The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1919-08-10
Q The Editorial Page of The Daily Ardmoreite O
AN EDITORIAL BY w. w.

nor ONE DAY let us make Woodrow w
l. son contributing editor to The Ardmoreit
Mr.. Wilson read an address to congress la
Friday afternoon which contained his contrib
ton. 1t is taken from the body of his messai
and printed here so that every reader WI
cares to be enlightened upon the causes
present day unrest and the way back to norm
conditions may peruse what the president sa.
and think it over. Following are the passage
from his speech which apply most forcibly:
process has set in which is likely, un-
less 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 price of the necessities 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 increases of wages there follows
close an increase in the price of the pro-
duets whose producers have been accord
ed the increase-not q proportionate in
crease, for the manufacturer does not con-
tent himself with that, but an increase
considerably greater than the added wage
cost and for which the added wage cost is
oftentimes hardly more than an excuse.
The laborers who do not get an increase
in pay when they demand it are likely to
strike, and the strike only makes matters
worse. 1t checks production, if it affects
the railways it prevents distribution and
strips the markets, so that there is present
ly nothing to buy, and there is another ex-
cessive addition to prices resulting from
the scarcity.
These are facts and forces which have
become only too familiar but we are not
justified because of our familiarity with
them, or because of any hasty and shallow
conclusion that they are natural and in
evitable, in sitting inactively by and letting
them work their fatal results if there is
anything that we can do to check, cor
rect or reverse them. have sought this
opportunity to inform the congress what
the executive is doing by way Of remedy
and control, and to suggest where effect
i've legal remedies are lacking and may be
supplied
We must, | 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
and no Legislative or executive action can
force them into full and natural operation
until there is peace. There is now neither
peace nor war.
All the world is waiting-with what
unnervng fears and haunting doubts who
can adequately say?-waiting to know
when it comes-a peace in which each ma
ton shall make shift for itself as it can, or
a peace buttressed and supported by the
will and concert of the nations that have
the purpose and the power to do and to en-
force what is right. Politically, economic
ally, socially the world is on the operating
table, and it has not been possible to ad-
minister any anaeSthetic. 1t is conscious.
1t even watches the capital operation upon
which it knows that its hope of healthful
life depends. 1t cannot think its business
out or make plans or give intelligent and
provident direction to its affairs, while in
such case. Where there is no peace of
mind there can be no energy in endeavor.
There can be no confidence in industry, no
calculabe basis for credits no confident
buying or systematic selling, no certain
prospect of employment or normal restor-
alton of business, no hopeful attempt at
reconstruction or the proper reassembling
of the disocated elements of enterprise
until peace has been restored and, so far
as may be, guaranteed.
The senatorial hold-up of the peace treaty
eps us, the world, on the operating table.
lere can be no reasonable hope for return to
e normal until the patient gets out from un
r the knives of the surgeons, and that will
t come about until the United States sem
e ratifes the treaty and gives the world a
ance to get back to its orderly activities and
ocesses. The president made a most telling
int when he told congress the status of the
Sc by using that figure of speech.