Norwich bulletin., 1920-09-17

in 6 western Massachusetts city. On it | were displayed some apples. Fancy l New York Apples was on the card'l above them. l asked the nrice. Fifty 1 cents a dozen," was the answer. This, 1 your arithmetic will tell you, is q trihe ] over four cents apiece. I have picked barrels of just such ap pies. They were not really Fancy" tjust good fair fruit.; what would ba commercially graded as Class A, No. 1. ! They will run about fifty to the peck i; e., about five hundred and fifty to the eleven-peck barrel That makes thair 1 retail price per barrel in Massachusetts l four times five hundred and fifty, or $2a a barrel. l 1 The newspapers report that thirty thousand carloads of good fall apples are going to waste and rot in western New Yor1s big fruit district, simply get enough for them to pay wages de-
 manded for picking them, prices asked for barrels and charges exacted for 1 transportation. They are not able to get i one-quarter Of the S22 retail price; not
 one-eighth; not one-tenth. even. They would pick and ship them if they could get even as much as S2.25 barrei--the ] empty barrels alone costing them SIPS ! each in carload lots. They would pick
 them and ship them, though the small sum left after buying the barrel hardly paid wages. They would Go it as they
 and other farmers have done so many things. 50 many times before, for the sake of the hungry muititudes or the
 cities, and out of their own inherited
 vocational hatred for seeing good things
 go to waste But they can't get offers
 of over $1.50 a barrel. If they should sseIl a. that price. it would mean that
 they would give the apples away and pay somewhere between fifty and sew
 enty-iiv cents barrel for the privilege
 of doing so.
 That last proposition is currently re-
 garded, even in farming circles, as 'too
 much pork for a shilling.
 Furthern,ore. the injury of the paItry
 offer is changed to unDardonable insult
 by the fact. known to all fr1Iit-growers, that, if accepted, it would mean no aid
 to the final consumers Of the apples, but only increased profteering spells to the
 speculators aud middlemen between said
 consumefs and the apple trees,
 sThe same condition exists in regard to other fruits. Last night q neighbor told
 me that her mother living in Boston, x had had to give up all idea of canning
 any peaches, this fall because they cost
 S4 busheI. and, at the high price of
 sugar, she couldn't afford them.
 i-f CT, 8u LiiO6e same western New 1,oFS
 fruit farms and in the almost equally
 productive peach regions of the Hudson
 and Mohawk valleys in the same state
 the ground under the peach trees is GOV
 Tered with fallen fruit, because the grow
 CTS can't get even fifty cents a bushe
 for picking and packingi it.:
 The human race has had, according tC
 l various estimates. not far from si1
 lthousand years to learn how to live ant
 Hlet live And it apparently hasn't ye
 learned even the ABC of that alphabet
 IL has indeed, learned how to gougt
 and be gouged. But that is a differen , process and a different cducation-on t in which the hogs and hyenas have ,,'' certain natural and instinctive superior I, ity over mere men.
 c The thoughtful student of history an ie'i of current events can't help seeing, il IS what we self-conceitedly call "cfviliza g tion,' at least three staring instances 0 n complete and utter failure, not only [
 attain righteousness, but to reach eve n passable and tolera64e efficiency.
 10 One of those three is ill our conduct 0 q what we call business but whic sr should really be chased as 8 compoun n. of bungling and buecaneering,
 That. after six thousand yeats of tim If 1 in which to think it over, try it out, an is perfect il, the human race should hay y evolved no more equitable or capabl m system of exchange than that un1e fl which things are managed, now. is 8
 indictment of the races intenigence an h. virtue which its keenest apologists ca e answer only with prevaricatioh and bur d kun and a begging of the question. n It is only a couple of hundred mile y from the loaded and wasting fruit ol t. chards of New York to the factor l. towns of New Nngland. And yet, tn e best that our SIX thousand years. con l. trol of affairs can enable us to do is t g let the fruit rot on the ground, and tn
 factory or city workers go hungry. be l. cause "business' hasn't yet been able {
 devise a way to get it 8 hundred or tw
 miles. from the tree to the table, wit
 reasonable equity at both ends of tn route and in between
 s If that isn't failure that is next doc st to a crime, then there is no force in tn Ie bankruptcy laws of the moral universe. IT Herodotus, the old Greek historian > whe wrote more than 400 years B. c " reported according to Byron's para a phrase, that "the ancient Persian a taught three useful things, to run, t y ride a horse, to soeak the truth" An le he elsewhere reco1 that>x2 certain Per c. sian king, being once besought by am ,e oassadors from 8 Greek state to al 3f them in their war against a stronge h. enemy, made diligent inquiry into thei 's habits and customs, and then replied ,r with unconcealed contempt, that h l. would make no alliance with 8 peopl e, of such depraYed morals that they deiit m erately set aside a square in the cente re of their city for citizens to meet an Il cheat others on;
 r Now, the Persians were by no mean " wholly admirable in their own morals They were willing enough to take thing = by force, but abhorred sneaking theI - away from their owners by chicane an
 trickery. And in this particular cas
 quoted by HerodotuE, their king evident ly. had the right pig by the tail. Tn at trouble with. that pig is and always ha l. been that 1t is. greased pig-grease l. to the tip of it's tapering tail, and nc ,e body has ever yet been able to hold 0 re to it long enough to clean it up. Indeed Ia there is no visible evidence that man n men have ever tried to.
 d. The simple fact stnnds out clearl Id that all the complicated inventions ( III business, and all it's boasted perfectio le of technique can't get 8 quart of mil IS from the dairy to the dinner-table, nor d. bushel of fruit from the grower to th Id eater, with either economy or efficienc. SO Nor even wNh decent fairness to eithe ly producer or consumer
 This seasons condition is not . ne a- one. I wouldn't even say that it r. worse than many others which have prt y ceded it.>x Forty years ago. when I va r. living in Connecticut city, wandere, O. one September day, along little trave e. led road in Portland. At one side was le peach orchard, the trees hanging full { 1n fr1Iif tl7e crnrnd 1fndar fI1ar1