Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-08-15
Onslaught on High Prices
[From The Literary Digest ]

four to eight cents a pound on meat
is fair profit for the retailer.
Secondly, they obtained current
wholesale price-lists from the pack
ing houses. Then they posted that
price-list along side of the retail
prices, and, according to Chicago re-
ports, here is what the women
found:
That instead of the five-cent
profit the retailer said he ought to
make on q pound of leg of lamb,
he was actually making ten cents;
that instead of making seven cents
on lamb chops, the retailers were
averaging twenty-five cents; that in
stead of a seven-cent profit on a
pound of veal, they were clearing
twenty cents, and so on through the
meat list-these items being used
merely by way of illustration.
And, on green stuff, the dealers
were found to be reaping an equally
rich harvest. Cantaloupes costing
six cents retail at eighteen cents
minimum, and in some cases as
high as twenty-five cents; tomatoes
bought, by the retailer at five cents
pound sell for thirty cents a
pound, and so on.
According to the Pittsburgh
retailer, but the middleman-
AS matter of fact, these whole
salers and jobbers are the most
guilty of all. They produce nothing,
create nothing, but take toll on
everything. They are the real para
sites who stand between the pro-
ducer and the consumer and wax
fat on the intermediate profits"
The New York Sun is convinced
that the first essential toward REM
edying the high cost of living IS a
cut in grain prices. Congressman
lgoe would stop lprofiteering, not
only in food supplies, but in shoes,
clothing, and, in fact everything
else, but taxing the eXtortions of the
proiiteer." In many quarters, a cer-
tain measure of relief is looked for
from the sale of Army food, and the
moral effect, it is thought, may be
considerable. AS the INDIANAPOLIS
Star contends:
The evidence brought out at the
hearing of a House subcommittee
investigating War Department ex-
penditures that almost 400, 200, 900
cans of vegetables, salmon and
pork and beans were withheld from
the market in order that prevailing
prices might be maintained is not
calculated to allay the growing in
dignation sweeping the country over
the eXorbitant values put on all the
necessaries of life. Testimony was
presented showing that the Quarter
master Generals Department had
planned to offer the big Army sur
plus to the public. but that the can
ners previously had prevailed upon
Secretary Baker to withhold this
supply until after the present cam
ming season."
However, the Columbus (Ohio)
Dispatch fails to see how the sale
OF Army food can alter the situation
very strikingly in material way:
something over n hundred mill
lion dollars worth of this food Ia
held by the government-a dollars
worth per inhabitant. If it were
given to the public it would save
but trihe per family. Throwing
the government food upon the mar
ket is not the solution of high
prices, whatever Immediate and
temporary relief might result there
from"
In launching his campaign against
high prices, Governor Cox, of Ohio,
assails the holding of food in cold
storage warehouses for the purpose
of Keeping up prices. and the Bal
timore American says that:
When the cold storage process
becomes machinery in the hands
of conscienceless food barons who
use the machinery to manipulate
handling processes and boost prices
it is certainly time that the gem
eral public should be demanding in
vestigations that will not be shams
but that will be aimed to get the
culpritS, and that will get them "