Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1919-08-03

Congress to Wrestlc With H. c. L. Problem
Z FIDENCE abounds that Congress at last
IL has received the rude shock necessary to
arouse 1t from its snug complacency and
bring it to a realization Of the duty it owes
the public. Thanks for the delivery of that
shock due from the country to the railway
trainmen, who have laid before it their en-
phatic ultimatum that they will strike il they
do not receive either an increase in wages or
lower prices. or the two they infinitely pre-
fer the latter. That ultimatum has crystal
lied the dangerous unrest which is sweep
ing the country, and 1t has awakened the
President and Congress to the fact that some
measure of relief is imperative; that inter-
national relations no longer can be permitted
10 take precedence over threa tening domestic
conditions. The House, with surprising celer-
ity, has yielded to the Presidents request that
1t forego its summer vacation and devote
itself to finding relief for situation that, I'M
relieved, must bring disaster. Just what
course Congress can or will take is as yet
uncertain, but there is hope in the fact that
IT is awake to its responsibilities. and is
ready to lay aside piffling politics which since
it convened has engaged it's attention to the
exclusion OF legislation for the public good.
Time for theorizng has passed, and def
mite measures must be taken. degree of
aid may be given the consumer, now op-
pressed by e1tortionate prices, by steps such
as are being taken by the Mayor of Richmond
and other cities. by the Governors of Ohio and
Maryland, and by legislation suggested by the
Governor of Virginia, but these will not Who'll
ly solve the problem. which is for the Fed
eral government. With all the Federal ma
chinery ready at hand. with the war food
regulations still capable OF being enforced,
Congress easily should find way to end spec
ulatlon, put the constituencies profteers out
OF business, prevent the boarding of food sup
plies by the storage interests, force the ware
houses to pour forth their rich contents for
the use of the people who are suffering for
them, and fix fair average Of profit, which
will make impossible the robberies now being
committed somewhere along the line of dis
tribution from the producer to the consumer.
1t also can remove the props from under
wheat prices, sell the crop at the market price
and itself absorb the difference between them
and the guaranteed figures to the farmer, thus
bringing down the price Of bread and forcing
down the cost of other necessities. All these
things it can do quickly, and they should
prove effective in hurting back the hgh-price
mood that is engulfing the wage-earning and
salary-drawing portion of the population
II hunger leads to Boshevism, how doubly
dangerous must that leadership be when that
hunger exists in country that has bumper
crops, and whose storehouses are full to
bursting. Here is the point where theorizing
terminates, and those in authority must deal
with an actual condition The war is over
has, in fact been over for nine months and
yet every month shows an increase in the
cost or living. No one pretends to say that
there is shortage in any food crop, for there
is plethora rather than scarcity, and still
the figures steadily increase. The farmer is
getting fair prices, but the fault is not his
for it is after the potatoes, the onions, the
wheat. the cattle and pigs leave his hands
that the organized robbery begins. Now the
time has come when America showered by
Providence with bountiful harvests and other
necessities in profusion, demands that those
things which sustain life be made available
at prices within reach of the national rocket
book. The President and Congress have
heard the demand On immediate future &C
ton the national security may depend