The Washington times., 1920-08-06

Wheat Rises, War Ceming7
Read the "Want Ads" a
Not Hurting Harding.
Animals In a Flood. .
IRTHUR. BRISBA
Copyright. isso.),

by ARTHUR. BRISBANE
tcopyrisht isse),
The price Of wheat Is going up.
II went up ten cents q bushel
yesterday. Somebody thinks An
other big war is coming. Wheat
to make men strong and high ex-
plosives to kill them are the two
important things in war.
More important, because more
real and sure than another big
war, is the sudden change in labor
conditions. That interests the
hundred millions in this. country,
workers, employers. and the FAM
lilies of both.
Help wanted" advertisements
indicate TIE condition of the labor
market. In one single newspaper,
the number of Help wanted" ad-
vertisements has dropped more
than ten thousand q week. That
is REAL news. Intelligent citi-
zens will study it,. and think about
1t. 1t means many things, includ-
ing this: ~
The man who nop holds job
that he likes or needs wiu find 10
worth WhIe to do enough york
to keep the JOB.
The eminently respectable New
York Times, speaking for its
financial friends, rebukes Senator
Harding for saying, This Gov
ernment should make its Liberty
and Victory bonds worth all its
patriotic citizens paid in purchas-
ing them"
The Times, organ of large fnan-
cial interests and supporting the
Peace League that the interests
need "in their business" asks this
question:
"Why should the Republican
candidate for the Presidency ladle
out financial ideas which are both
crude and perilous?"
Is it really "crude and perilous"
to suggest that a Government
bond should be kept at its face
value? That "crude and Sperilous"
talk was not the sort that the
Times ladled out to patriotic citi-
zens when big business wanted
those citizens to buy Government
bonds and enable the Government
to pay profits to the profteers.
The Times is mistaken if it
thinks to injure Mr.. Harding by
publishing the fact that he would
like to see the man who lent Uncle
Sam d hundred dollars in war get
back that hundred dollars and not
eighty-four dollars, when. he needs
the money.
Every little while, in spite o..
itself. the dear old Government
makes good bargain. 1t has not
happened recently, not at Hog Is
land, for instance, or in the "air-
craft" band Of 81 a year patriot
GERS.
But it did happen when this
Government bought Alaska for
eight millions. Besides coal, gold,
timber, millions of acres of good
land, in Alaska, the Government
got the Pribiloff Islands, and the
seal fisheries.
When we bought Alaska there
were more than three million seals
in the herd. Greed and stupidity
cut the herd down to a quarter of
a million. This country arranged
to pay England, Russia and Japan
a part of the sealing profits if
they would stop killing the ami
mails in the open sea. Now the
herd is growing and will be as big
. as it ever was. Soon one hundred
thousand sealskins will be taken
each year without diminishing the
herd and pay this Government
fourteen million dollars annually,
not a bad annual return on an in
VeSCrnent OF elRnC fnlluOn.
To know what is happening in
a country watch the price of food,
the price of labor, and especially
watch the demand for labor.
The other day the Pennsylvania
Railroad discharged twelve thou
sand men from one division.
1t is announced now that one of
the biggest concerns in Chicago
has planned to discharge ten thou
sand of it's twenty-four thousand
employees. That is cutting down
with a vengeance. Workers and
employers need to know about it.
While we are thinking over our
own little problems, The great prob