Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1919-08-09
Presidents Address
CONTINUED from Page one)

does not content himself WIN tu3t,
but an increase considerably greater
than the added wage cost and for
which the added wage cost is often
times hardly more than an excuse.
The laborers who do not get an in
crease in pay when they demand it
are likely to strike and the strike
only makes matters worse. 1t checks
production. It affects the rail-
ways. it prevents distribution and
stops the markets. so that there is
presently nothing to buy and there is
another excessive addition to prices
resulting from the scarcity.
These are facts and forces with
which we have become only too fami-
liar. but we are not justified because
OF our familiarity with them or be-
cause Of any hasty and shallow con-
illusions that they are Natural and
inevitable in sitting inactively by and
letting them work their fatal results
If there is anything that we can do
to check. correct or reverse them. I
have sought this opportunity to in
form the Congress what the executive
is doing by way of remedy and con-
troll. and 10 suggest where effective
legal remedies are lacking and may
be supplied.
Neither Peace Nor War Now
I'VE must, I think, frankly admit
that there is no complete immediate
remedy to be had from legislation and
| executive action. The free process 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. There is now neither peace
nor war. All the world is waiting
| with what unnerving fears and
haunting doubts who can adequately
say? waiting to know when it
! comes-a peace in which each ma
| ton shall make shift for itself as ii
can. or a peace outtressed and sup
ported by the will and concert of the
nations that have the purpose and the
| power to do and enforce what is right
World on Operating Table
| Politically, economically. socially
the world is on the operating table
and it has not been possible to ad-
minister any anaesthetic. 1t is con-
scious. 1t even watches the capital
| operation upon which it knows tina,
its hope OF healthful life depends. II
cannot think its business out oil
make plans or give intelligent and
| provident direction to its affairs while
in such a case. Where there is nc
peace Of mind there can be no ener.
gy in endeavor. There can be nc
| confidence in, industry, no calculable
basis for credits, no confident buy
| ing. no systematic selling, no certain
| prospect Of employment, no norma
restoration of business. no hopeful
attempt at reconstruction or the
| proper reassembling Of the dislocatec
elements of enterprise until peace ha:
been established, and, SO far as may
be, guaranteed.
Our national life has no doubt beer
less radically disturbed and dismem
bered than the national life of othe!
peoples whom the war more directly
affected, with all its terrible ravag-
ing and destructive force, but 1t has
been. nevertheless, profoundly affect
ed and disarranged and our indus
tries. our credits, our productive ca
pacity, our economic processes are in
| SASA tNaOly thtCE WOtSH Will IuOSc Oh
ether nations and peoples-most in
timately of all with the nations and
peoples upon whom the chief bur-
den and confusion Of the war fell
and who are now most dependent
upon cooperative action Of the world.
+. Big Volume Of Exports
I'VE are just now shipping more
fynO1S ont Of o,Ir norfS n foraiop
kets than we ever shipped before
not foodstuffs merely, but stuffs and
materials Of every sort; but this is
no index of what our foreign sales
will continue to be or of the effect
the volume Of our exports will have
on supplies and prices. It is impos-
sible yet to predict how far or how
long foreign purchasers will be able
to find the money or the credit for
pay for or sustain such purchases on
such a scale. How soon or to what
extent of foreign manufacturers can
resume their former production, for.
eign farmers get their accustomed
crops from their own fields, foreign
mines resume their former output.
foreign merchants set up again their
cid machinery Of trade with the ends
OF the earth. All these things must
remain uncertain until peace is es-
tablished and the nations of the world
have concerted the methods by which
normal life and industry are to be re-
stored. All that we shall do, in the
meantime. to restrain profiteerins
and put the life Of our people upon
tolerable footing will be makeshift
and provisional. There can be no set
TIED conditions here or elsewhere un-
I'll the treaty of peace is out of the
way and the work of liquidatine the
war mas become the chief concern of
our government and of the other
governments Of the world. Until then
BUSINESS VIII inevitably remain spec
uia.'Ve ana sway now to this WAY
ana again that, with heavy losses OF
GAINS as IL may chance and the con
sumner must take care of both This
gains and the losses. While thsra &c
any possibility that the peace tsrrrs
may be changed or may be held Iore
in allegiance or may not be enforca d
because OF divisions of opinion amone
the powers associated against Ger.
many. 1t is idle to look for permanen,
relief.
Plenty Of Wheat
But what We can do we should do
and should do at once. And there is
a great deal that we can do Nnrovi :
sional thought may be. Wheat shin.
ments ana credits to facilitate the
purchase OF our wheat can and will
be limited and controlled in such a
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