Gilpin observer., 1919-08-14
Comprehensive Extension of the
Present Food Control Act
Is Recommended.
SITUATION CRITICAL AND Diff.
Cult AND MUST BE MET WITH
COURAGE AND RESOURCE.
Calm and Deliberate Consideration
Rather Than Hasty Action Is Called
For by the Present Situa-
ton Of the Country.

Observation-Disclosures of the pres.
ent food control act, both as to its pe.
riou OF operation and to include all
commodities indisputably necessaries
OF life regulation of cold storage to
uefine the limits within which food.
stuifs can be held; marking of all
goous 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 will provide for COM
petltlve selling, and passage of the
pending bin giving the capital issues
committee control of security issues,
are the remedies proposed by Presi-
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:
nave sought this opportunity to ad-
dress you because it is clearly my duty
10 rnii your attention to the present cost
OF hVlhg 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 It down
Tne prices the people of this country are
paying for everything that II Is necessary
Tor them to use in order to live are not
justified by a shortage in supply, either
present or prospective, and are in many
cases artihcially and deliberately created
by vicious practices which ought imme-
diately to be checked by law
Profiteers lawbreakers.
some OF the methods by which these
prices are produced are already Illegal.
some of them criminal and those who
employ them will be energetically pro-
ceeded against. But others have not vet
peen brought under the law. and should
be dealt with at once by legislation.
win the increase in the prices of the
necessaries OF life come demands for in
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 increase-not a proportionate
increase, for the manufacturer does not
content himself with that, but an in
crease considerably greater than the
added wage cost and for which the added
wage cost Is oftentimes hardly more than
an excuse.
Ihe iaDorers who do not get an increase
In pay when they demand 1t are likely
TO strike. and the strike only makes mat
ters worse.
1t checks production II II affects the
railways 1t prevents distribution and
strips the markets; SO that there is pres
emily nothing to buy, and there Is another
excessive addition to prices resulting from
the scarcity.
Conditions Not "NaturaI."
These are facts and forces with which
we have become only too familiar: but
we are not justified because of our famil-
iarity 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 IL there is anything that we
can 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
demand will not operate of themselves.
and no legislative or executive action can
force them into fun and natural operation
until there is peace.
Must Know Terms of Peace.
There can be no confidence in indus
ry, no calculable basis for credits, no
confident buying of systematic selling
10 certain prospect of employment no |
FORMAL restoration of business no |
lopeful attempt at reconstruction or a
proper reassembling of the dislocated
dement's of enterprise until peace has |
u established. and. so far as may be |
Our national life has no |
loubt been less radically disturbed and |
than the national life of i
ther peoples whom the war more di- |
ectly affected. with all its terrible
avaging and destructive force. but 1t
Ias been nevertheless profoundly af-
ected and disnrranged, and our indus
ries. our credits our productive ca
acity. our economic processes are In
xtricably interwoven with those OF
ther nations and peoples-most init
nately of all with the nations and peo-
les upon whom the chief burden and
onfusion OF the war fell and who
re now most dependent upon the CO.
perative action of the world.
Exports Greatest In History.
We are just now shipping more goods
70 ever shipped before-not foodstufrs
ierely. but stufrs and materials of every
ort: but this is no index of what our
'reign sales will continue to be or OF
ne enect the volume of our exports
III have on supplies and prices. 1t is
npossible yet to predict how far or
ow long foreign purchasers will be
Die TO ind the money or the credit to
ny FOR or sustain such purchases on
lch scale; how soon or to what extent
reign manufacturers can resume their
'rmer production, foreign farmers get
leir accustomed crops from their own
elds; foreign mines resume their former
itput. foreign merchants set up again
ieir old machinery OF trade with the
1ds OF the earth. All these things must
main uncertain until peace is estab-
shed and the nations OF the world have