The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-08-15
GOVERNMENT AND
THE COST OF LIVING

Among the coruscations of the Ford
libel suit, we note Professor William
A. Dunning's statement that "the es-
sence of government is force" This
bit of wisdom came like flash of
lightning in the darkness of nonsense.
There are those who seem to think
that the essence of government is
talk, so they load the Congressional
Record with their lucubrations, Others
seem to think that government is syn
onymous with legislation, so they pass
laws the effect of which they can on
" vaguely anticipate. At the present
moment the lack of force in govern
ment is evident in all the principal
countries of the world. Indeed the
outlook is anything but cheerful.
The Bolsheviki may be rampant in
Russia and the 'istas may be on the
rampage in Mexico, but what of our
leading opponents of the democratic
idea, England and the United States?
On the first day of August our morn
ing newspapers told us that the presi.
dent of the Brotherhood of Locomo-
tive Engineers had given notice that
unless the wages of the train men
were increased or the cost of living
reduced, there would be big strike
on October /. When organized labor
uses the threat of paralyzing railroad
traffic over the entire country in or
der to get an increase of wages al
ready raised several times since the
Government assumed control of the
railroads.&c. is engaging in sabotage.
The next day another leader of the
Brotherhood stated that the railroad
workers would not stand for sur
vey of the entire wage situation" He
wanted to use the club at once; indeed,
10000 workers in the railroad shops
would not wait even for a day, and
went on strike forthwith. In England
matters are even worse, for not only
had the cotton operatives of Lanca-
shire, the coal miners of Yorkshire,
and the lockers of Liverpool stopped
work, thereby increasing the cost of
cotton, coal, and food, but triple
alliance of railway men, miners, and
transport workers was threatening a
general strike, and, worst of all. The
police, the guardians of the law, men
aced the very foundations of orderly
government by themselves going on
strike. Meanwhile British taxpayers
are meeting the cost of the pay given
to the unemployed by means of a
Government dole. Returning to our
own country, the race riots at Wash
ington and Chicago presented another
most lamentable spectacle of lawless-
ness, Whether these outbreaks be-
tween negroes and white trash were
due to the desire to kill awakened by
military service or whether they were
due to attacks on white women, we do
not know. Statistics show that only
rs per cent of the lynchings perpe-
trated in the last IS months were due
to the cause commonly supposed to
explain these horrors. We conclude
that the bloodshed and incendiarism
at Chicago and Washington may be as
cirbed In large part to shortage OF
food and secondarily to the brutishness
engendered among the weak-minded
by the experience of warfare. Most
of the unrest and violence recorded
recently among laboring people is due,
we believe, on such evidence as is Oh
tainable, to the irritation caused by
the high cost of living and the belief
that much money is being made by
profteering. kilograms from Wash
ington say that the AttorneyGeneral
is taking the matter in hand and has
started by calling number of chiefs
of departments into consultation with
him. We are told also that the Pres
ident as giving deep and very
thoughtful consideration to the prob
lem" 1t is we'll that he should, for
unfortunately, most men and women
are more sentitive to matters affect
ing their personal comfort than they
are to the larger questions of politics
or even the idealisms Of international