The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1919-08-12

present cOSC OF living anQ co urge
upon you with all the persuasive
force of which l am capable the legis-
lative measures which would be most
effective in controlling it and bring
ing it down. The prices the people
of this country are paying for every
thing that it is necessary for them to
use in order to live are not justified
! by a shortage in supply, either pres
ent or prospective, and are in many
! cases artificially and deliberately
created by vicious practices which
ought Immediately to be checked by
law. They constitute a burden upon
us which is the more unbearable be-
cause we know that it is wilfully i'm
posed by those who have the power
and that it can by vigorous public
action be greatly lightened and made
! to square with the actual conditions
of supply and demand. Some of the
methods by which these prices are
produced are already illegal, some
of them criminal, and those who en-
ploy them will be energetically pro-
ceeded against; but others have not
yet been brought under the law, and
should be dealt with at once by leg
isiation.
need not recite the particulars OF
this critical matter; the prices de-
manded and paid at the sources OF
supply, at the factory, in the food
market, at the shops, in the restau-
rants and hotels, alike in the city and
in the village. They are familiar to
you. They are the talk of every do
mestic circle and of every group OF
casual acquaintances even. 1t is
matter of familiar knowledge, also,
that a process has set in which is like
ly, unless something is done, to push
prices and rents and the whole cost
of living higher and yet higher, in a
vicious style to which there is no logl-
cal or natural end. With the In
crease in the price of the necessaries
of life come demands for increase in
wages-demands which are justified
if there be no other means of enable
ing men to live. Upon the increase
there follows close an increase in the
price of products whose producers
have been accorded the increase-not
proportionate increase, for the man.
ufacturer does not content himself
with that, but an increase consider
ably greater than the added wage
cost and for which added wage cost
is oftimes more than an excuse. The
laborers who do not get an increase
in pay when they demand it are likely
to strike and to strike only makes
matters worse. 1t checks the railways
it prevents distribution and strips
the markets, so that there is present
ly NJ thing to buy, and there is anoth-
er excessive addition to prices result
ing from the scarcity.
Work of Executive.
These are facts and forces with
which we have become only too IA
miliar; but we are not justified be-
cause of our familiarity with them or
because of any hasty and shallow
conclusion that they are natural"
and inevitable in sitting inactively by
and letting them work their fatal re-
suits if there is anything that we can
do to check, correct, or reverse them.
have sought his opportunity to in
form the congress what the executive
is doing by way of remedy and con-
troll and to suggest where effective
legal remedies are lacking and may
be supplied.
We must, I think, frankly admit
that there is no complete immediate
remedy to be had from legislation
and executive action. The free pro-
cesses of supply and demand will not
operate of themselves and no legisla-
tive or executive action can force
them into full and natural operation
until there is peace. There is now
neither peace nor war. All the world
is waiting-with. what unnerving
fears and haunting doubts who can
adequately say?-waiting to know
when it shall have peace and what
kind of peace it will be when it comes
"a peace in which each nation shall
make shift for itself as it can, or
peace buttressed and supported by
the will and concert Of the nations
that have the purpose and the power
to do and to enforce what is right.
Politically, economically, socially the
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