The Southern herald., 1919-08-15
Comprehensive Extension Of the
Present Food Control Act
Is Recommended.
OlTUATioN CRITICAL AND Diff.
CULT AND MUST be NET WITH
COURAGE AND RESOURCE.
caIm and Deliberate Consideration
Rather Than Hasty Action Is Called
For by the Present sltua-
tlon Of the Country.

WhsuIHHt HHtUn.--LAAeHsiOU OF the pres
snt food control act, both as to its pc
Rod Of operation and to include all
commodities indlsputably necessaries
Of life, regulation of cold storage to
define the limits within which food
stuffs can be held; marking Of all
goods destined for interstate com
merce with the price at which they
left the hands of the producer; fed
eral licenses for all corporations and
persons engaged in interstate com
merce, which win provide for com,
petitive selling, and passage Of the
pending bill giving the capital issues
committee control of security issues,
are the remedies proposed by Fresl-
dent Wilson, in his address to con-
gress to meet the existing high cost
Of living.
The president said In part:
Gentlemen OF the Congress:
have sought this opportunity TO Ad-
dress you because 1t is clearly my duty
10 call your attention to the present cost
Of living and to urge upon you with all
the persuasive force Of which am capable
the legislative measures which would be
most effective in controlling It and bring
ing II down.
The prices the people Of this country are
paying for everything that 1t 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 artifcially and deliberately created
BY vicious practices which ought imme-
dlately to be checked by law.
Profteers Lawbreakers.
Some Of the methods by which these
prices are produced are already illegal,
some Of them criminal and those who
smploy them will be energetically 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
accessories Of life come demands for in
ereases In wages-demands which are
justified II 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 increase-not q proportIonate
increase. for the manufacturer does not
content himself with that. but an in
crease considerably greater than the
added wAEe cost and for which the added
wage cos, Is oftentlmes hardly more than
an excuse.
The laborers who do not get an increase
Bsy when they demand II are likely
70 strike, and the strike only makes mat
lers worse.
Il checks production II It affects the
railways il prevents distribution and
strips the markets; so that there Is pres
entity 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 justified because Of our famil-
larity with them or because Of any hasty
and shallow conclusion that they are
natural and inevitable, In sitting mac
lively by and letting them work their IA
tai results II there is anything that we
can do to check. correct or reverse them.
We must, I think, frankly admit that
there Is no complete immediate remedy
10 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.
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 at reconstruction or a
proper reassembling Of the dislocated
elements Of enterprise until peace has
be 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-
rsctly affected, with all its terrible
ravaging and destructive force, but It
has been nevertheless profoundly af-
fected and disarranged. and our indus
tries. our credits. our productive ca
pacity, our economic processes are In
extricably interviewer with those OF
other nations and peoples-most inti-
mately OF all with the nations and peo-
pies upon whom the chief burden and
confusion OF the war fell and who
are now most dependent upon the CO.
operative action Of the world
Exports Gfeatest IN tlstory.
We are Just now shipping more goods
out Of our ports to foreign markets than
We ever shipped before-not foodstuffs
merely, but stuffs and materials Of every
sort. but this is no index Of what our
foreign sales win continue to be or OF
the effect the volume OF our exports
will have on supplies and prices 1t is
impossible yet to predict how far or
Inn ...tU tsa
able u ind tie money or the credit to
pay for or sustain such purchases on
such scale; how soon or to what extent
foreign manufacturers can resume their
former production, foreign farmers get
their accustomed crops from their own
fields. foreign mines resume their former
outpi-. 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-
ilshsA and the nations Of the world have