Williams news., 1919-08-22
HIGH PRICES
 DECLARED ID
 BE ARTIFICIAL
President Addresses Congress on Subject of High Cost
 of Living.
LAWS ARE NOT ADEQUATE
Chief Executive Declares 'Vicious Practices" Are Responsible for Perilous Situation Which Faces
 the Nation-Makes lmpor-
 tant Recommendations.

tant Recommendations.
 Washington. = Addressing congress and proposing remedies to check the high cost of living, President Wilson declared that existing laws were made Quate and that high prices were not justified by shortage of supplies, pres ent or prospective, but were created in many cases "artihcially and deliber- ately' by "vicious practices"
 The president recommended that the food control act be extended to peace time operation and that congress exclude from interstate as well as lntrastate shipments goods which did not eemply with it's provisions.
 His address was as follows:
 Gentlemen of the Congress-:
 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 1t down.
 The prices the people of this country are paying for everything that it is necessary
 
 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- diately to be checked by law.
 They constitute a burden upon us which is the more unbearable because we know that 1t is wilfully imposed by those who have the power and that it can by vigor- ous public action be greatly frightened and made to square with the actual conditions of supply and demand.
 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 yet been brought under the law, and should be dealt with at once by legislation.
 I need not recite the particulars of this critical matter; the prices demanded and paid at the sources of supply, at the fac tory, in the food markets, at the shops in the restaurants 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. It 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 vicious cycle to which there is no logical or natural end.
 
 necessaries of life come demands for in creases in wages-demands which 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 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 fin pay when they demand it are likely to strike, and the strike only makes mat ters worse.
 It checks production; if it affects the 1t prevents distribution and strips the markets; so that there is pres ently 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 iarity with them or because of any nasty and shallow conclusion that they are natural and inevitable, in sitting inac- lively by and letting them work their fa- tai results if there is anything that we can do to check, correct reverse them.
 I have sought this opportunity to in form 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,.I 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, force them into full and natural operation until there is peace. There is now neither peace nor war. All the world it waiting-with what un- nerving fears and haunting doubts who can adequately say?-waiting to know when it shall have peace and what kind of peace 1t will be when it comes-a peace m which nation shall make shift for by the will and concert of the nations that have the. purpose and the power to do and to enforce what is right. Politically, economically, socially the | world is on the operating table, and it has 1ot been possible to administer any anaes- | -hetic. It is conscious. It even watches | the capital operation upon which it knows | that its hopes of healthfu1 life depends. | It cannot think its business out or make plans or give intelligent and provident di- | rection to it's affairs while in such a case. Where there is no peace of mind there | ;an be no energy in endeavor.
 Must Know Terms of Peace.
 There can be no confidence in indus | ny, no calculable basis for credits, no | confident buying of systematic selling | 90 certain prospect of employment no normal restoration of business no | hopeful attempt at reconstruction or a | proper reassembling of the dislocated | clements of enterprise until peace has ,een established, and, so far as may be guaranteed. Our national life has no ioubt been less radically disturbed and iismembered than the national life of other peopler whom the war more di- -ectly affected, with all its terrible ava ging and destructive force but it las been nevertheless profoundly af- ected and disarranged, and our indus ries. our credits. our productive ca