The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1920-01-22
REAL PROF|TEER|NG
FOUND IN PROCESS
Of DISTRIBUTION

There Is much noise being made lust
now by the federal Department. OF jus
tice. District attorneys and their sub
ordinates are telling what they are
going to do to profiteers--if they can
only find the proflteers.
Our Washington correspondent point
ed them out In our last issue prof
iteering occurs between the producer
and the consumer, with the weight OF
evidence showing that every handler of
food products gets q share" Can any
body doubt that this is a fair statement
OF the case--that II profiteering is to
re defined as the taking of profits larger
than had been customary before the
war and larger than were necessary to
give fair return for the service rem
dered, practically every merchant in
the country has been and is now
profiteer.
Nor are the merchants the only per-
sons to whom the war and It's resultant
upsetting OF business practices and ira
dition brought increased profits. The
manufacturing interests have made
sums almost beyond comprehension: the
farmers have, In most cases. secured
Profits far above normal from their
farming Everybody has been profiteer-
ing in a sense except the people living
on stationary salaries or fixed incomes.
When reimbursement comes, however,
and the Industrial spree is over it viii
almost certainly be found that great
mass of wealth has been transferred
from the pockets OF the producing and
the consuming classes to the pockets
OF the classes In between. The real
profiteering has been In the processes
Of distribution. and this is true Of most
other things as we'll as Of foodstuffs.
Now, any cutlery against middlemen
as class will get US nowhere. They
have been doing simply the thing they
have been trained and expected to do
that Is, they have been getting all they
could out Of their business They are
no more TO be blamed for doing 1t than
the rest Of us are even though they
have been making things pretty hard
for some OF the rest OF us while doing
II. Nor viii they be stopped from doing
II by anything the department Of JUS
tice can do,
1t Is the system that is wrong The
men who transfer the necessary COM
modities of life from producer to con-
sumner should not be men working sole
ly for their own interests and so in
terested IN making the processes OF
distribution just as expensive as pos
sible. They should be agents OF either
the producers or the consumers, work
ing to make and paid for making, these
processes just as inexpensive as posi-
BILE.
OF course, no such radical change In
our business institutions is going to
be brought about In a few months
not even in a few years or few de-
cades. II can be started, however. and
every step toward II viii not only re-
duce the actual cost Of the processes
Of distribution, but will make 1t harder
for the distributors to take more than
a fair wage for their work, II the en-
ergy that Is being put into this anti
crusade could be turned TO
he promotion Of cooperative selling on
he part OF the consumers II might Gre
ate less commotion, but II would do
more good.
Cheaper processes Of distribution must
,e worked out by the parties Interested
the producers and the consumers. The
distributors are not going TO work them
,ut. there is no reason why. they
hould II farmers do not want better
markets sufficiently to organize TO get
hem. II consumers do not desire cheap
r foods sufficiently to combine TO buy
hem, things are likely to. continue Just
bout as they are.-Southern Agricul-
urist.