The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1919-08-28
NEWS review OF
CURRENT EVENTS
President Addresses Congress on
Cost of Living and the Pos
SibIe Remedies.
PACKERS TO Be PROSECUTED
General Campaign Is Started Against
Profiteers-Railway Unions De-
mand More Pay, Urge the
Plumb Plan and Threaten
to Strike.
BY EDWARD w. PIcKARD.


The open season for profiteers has
come. If there is bright spot in the
worlds sky, that is it. For the rest
the clouds are black enough to suit
the most confirmed pessimist.
Government officials, investigating
bodies, individual economists-all have
been earnestly seeking for the prime
causes of the high cost of living. The
cold-blooded, greedy profiteer who bat
tens on the misfortunes Of the people
Is the most easily diseerned of those
causes and is going to be the first to
be dealt with. All the sympathy he
gets must come from himself.
President Wilson appeared before
congress Friday and delivered schol-
arly essay on the subject, which in
Guided various recommendations for
legislative action, and told what the
government already is doing in the
way of curbing the operations of the
profiteers. He urged the permanent
extension of the food control act,
law regulating cold storage, a law re-
quiring that all goods entering inter-
state shipment be marked with the
producers price, prompt enactment OF
the pending capital issues bill, and,
what seems to the writer most impor-
tant of all, the passage of law re-
quiring federal licensing Of all corpor-
atoms engaged in interstate commerce.
The president did not overlook the
opportunity to push the immediate
ratification of the peace treaty and
league covenant. He devoted much OF
his message 20 assertions, in varied
form, that until peace is established
only provisional and makeshift results
can be accomplished in the way of re-
ducing living costs. There can be no
settled conditions anywhere in the
world, he declared, until the treaty is
with the approval of most Of the Re-
publican congressman, and their indig-
nation was aroused by the fact that
the president used the domestic issue
as a weapon in the contest over the
League of Nations.
Most prominent of the alleged profit
GERS are the Chicago packers, the "big
five" who are reputed to control much
of the worlds food supplies. Some
time ago they were investigated by the
federal trade commission and that body
made a report that was bitterly at
tackled by the defenders of the pack
ers. Now with that report as basis
President Wilson has directed the de-
partment of justice to institute at once
civil and criminal proceedings against
the big five. The attorney general stat
ed that he was satisfied the evidence
developed indicated a clear violation
of the antitrust laws, and that ISador
j. Kresel of New York was in charge
of the prosecution. The packers are
to be accused of unfairly and illegally
using their power to manipulate live
stock markets, to restrict interstate
Gud international supplies of foods, to
control the prices Of dressed meats
and other foods, TO defraud both the
producers and the consumers of foods,
to crush competition, to secure special
privileges from railroads, stock yards
companies and municipalities, and to
profiteer. The department of justice
will proceed against them not only for
violation of the antitrust laws but also
under the provisions of the food law Of
1913 against the boarding Of food.
As for the heads Of the big packing
companies, some Of them profess to
welcome the legal action as giving them
a chance to demonstrate to the public
their innocence, harmlessness and help
lessness, and all Of them repeat their
oft heard protestations that they are