Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1919-08-09

washington, d. c.. Aug. s-Presi-
cant Wilson's address to congress last
evsning, embodying recommendations
designed to reduce the cost OF living
follows,
0sntlemen Of the congress, have
sought this opportunity to address you
bssause Il Is clearly my duty to call
yopP attention to the present cost of
living and to urge upon you with all
the parsuave oorce of which am cap
able the legislative measures which
would Be most effective in controlling
and Avtngins It down.
The prices the people OF this coun-
cry are paying for everything that Is
necessary for them to use in order to
live are not justified by a shortage in
supply. either present or prospective.
and are in many cases artificially and
deliberately created by vicious prac-
tees which ought !rlme diateiy to be
checked by law.
They constitute TO burden upon us
which rs the more unbearable because
we know that II is wilfully imposed by
those who have the power and that it
can by vigorous public action be great
iy lifted and made to square with the
actual conditions of supply and de-
mand.
Some OF the methods by which
these prices are produced are already,
Illegal, some of them under control and
those who enjoy them will be energet-
ically prosecuted, but others have not
yet been brought under the law and
pOuld be dealt with at once by legis-
lation.
Particulars Are Familiar.
II need not recite the particulars of
the matters Of supply, at the shops in
the restaurants and hotels. alike in
the city and in the village. They are
familiar to you. They are the talk OF
every group OF causal acquaintance
even. It - a matter Of familiar knowl-
edge also, that a process has set in
which IL 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 logical or natural end.
with the increase in the prices OF
the necessaries OF life come demands
for increases in wages-demands
which are justified if there be no other
means Of enabling men to live.
upon the increase OF wages there
follows close an increase in the price
Of products whose producers have &C
corded the increase-not proportion
ate increase, for the manufacturer does
- hot 1r1t n n
increase considerably greater than the
added wage cost and for which the
wage cost is oftimes hardly more than
An excuse.
Strike is Worse.
"The laborers who do not get an in
crease in pay when they demand IL
are likely to strike, and the strike only
makes matters worse. 1t checks pro-
duction. It affects the railways, pre-
vents distribution and strips the mark
cts, SO that there Is presently nothing
to buy, and there Is another excessive
addition to prices resulting from the
scarcity.
"These are facts and forces with
which we have become only too
familiar; but we are not justified be-
cause Of our familiarity with them or
because Of any hasty and shallow con-
clusion that they are natural and in
evttable, in sitting inactively by and
letting them work their fatal results If
there is anything that We can do to
check, correct or reverse them. I have
sought this opportunity to inform the
congress what the executive is doing
by way Of remedy and control. and to
suggest where effective legal remedies
are lacking and may be supplied.
I'VE must, I think, frankly admit
that there is no complete immediate
remedy to be had from legislation and
executive action.
The free processes Of supply and
demand will not operate Of themselves