are needed but which have arisei in price beyond the wage scale O. the employees.
 Consequently the very first con sideration in this war is how tha the people may first be fed. Ant for America, it would seem an ob yious thing that this should be the first concern of the administration not how the Allies are kept supplied