The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1920-04-15

Mr.. Herbert Johnsons cartoon is eloquenty illustrative of the
mistaken attitude of the public in general. Honest business"
has been harried, suspected, investigated and regulated, and
out of the thousands of prosecutions and Investigations, the
merchant has come with colors flying. The convictions have
been so few that they have scarcely been noticeable.
And still, the profiteer hunt goes merrily on. Federal de-
partnaents having taken it UP, are slow to relinquish the chase.
Cold storage houses have been raided and the contents thrown
on the market without making old Hy Cost even bat an eye.
Labor unions, women's clubs, political organizations, individuals
and state and county officials, have all joined in the mad, pur-
poseless hunt for the profiteer.
Much dust was raised as everybody became busy investiga-
ting everybody else. The chase led the general public around a
wide circle, but the quarry proved elusive.
1t gradually dawned upon a good many people that the prof
ieer was not to be found among the merchants. Government
officials were first to admit failure and the first to admit that
the merchants of the country were pretty close to 100 per cent
honest; out of the thousands upon thousands of Investigations,
accusations and prosecutions, but a patry few have been found
who were really guilty of exacting too large a margin of profit.
Government officials, returning from the hunt with
empty game bags, have agreed with noted economists
that the merchant has had nothing whatever to do with
rising prices and that the ~profiteer, existing only in iso-
lated cases, was the result of the condition of initiation
and high prices rather than the cause of them.
The public also has by this time become rather gener-
ally convinced that the merchant is not the profiteer that
everybody has been out cunning for. People are becom-
ing convinced that there are deep, underlying causes for
high prices. 1t is now generally understood that the
merchants of any community are as honest and respect
able as they used to be in the good old days when the shoe
man gave away shoe strings to his customers and the
butcher occasionally ''threw in'' a soup bone.
IF the legislation which was attempted in Montana had
been so designed that it would have been possible to do
away with the merchants net profit altogether, the saw
ing to the public would have been so slight that it would
scarcely have been noticeable and would have had no
effect whatever on the general condition existing.
On the other hand, the public should know that the retailers
of this state and throughout the nation have actually made
smaller profits during the long period of rising prices and rising
operating costs than they made in normal times. The consumer
should know that the merchant must now be content with a con-
siderably lower margin of net profit on his years volume of
business and that high prices have not brought him any real adj
ditional prosperity.
Few have stopped to think that every merchant views with
increasing uneasiness the time when prices will commence to go
down and find him helpless with a stock of high priced merch-
andse on his shelves.
And during the coming months, whether prices commence
to come down or continue to rise, the merchants of the state will
gradually win back the confidence of the public which was lost
told it will be found that the retailer has fought a good fight,
in SO far as he was able, to stem the tide of rising prices. 1t will
be found that he has proven the most determined and undiscour-
aged champion of the consumer and probably did more than any o
other factor in keeping prices as nearly as possible within the
bounds of reason.
Out of the condition of initiation and resulting high prices
come some real benefits and some economists insist that the
public should not welcome a general falling of prices. The
working people have never been more prosperous than they are
now. and there is work for all. The nation has never been SO
fed as it is today. There have been no soup kitchens nor
bread lines in any city in the United States during the past win
or for one were needed.