Arizona republican., 1918-05-23
Where the People
 May Have Hearing
Stacker Lands and Idlers
Phoenix Ariz., May 20,

Phoenix Arlz-, May Z0, 191S. Editor Republican:
 "The government employment bu- reau here will suggest to the govern ment the conscription of chronic iders for government river work un- less the labor situation in this de- partment is relieved, says w. R. King, acting director of the bureau.
 King declared that a great many loafers infest his office for employ ment who work only long enough to earn a dollar for whisky, while the government engineering department engaged on river work is offering $1.45 to s1.S5 cents a day, including board and lodging, for labor on the Upper Missouri river.
 King said his investigations have not revealed an actual shortage of labor in this field, but men are de- manding high wages and when fancy prices are offered he has no diff culty in supplying men in large num- bers
 "Unskilled labor. he asserted, is now demanding a wage above S3 a day, and the trades a wage double this figure Only recently he sent to an- other city number of carpenters on a guarantee of S7.a day"
 Here is an item that I found tucked away on one of your inside pages this morning. With all due respect to your abilities and judgment as newspaper man, I would suggest that the next time you run across such a piece of in formation you spread it all oyer the front page, in lurid ink, and write such an explosive and vitriolic editorial about it that your readers would be enraged into action.
 There have been gallons of ink, and reams of paper used in condemning slackers. And they have it coming to them. But there is one class of people so much more despicable, and so much lower in the scale of vileness that com pared to the fumes that emanate from their beings, the sweet scent of a slack CT is as the perfumes of Araby. These are the wage lizards that hold forth in this time of international peril for fancy" wages, and use the misfortune of humanity as lever with which to pI:y off loot and then hoard it in their holes. Any person who has more at the end of this war 'than he had in 1916 will have a long recitation to make to St. Peter. on the great cay
 At a guess I would say that at least ten per cent of the land within the city limits of Phoenix is lying absolutely idle. Now why not turn loose pack of these animals on the vacant land, and cultivate it, and raise wheat for the armies in Europe? We have water galore, and the city could furnish the implements and seed (and guards. to make them work.) When the crop was harvested and sold to the government Cat cosD this expenditure could be re- placed and the city would be ahead just the value of the implements
 And could start new crop
 simple piece of legislation would do the work. Pass a law (and enforce it) making idleness a crime, and pro- viding as a penalty, imprisonment for the rest of the agricultural season. Oi course, it would be necessary. first, tc make every provision for employment and farming these vacant lands would be an ideal solution of this problem.
 Whatever happened, after instftuting such a scheme, would work to the ben eft of Phoenix. If the wheat should actually be raised we would be doing that much more toward winning the war; and if it resulted merely in an- exodus of bums, we would be that much better off anyway.
 E. McR.