Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1919-08-09
TEXT OF PRESIDENTS
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS

Washington, Aug. S.-President
Wilson'S address to congress today
embodying recommendations designed
to reduce the cost of living follows:
Gentlemen OF the congress; have
sought this opportunity to address
you because 1t is clearly my duty 20
call your attention to the present cost
of living and to urge upon you with
all the persuasive forces Of which I
am capable the legislative measures
which would be most effective In con-
trolling it and bringing 1t down. The
prices the people of this country arc
paying for everything that it is neces-
sary 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 artlficially and
deliberately created by vicious prac-
tices which pught Immediately to be
checked by law. They constitute o
burden upon us which is the mora
unbearable because we know that it Is
wilfully imposed by those who have
the power and that it can by vigorous
action be greatly lightened and made
to square with the actual conditions
of supply ard demand. 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 proceeded
against, but others have not vet been
brought under the law and should be
dealt with at once by legislation,
Prices Too High.
II need not recite the particulars
Of this critical matter; the prices de-
manded and paid at the sources OF
supply, at the factory in the food
ma ri bot OF ha oh To-
rants and hotels, alike in the city and
in the village. They are familiar to
you. They are the talk of every
domestic circle and of every group Of
casual acquaintances even 1t is a
matter of familiar knowledge, also.
that process has set in which Is
likely, unless something is done, to
push prices and rents and the whole
cost of living higher and yet higher,
in a vicious cycle to which there is no
logical or natural end With the in
crease in the prices of the necessaries
of life come demands for increases In
which are iustifiable
If there be no other means of enab-
ling men to live. Upon the increase
of wages there follows close an in
crease in the price of the products
whose producers have accorded tho
crease, 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. The laborers
who do not get an increase in pay
when they demand II are likely to
strike, and the strike only makes mat
ters worse, 1t checks production.
1t affects the railways, II prevents dis
tribution and strips the markets, so
that there is presently nothing to buv
and there is another excessive addi-
tion to prices resulting from the
scarcity.
No Immediate Remedy.
These are facts and forces with
which we have become only too FAM
ilar, but we are not jutified because
of our familiarity with them or
because of any hasty and shall
low conclusion that they are
natural" and inevitable, in sit
work their fatal results if there is
anything that we can do to check.
or reverse them. l have
sought this opportunity to inform the
congress what the executive is doing
by way of remedy and control, and to
suggest where effective legal remedies
are lacking and may be supplied.
We must | think, frankly admit
hat there is no complete immediate
'emedy to be had from legislation and
executive action. The free processes
# supply and demand will not oper-
ite of themselves and no legislative or
executive action can force them into
ull and natural operation until there
$ peace. There is now neither peace
lor war. All the world is waiting
With what unnerving fears and haunt
ng doubts who can adequately say
waiting to know when It comes--a
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