The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1919-08-09
PRESIDENT ASKS
FOR LEGISLATION
follower H. C.L.
Vicious Practices Create the
High Prices
WANTS COLD STORAGE LAW
Declares Strikes Only Make Matters
Worse-Warns Against Max
ing Threats
WANTS COLD STORAGE LAW

Washington, Aug. o.-AuuTeSslh5
Congress today and proposing RENE
dies to check the high cost of living,
President Wilson declared that exist
ing laws were inadequate and that high
prices were not justified by shortage
Of supply, present or prospective but
were In many cases created artifcally
and deliberately by vicious practices.
The President recommended that
the food control act be extended to
peace time operation and that Con-
gress exclude from interstate as well
as intrastate shipment goods when
did not comply with its provisions.
The President also recommended that
the food law be provided with a SUB.
stantial penalty for profteering and
II, 1T a cold storage law be enacted
modelled after the law in New Jersey
by which a time limit be placed on cold
storage. He also recommended that
all goods released from cold storage
be marked with the price prevailing
when they went into storage. lie tur-
ther recommended that goods in inter
state commerce be marked with the
prices at which they left the producers
IL would serve as useful example
the President suggested II Congress
enacted legislation to control the sit
uation in the District Of Columbia
where it has unlimited authority.
Further the President recommended
q federal licensing system for corpor-
ations engaged in interstate commerce
which would embody regulations to in
sure competitive selling and prevent
uncomfortable profits in the method
OF marketing He also urged prompt
\ lssage of the law pending to control
security issues.
Making an appeal for the ratification
OF the peace treaty to turn the coun-
try from a war basis the President
said
"There can be no peace so long as
our whole financial and economic sys-
tom is on war basis -
"A process has set in which is likely
unless something is done, to push
prices and rents and the whole cost
of living higher and yet higher in
vicious cycle to which there is no log
ical or natural end.
Some of the methods by which these
prices are produced are already i'll
egal, some of them criminal and those
who employ them will be energetical-
ly proceeded against But others have
not yet been brought under the law
and should be dealt with at once by
legislation.
Demands for increases of wages, ac-
companying the rising costs of living
the President said, We're justified If
there be no other means of enabling
men to live"
while there is any possibility that
the peace terms may be changed said
the Presiednt, referring to his plea for
early ratification of the treaty, so that
the country may be- turned back from
O war basis, cor may be held long
in allegiance or may not be enforced
because of divisions of opinion among
the powers associated against Ger
many, it is idle to look for permanent
relief
Surplus stocks of food and clothing
in the hands of the government, the
President said, would be sold and
ICtTuS VI lUOu III pilfdIc uihuo "cuiu
be forced cut under the existing pro
visions of the food control law. Deal
ers eager to reap harvest of rising
prices and who had accumulated
boards, the President said, would now
see the disadvantage as we'll as the
danger CT holding off from the new
processes of distribution.
The normal operation of the laws of
supply and demand, the President said.
had been set at naught in the cases of
many necessary commodities. He cit
ed the figures of the Federal Trade
Commission showing rising prices in
the face of greater stocks of food
than were on hand in the country a
year ago.
The pending bill to regulate security
issues the President referred to as a
measure which would do much to
S cp speculation and to prevent the
fraudulent methods of promotion by
which our people are annually fleeced
of many millions of hard-earned
money"