New-York tribune., 1919-08-04
Is Living Dear?

upon the United States government, Mr..
Lee, president of that powerful organiza-
ton, went on talking. II want to see
some plan devised" he said, "that will
permit somebody to say that beef, pork
and commodities of that kind cannot go
4bove certain per cent"
Per cent Of what?
And does Mr. Lee know that the same
authority would need also the power to
fix food rations-to say how much beef,
pork, ETC., even railway trainman
should have to eat? What would the
brotherhood think of that?
What Mr.. Lee really wants, of course,
IS more for the trainmen. He will take it
IN the form of higher wages or in terms
If lower prices-one or the other--only
20 it is more. When he goes from there
md begins to talk economics his ideas
3ecome vague and shapeless.
But it is scarcely noticed. Most ideas
G.. the thigh cost of living are vague and
lapeless.
The principal cause of high prices is
notorious. 1t is initiation. For two and
ae-half years Europe at war bought
recl1lessly in this country, spending both
gold and credit; there was an ecstasy Of
high wages and great profits, and prices
&clvanced to the highest level ever
inown.
Then this country entered thee war.
Production had to be enormously stimu-
lated both in old and new lines The
easiest and quickest way to stimulate it
vas to offer money rewards. From what
was already fantastic level prices rose
sagain in an original manner under the
governments great impatience to bend
industry and labor to wars purpose
All prices rose-the price of labor, the
price of manufactured products, the
price of wheat and the price of peace
with the Brotherhood of Railway Train
men. How to get the money to pay the
prices was the problem Of least difficulty.
The government printed it. That was
initiation.
Now the war is over. We have still
the high prices, the inflated currency and
the wantingness of the trainmen; and
nobody knows what to do with them, be-
cause nobody wishes to suggest a liqui-
dation of anything.
You cannot liquidate everything else
and not wages, and apparently you can
not liquidate wages at all; so there is
an impasse.
1t is easier to rail vehemently at an
impersonal class called profiteers and to
suggest that somebody be invested with
the power to say that the necessaries of
life shall not sell "above a certain per
cent" than to face the truth, which is
that you cannot reduce prices without
general and painful defation.
Meanwhile the one basic question is
so much taken for granted that nobody
stops to ask whether, in fact, the cost
of living actually is higher now than it
was. Prices do not tell. Prices NAV be
very much higher and yet the cost of
living may be no higher. If, for in
stance, wages in the average rise as fast
as prices, nobody is worse off except
those forgotten ones who live by invest
ments.
The suggestion that the cost of living
actually may not be higher will be re-
ceivcd with utter incredulity. Yet it
would be difficult to prove that people
are consuming less. They are certainly
not working more. The hours of labor
have been tending to fall.
If, with the same amount of labor,
people have as much to eat and wear
and waste as they had before, and of the
same quality, then the cost of living has
not risen
We do not say such is the case. We
say only that it is as arguable, that
proof to the contrary is wanting, and
that there is much nonsense current.
When people begin to write letters to