Valdez daily prospector., 1918-03-06
MAR TIME PRICES
 ARE EXPLAINED
What the United States Food Admin. istration has to Say About
 War Time Prices

are asked to reduce their consump- tion of meats, wheat, sugar and fats They complain because some of the substitutes cost more than the food they are asked to save for their as- sociates on the other side of the ,, ocean.
 All right, suppose that we grant their complaint about prices. But then let us look at the thing from an other angle. Prices are high. There is no way to get around that. War time prices have always been high. They will always be high. But if we ate only the things we liked fully as well as the things we must save, and if we ate only the substitutes that were cheaper, how much of sacrifice would we be making in order to help win this war?
 Suppose that the men who are SUD- plying our ammunition said it was disgraceful to pay high prices for steel when wood was so much cheap CT. And then just suppose that they 1 used the wood to make our guns and our shells-it's much cheaper and could be painted and smoothed down to look about steel.
 How long do you think our armies could stay in the trenches with wood en guns and wooden shells? They could stay just about as long as they could if we made prices the excuse for taking food out of their mouths.
 Prices or no prices, we must eat to win this war. Those people need beef. port and mutton. wheat. sugar and fats. If we fail to save in order that they may have them, we could just as we'll close down our steel plants and send them shells made of wood.
 Where there is war, food cannot be produced. A steel blow helps produc- tion, but steel is not a good cultivat- or when it breaks the land in the form of a she'll That has been shown in France, Italy, Belgium and all of the other countries shattered by battle. But a nation can be at war and still maintain production, if the battle lines do not encroach on the farms. That has been shown in Germany and is being shown in the United States. We have been charged with the tre- mendous task of feeding our associ- ates in this war, of maintaining pro- duction on a scale thatkwill meet our actual needs and stih leave enough to fill the gap between Europe's pro- duction and consumption. The only solution is to reduce our own use of the foods most needed abroad. We must employ substitutes for beef, pork and mutton, wheat, sugar and fats. This war is as much ours as 1t is Europe's and there is no reason why we should ask Europe to bear all of the sacrifices and deprivations. Did you every stop to wonder why food prices are high in war time? Or have you just complained about the fact that they are high, and then won- dered why in the world the govern ment hasn't stepped in and brought them back to the ante-bellum level? The next time you complain about prices, stop to think of the farmer who grew the things you are buying. Do you know that he is paying $2 or $2.50 a day for labor he could get before the war for $1 or $1.25-and that he is having a mighty hard time getting anybody at all. Do you know that every railroad in the country is congested and that 1t is much more difficult to get farm products to mar ket from the farmers and then dis tribute 1t to the wholesale dealers has to pay much more for his labor than he did before the war. And do you know that all of his necessary expenses have been on the ascendant! Do you know that the wholesale deal. CT is paying wages and salaries that he could scarcely have dreamed of 6 few years ago? and that the same thing is true of the retailers?
 And then, on the other hand. when you wonder whysthe government has n't taken hand. have you stopped III
 to consider that prices have risen or a much lower scale than has ruled ir other wars?
 Have you thought when you pay ed nine or tens cents for sugar. witt the country going through an actua sugar famine, that it would have gon' much higher had not the government through the United States Food Ad ministration. taken measures to sta III ->.. .k@~~or