The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-08-09
President Wilson Also Asks
for Enactment of Cold
Storage Law
RELEASED GOODS BE
MARKED FIRST PRICE
Recommendations of Far.
reaching Nature Made
to Congress


Congress yesterday and proposing rene
dies to check the high cost OF living,
President Wilson declared that existing
laws were inadequate and that high
prices were not justified by shortage of
supply, present or prospective, but were
created in many cases 'artifcially and
deliberately" by practices"
The president recommended that the
food control act be extended to peace
time operation and that Congress exclude
from interstate, as we'll as mira. Estate
shipments, goods which did not comply
with its provisions.
The president also recommended that
the food law be provided with a substan-
tal penalty for profteering and that a
cold storage law be enacted, modelled
after the law in New Jersey by which
time limit be placed on cold storage.
He also recommended that all goods re-
leased from cold storage be marked with
the price prevailing when they went into
storage. He further recommended that
goods in interstate commerce be marked
with the prices at which they left the
producers. It would serve as useful
example, if Congress would enact legis-
lation to control the situation in the Dis
trict of Columbia, where it has unlimited
authority,
Further, the president recommended a
federal licensing system for corporations
engaged in interstate commerce, which
would embody regulations to insure COM
petitive selling "and prevent unconscion-
able profits in the meth of marketing
he also urged prompt passage of the law
pending to control security issues.
Making an appeal for the ratification
of the paece treaty to turn the country
from war basis, the president said:
"There can be no peace so long as our
whole financial and economic system is
on war basis"
"A process has set in" the president
told Congress, (which is likely, unless
something is done, to push prices and
rents and the whole cost Of living high
err and yet higher in a vicious cycle to
which there is no logical or natural end.
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"
Demands for increases of wages, &C.
companying the rising costs of living, the
president said, were justified ''if there be
no other means of enabling men to live. +"
while there is any possibility that
the peace terms may be changed" said
the president, referring to his plea for
early ratification of the treaty so that
the country may be turned back from a
war basis, cor may be held long in abey-
anee or may not be enforced because of
divisions Of opinions among the powers
associated against Germany, it is idle to
look for permanent relief"
Surplus stocks of food and clothing
in the hands of the government, the
president said, would be sold, and boards
of food in private hands would be forced
out under the existing provisions of the
food control law.
Dealers eager to reap a harvest of ris-
ing prices who had accumulated boards,
the president said, would not see the
disadvantage as well as the danger of
holding off from the new processes of
distribution"
The normal operation Of the laws of
supply and demand, the president said,
had been set at naught in the cases Of
many necessary commodities. He cited
the figures of the federal trade commits
sion showing rising prices in the face of
greater stocks of food than were on
hand in the country year ago
The pending bill to regulate security
issues, the president referred to as a
measure which "would do much to stop
speculation and to prevent the fradu-
lent methods of promotion by which
our people are annually feeced of many
millions of hard earned money"
Besides asking for the remedies he
proposed, the president called on Con-
gress and the public to deal with the
subject deliberately. He appealed to
merchants and others to deal fairly with
the people and to housewives to exer-
else "a greater vigilance, more thought
full economy"
Leaders Of organized labor, the presi-
dent said he was sure will presently
yield to second sober thought and like
the great mass of their associates think
and act like Americans"
Strikes undertak IN at this time, the
president said, would only make matters
was and he expressed his confidence
that the labor men would realize it.
No remedy is possible while men are
in temper" said the president, "and
there can be no settlement which does
not have as its motive and standard
the general interest"
The president warned Congress, how.
ever that no complete and immediate
remedy was to be found in legislation
or immediate action. Processes of sup
ply and demand would not operate of
themselves while the country was mel.
Their at peace nor at war
Where there is no peace o. mind there
can be no energy of endeavors," said the
president. Politically, socially, eco
nomically, the world is on the operating
table, and it has not yet been possible
to administer any anisthetic
There can be no confidence in indus
try, no calculable basis for credits, no
confident buying or systematic selling,
no certain prospect Of employment, no
normal restoration of business, no hope.
full attempt at reconstruction or the
proper re-assembling of the dislocated
elements of enterprise until peace has
been established and so far as may be.
guaranteed"
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