Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-08-15

- told in official reports on con-
ditions brought about by the
high cost of living. According to
the Children's Bureau connected
with the United States Department
of Labor, 100000 American chill
dren are underfed. The New York
City Board of Health finds numer-
Gus poor families giving up meat,
giving up butter, giving up eggs.
William G. Lee, president of the
Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen,
says there will be Hell to pay III
this country" unless affairs take Il
turn for the better. Senator Cap
per, of Kansas, predicts some kind
of bust-up." The Richmond Times
Dispatch eXclaims: IF hunger leads
to BolsheviSm, how doubly danger
Gus must that leadership be when
that hunger exists in a country that
has bumper crops and whose store
houses are full to bursting" War
rem s. Stone, grand chief of the
Brotherhood of Locomotive E.nSi-
reers tells the House Interstate and
Foreign Commerce Committee that
unless Congress or some one else
finds a solution in the next few
months to the present situation, we
are going to see the worst time in
the history of this country. 1t
might be before we get through we
would advocate a firing-squad for
some people" The Governors of
several States are promoting investi-
cations which, it is hoped, will re-
veal the causes of the phenomenal
rise in prices and point toward
remedies. Acknowledgement Palmer
promises to bring suit against the
Big Five packers under the anti
trust laws. President Wilson in an
address to Congress has set forth
his ideas regarding the problem and
its solution. No one in WASHINGTON
appears at all passionately concern
ed about the Peace Treaty, now, or
about the League of Nations. A
single gigantic issue overshadows
everything else, and the press re-
vertebrate with denunciations, con-
structive suggestions, and reports Of
anti-protteering campaigns. Here
and there we find comment on @
suits actually attained. Says the
New York Evening World: "At the
hrst sign of change in the legislative
tone at Washington, prices of corn,
pork, and cotton begin to fall. The
prohteers, noting an indication of a
shift in the propping-up policy,
whlch has prevailed ever since the
armlstice. make haste for cover"
Continuing. the paper declares:
All that is really wanted to ad-
Just prices to fit pockets is a restora-
ton of competitive conditions in
store and factory. The government
DESTROYED competition at the out
set of our entry into the war
by furiously bidding up the prices
of commodities and labor. Since
hostilities ceased the endeavor has
been to hold up when it should have
neen TO let down. In seeking to
avoid an imitation of currency we
nave had an imitation of values.
Low-priced currency can in time
reach par; high prices do not come
down as gracefully. The economic
effect of each condition is about the
same.
That competition will assert it.
SELF II not interfered with has been
proved over and over again. Good
prices increase production and in
creased production reduces cost.
iNAtS anu ldli PRICES pTOuuCe Lne
widest general prosperity. To med
die with natural laws is to breed
evil consequences, plenty of which
are now in prospect"
In the same column of the same
newspaper we note. an admission
that considerable mystery neverthe-
less enshrouds the present situation,
especially as concerns the packers,
and it appears to The Evening
World that their efforts to clear
themselves are hardly of a soul
satisfying nature. The st. Louis
Star goes further and denounces
the private control by five interests
or almost seventy-five per cent. OF
the meat supply" and resents the
"czarism" that forces us to pay
prices fixed by artificial and unregu-
lated prfiteering."
That the actual profiteer is the
retailer many victims believe, and
the Socialist New York Call "has de-
cided to devote space each day for
two weeks for the wage-earners of
New York to tell how they have
been robbed" Meanwhile the Spo-
kane CWash.) Spokesman Review
discusses the experiment with a mu-
nicipal store at Houston, Tex, and
the Kansas City Post relates how
Chicago women have been camping
on the trail of the profteer:
First, these women obtained
from butchers and grocerymen-re-
tail dealers-a statement that from: