The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1919-08-09
CONGRESS GIVEN
RESULTS Of LONG
STUDY BY WILSON
Full Text Of Presidents Ad-
dress on Possible Measures
to CurtaiI High Cost Shows
Exhaustive Study.

WASHINGTON. Aug. s.-The full text
Of President Wilson's address before the
joint session Of senate and house yes
terdsy follows:
Gentlemen OF the Congress--I have
sought this opportunity to address
you because II is clearly my duty to
cal your attention to the present cost
OF living and to urge upon you with
all the persuasive force Of which / am
capable the legislative measures which
would be most effective In controlling
" ana bringing 1t down, The prices
the people Of this country are paying
LOT everything that Is necessary for
tnem to use In order to live are not
lustiiled by shortage in supply, either
cases artificially and deliberatly created
oy vicious practices which ought i'm
mediately to be checked by law They
constitute burden upon us which is
more unbearable because we know that
i is wilfully- imposed by those who
orous public action be greatly lighteped
and made to square with the actual con-
ditions OF supply and demands Some Of
the methods by which these prices are
produced are already illegal, some Of
them criminal, and those who employ
them will be energetieally proceeded
Against; but others have not yet been
brought under the law, and should
be dealt with at once by legislation.
Prices Well Known.
II need not recite the particulars OF
manded and paid at the sources ot
supply, at the factory. in the food
markets, at. the shops, in the res.
taur1flts and hotels, alike in the city
and In the village, They are familiar
to you. They are the talk OF everS
domestic ,,si Circle, circle and Of every group o
familiar knowledge. Also that pro-
cess has set in which is likely unless
| something Is DONE to push prices anc
rents and the whole cost OF living
higher and yet higher, in vicious
cycle to which there is no logical oil
natural end. With, the increase IN the
price of the necessities come demands
for increases in wages-demands which
are justified II there be no other means
OF enabling men to live. Upon the in
crease Of wages there follows close ar
increase In the price of the products
whose producers have been accorded the
Increase, for the manufacturer does moi
content himself with that, but an in
crease considerably greater than the
added wage cost and for which the add
ed wage cost Is Of ten times hardly
more than an excuse. The laborert
VINO 90 not get an increase In pay
when they demand 1t are likely to strike
and the strike only makes matters
worse. II checks production, it affect,
the railways, II prevents distribution
and strips the markets SO that there i.
presently nothing TO buy, and there |.
another excessive addition to prices re.
sultihg from the scarcity.
"These are facts and forces with
which we have become only too famil
lar, but we are not justified beoaust
of our familiarity with them or be-
cause OF any hasty and shallow con
clusion that they are natural anC
inevitable in sitting inactively by ant
letting them work their fatal results
II there Is anything that we can do t
check, correct or reverse them.
have sought this 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 b.
supplied.
there is no complete immediate remed!
to be had from legislation and execu
tive action. The free processes of sup
ply and demand will not operate o
themselves and no legislative or execu
tive action can force them into full AM
natural operation until there Is peace
There is now neither peace nor war.