The Dermott news., 1919-08-14
WOULD EXTEND
 WAR CONTROL
 OF ALL FOOD
That, and Provision of Penalties for Proflteering, Advocated
 by the President.
TO FORCE SALE OF SURPLUS
In Address to Congress the Chief Ex- ecutive Makes Assertion That We "Are Dealing With Very Crit;-
 cal and ffcult Matters"

shington.-AddresSing congress and proposing remedies to check the high cost of living, President Wilson declared existing laws were made quate and high prices were not iuSti- fled by shortage of supplies, present or prospective, but were created in many cases "artiticially and deltber- atey' by ''vicious practices
 He spoke practically us follows: Gentlemen of the Congress-
 I have sought this opportunity to ad dress you because it is clearly my duty to call your attention to the present cost of living and to urge upon You with all the persuasive force of which am capable the legisa tive measures which would be most effective in controlling 1t and bring ing 1t down
 The prices the people of this country are paying for everything that II is necessary for them to use in order to live are not Justified by a shortage in supply, either present or prospective. and are In many cases artifeially and deliberately created by vicious practices which ought iname diately to be checked by law
 Profiteers Lawbreakers.
 Some of the methods by which these
 
 some of them criminal and tAose who employ them will be energetipaly pro ceeded against But others have not yet been brought under the law. and should be dealt with at once by legislation
 With the increase in the prices of the necessaries of life come demands for iu- creases In wages demands which are Justified if there be no other means Of enabling men to live.
 Upon the increase of wages there fol- lows close an increase in the price of The products whose producers have been ac= corded the tncrease-not proportionate increase. for the manufacturer does not content himself with that. but an in crease considerably greater than the added wage cost and for N hich the added wage cost is oftentimes hardly more than an excuse.
 The lahorers who do not get an increase in pay when they demand 1t are likely to strike, and the strike only makes mat ters worse
 It checks productions if 1t affects the railways it prevents distribution and strips the markets so that there is pres ently nothing to buy, and there is another excessive addition to prices resulting from the scarcity.
 Conditions Not Natural"
 These are facts and forces with which we have become only too familiar. but we are not J4SNitled betdHSs ui our Itllli- iarity with them or because Of any nasty and shallow conclusion that they are natural" and inevitable. in sitting mac lively by and letting them work their fa- tai results if there Is anything that we do to check. correct or reverse them. We must. l think. frankly admit that there is no complete immediate remedy to be had from legislation and executive action. The free processes of supply and rpr1and will pf bAY and legislative or executive action can force them into full and natural operation until there is peace.
 Must Know Terms of Peace.
 There can be no confidence in indus try. no calculable basis for credits. no confident buying of systematic selling no certain prospect of employment. no normal restoration of business. no hopeful attempt al reconstruction or proper reassembling of the disIoeated clements of enterprise until peace has been established. and. so far as may be guaranteed Our national life has no doubt been less radically disturbed and dismembered than the national life of other peoples whom the war more di- rectiy affected. with all its terrible ravaginR and destructive force but 1t has been nevertheless profoundly af- fected and disarrauged. and our indus tries. our credits. our productive ca pscity, our economic processes are in extricably tnterw oven with those of other nations and peoples--most iuti- mately of all with the nations and peo- ples upon whom the chief burden and confusion of the war fell and wao are now most dependent upon the eo- operative action of the word
 Exports Greatest Tn History.
 We are just now shipping more goods Rf nm IT ff. tVt- -.afa n we ever shipped before=not foodstufts merely but stuffs and materials of every sort: but this is no index Of what our foreign sales will continue To be or of the ofrect the volume of our exports will have on supplies and prices IL is impossible yet to predict how far OF how long foreign purchasers will be able to find the money the credit 10 pay for or sustain such purchases on such scale. how soon or tu what extent foreign manufacturers can resume their former production foreign farmers get their accustomed crops from their own fields; foreign mines resume their former output, foreign merchants set up again their old machinery of trade with the ends of the earth. All these things must remain uncertain until peace is estab- iished and the nations of the world have concerted the methods by which normal life and industry are to be restored
 All that we shall do in the mean time to restrain proiteerng and put the life of our people upon a tolerahle footing will be makeshift and proVi- eional. There can be no settled condi- tion here or elsewhere until the treaty of peace is out of the way and the work of liduidating the war has be- come the chief concern of our govern ment and of the other governments of the world
 Europe will not. cannot recoup her