The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1917-01-27
THE STRANCLEHOLD
OF PROSPERITY
BY Scott Nearing

Prosperity has the American peo-
pie by the stomach!
AS the grip of prosperity tightens
people cry out in anguish, lest they
die. "Help!" they cry, Help! we
are starving!'
That seems extraordinary, that peo-
pie in the grip of prosperity, should
imagine that they are starving! Dur
ing the month of December. 1916,
the United States exported-shipped
out of the country--wheat, blank
cts, shoes and other things valued at
half a billion dollars. During the
same month the factories, mines.
mills, railroads, warehouses and
stores were buster than they had been
in years. They were fairly rushing
to get wheat, blankets, shoes and
other things, to a place where people
! might use them. They succeeded, too.
The total number of things turned
out by the factories and carried by
the railroads was unusually great in
December, 1915.
When the wheat, blankets, shoes
and other things were offered for
sale, an interesting thing happened.
The statesmen placed them on a shelf
far out of reach of many of the eager
customers. That shelf is called high
prices. It is a movable shelf, and
just now it is moving up.
The Monthly Review, for Decem-
Der, 1915, of the United States Bu-
reau of Labor Statistics notes that
each article for which prices are
shown from 1912 to 1916 was higher
on Oct. Is, 1916, than on the same
date of the four years preceding. For
all articles combined the increase in
price from Oct. Is, 1912, to Oct. Is,
1916, was FL per cent.
From Oct. Is, 1915, to Oct. Is.
1915, the price of tea and coffee was
the same, and all other articles adj
vanced from a fraction of 1 per cent
for rice to Is per cent for potatoes
and SIS per cent for beams The in
crease in the price of all articles COM
blned from Oct. Is, 1915, to Oct. Is,
1916, was 16 per cent
I'VE cannot reach the high price
Shelf protest the customers.
And why not, ladies and gentle
men?' question the accommodating
statesmen.
eve can reach only the length of
our incomes" sigh the eager custo-
mers, I'VE are kept down from the
high shelf by our small wages"
The customers are right. At least
some of them are, and the story of
their right is very we'll told in Bull
letin 76 of the United States Health
bureau, in which an estimate ap-
pears of the number of people in the
United States who live in poverty
that is, who have less family income
than will provide for physical health
and social decency. There are, &C.
cording to this estimate, some six
million families-thirty million people
in the United states-living in power
ty. These are the people who cannot
reach the shelf called high prices.
Prosperity-the stupid, blind unin-
telligent. balance-sheet variety of
prosperity-it throttling millions of
people in the United States They
cannot buy butter, eggs, milk, flour,
meat, because prices have advanced
more rapidly than their wages. The
necessities of life are on the high
shelf and the would-be consumers are
far below.
Some people contend that nation
is prosperous when prices are high.
They are in control now, and ION
account of the war" they are goug-
ing the American people as they have
not been gouged for years. And the
people, supplemented and confiding,
have been told that when the rush Of
business will permit, the high shelf
will be vanished and decorated with
a border of filigree paper. They have
faith in the efficacy of these remedies.
and are waiting with the pathetic
patience Of the ignorant or the blind.