Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-02-24
Our country's HeIpIessness.

From New York City we receive the
following letter:
Editor of The Augusta Journal:
We are shipping hundreds or
millions of dollars worth of food
stuffs to Europe thus putting the
prices up on our own people and
starving the poor, and all because
the money interest. the rlch
a1anipulators and spectators want
1t So
Why not stop the exports OF
foodstuffs to Europe. making our
own people happy and giving the
poor people a chance to live?
Yours very truly,
A. r. CUMMINGS.
Feb. 90, 1917.
Suppose we look this greed dragon
eight in the eye? To our mind the
poor have a worse enemy to confront
than the export business. OF course
the game of the domestic manipulators
Is made easier By the export business.
but just now the reduction in exports
has served the food gamblers quite as
well. Every yard and siding is
bIochaded with held-up exports, and
NEEDED domestic supplies cannot be
sorted out from the congestion and put
on the market to relieve the shortage
that is, not until consumers are
hungry enough to pay the outrageous
charges upon which greed has SCI its
heart.
OF COURSE the need is government
control of food products! What right
has breathing, thinking people,
claiming intelligence and clVlllzatloh'
10 he without adequate means for meet
ing such a crisis promptly and con-
clusively?
What right has any government
sunnosed to be made up of men OF
mind and character, to hesitate ana
dodge and bubble, while the cutthroat
game goes on driving the masses TO
riot and revolution?
Is not the police power of states, II
not of the federal government, sur
fcient to protect the lives ana COM
forts of citizens from domestic roo-
hers as we'll as foreign invaders?
What sort OF a government nave we
in the nation and in the states having
great congested districts like New York
and Philadelphia, that it stands help
,ess and without protest while the rob-
berry goes on?
We note that New Yorks commits
sioner of weights and measures. thinks
the solution lies in importing farm la
Dor from the Philippines. What for
10 increase the congestion and bring
greater Doodle into the hands of the
market manipulators? 1t is true that
farmers are suffering from shortage of
labor, but they have never yet been
able, as a body to market the product
of the help they had, great or small.
AS an instance, single operator in
Maine this year will probably clean up
half a million dollars. There are other
Spectators. The farmers do not get
any Of that halt million with which to
hire Filipinos; consumers would have
been no Better off if million Filipinos
had been employed at agriculture in
the L. S. last year.
on an electric car, Thursday after
noon. we overheard one man tell an
other that the previous day he had
sold car Of potatoes at SO net per
bushel. Later he said: We have po-
for s.45 per bushel"
What is the conclusion?
Suppose the government were In the
business of saving the masses and
classes from such robbery, the govern
ment would have, perhaps, known
enough about conditions to prevent the
''cornering" of $4,000 cars of other roads
on the tracks of three New England
railways. Perhaps the government.
had It been in the business of protect
ing the many from few, would have
prevented the filling of great congested
centers OF population with export prod
ucts and allowing the endless, headless
mix-up of foodstuffs by railroads.
spectators and commission houses
that has prevailed Of late.
On the 10th of February, a Maine
man saw a train Of II cars, (ar new
cars) pass through the city of Waver-
~. N. Y, loaded with automobiles. 60
ing from one show to another. Scarce.
ly 100 yards away stood large whole
sale grain house with not a car in
sight nor could it's management get
cars in which to ship it's orders. It was
refusing orders on that account, while
its customers were suffering for the
goods. The president Of this grain
company called the railway officers hv
phone and was told that the cars were
loaded with automobiles-which HAD
o.be gotten through. or spoil the show.
we may safely assume.
Maine wholesaler orders carload af-
ter carload Of sugar from a great refin-
ing concern and can get not single