The Idaho Springs siftings-news., 1919-08-15
WOULD EXTEND
WAR CONTROL
OF ALL FOOD
That, and Provision of Penalties
for Profiteering, Advocated
by the President.
TO FORCE SALE OF SURPLUS
In Address to Congress the Chief Ex-
ecutive Makes Assertion That We
"Are Dealing With Very Criti-
cal and Difficult Matters"


Washington.-Addr congress
and proposing remedies to check the
high cost # living, President Wilson
declared existing laws were made
quate and high prices were not justi-
fed by shortage of supplies. present
or prospective, but were created in
many cases "artiticially and deliber-
ately" by vicious practices"
He spoke practically as follows:
Gentlemen of the Congress:
1 have sought this opportunity to ad-
dress you because it is clearly my duty
to 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 it down.
The prices the people of this country are
paying for everything that it 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 artificially and deliberately created
by vicious practices which ought imme-
dately to be checked by law.
Profiteers Lawbreakers.
Some of the methods by which these
prices are produced are already illegal,
sorte of them criminal, and those who
employ 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
necessities of life come demands for in
creases in wages-demands which are
justified if there be 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 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.
The laborers 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 If 1t affects the
railways it 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-
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 If there is anything that we
can do to check. correct or reverse them
We must, / think, frankly admit that
there is complete immediate remedy
to be had from legisla ton 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 calcula Bile basis for credits. no
confident buying of systematic selling,
no certain prospect of employment, no
normal restoration of buriness. no
hopeful attempt at reconstruction or a
proper reassembling of the dslocated
elements of enterprise until peace has
been established, and. SO far as may be.
guaranteed. Our national life has
doubt been less radically disturbed and
dsmembered than the national life of
other peoples whom the war more di-
rectly affected. with all its terrible
ravaging and destructive force, but 1t
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-
confusion of the war fell and who
are now most dependent upon the CO.
operative action of the world
Exports Greatest in History.
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
foreign sales will continue to be of
the effect the volume of our exports
will have supplies and prices. 1t is
impossible yet to nredict how far or
how long foreign purchasers will be
able to find the money or the credit to
pay for sustain such purchases on
such scale; how soon to what extent
foreign manufacturers resume their
former production, foreign farmers get
their accustomed crops from their own
fields; foreign mines resume their former
output, 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-
llshed and the nations of the world have
concerted the methods by which normal
life and industry to be restored.
All that we shall do in the mean
time to restrain profiteerng and put
the life of our people upon tolerable
footing will be makeshift and provi-
sional There can be no settled condi-
tlon here or elsewhere until the treaty
of peace is out of the way and the
work of liquidating the has be-
come the chief concern of our govern
ment and of the other governments of
the world
Europe will not cannot recoup her