Norwich bulletin., 1920-12-17

who do, and who charge him more than they paid. If they paid only sixty-dve | cents for the materials of that meal, l they charged him s1.25.- l Um-m, yes, very likely that is so But 1 I have just read of an association be- 1 ing formed among hotel men in that same city to see if they can't buy direct of the producers and thus save at least one exorbitant toll. Here it is 1920- almost 1921-and this primary school, lkindergartenish plan has only just oc- toured to those remarkable hotel-keep- ersi Even now they admit that they. ] don't know it will work" but they are talking it up and hope to be able to try
 the experiment.
 When we were small boys we didn't wait 1920 years to discover whether the. old swimmin'-hole was over our heads or not. We waded, in and found out. But then we were not "smart'' business men of the metropolis. We were just
 shock headed boys and had never heard of efficiency" Though I believe most of us had heard, in one way or another.
 of something called common sense" Isn't that antiquated virtue permitted below Spuyten Duyvil?
 Tho testaurant-keeper will also tell
 you of his high rent, of the soaring price l of coal for his cooking ranges, of the
 big wages he has to pay-"$75 a
 month and board for a dishwashern-
 of his lavish outlay for garish decora-
 tions and jazz music Perhaps he
 will do as some milk distributors are re-
 lported to have done; i. e., prove by his own books that he is making hardly a fraction of cent profit
 l was once told by an expert ac-
 countant that, wi.h the right books, ju- diciously kept by the right sort of book keeper, it was possible to prove almost anything-except the truth
 good many men who ought to have
 been hung, years ago, are still wander ing around the world because their l shrewd lawyers by careful use of judic- iously arranged testimony were able tc | 'prove" them innocent-or, at least, not . guilty.
 When you get down to the bottom ot ; things, it makes very little difference, i. $ of small importance or interest, even what these profiteers plead or. what the, U pretend to prove.
 There are certain truths which ar e automatic. They are called axioms be . cause their truth is so evident at frs n sight that no process of reasoning 0 C demonstration can make it plainer." I | is an axiom, for instance that par = can never be greater than the whole '- Yet, when you pay $40 cents for a din . ner, the whole food value of which i 'e sixty-flve cents you're paying s3.45 fo
 the part which is really of. the least i'm g portance. If part can't. be greate ct than the whole how can it be wort IF more?
 y But what's the uSe of choppins ar c. guments over self-evident facts? Ever = living man knows, as he knows that h " is living and that the. sun shines, ths Is real working efficiency and true bus st ness ability and reasonable public spil of 1t, if once hitched up together, woul g. promptly make it not only possible bl at inevitable that the city consumer shoul ss get a sixty-five cent dinner for a goo
 deal less than SAID
 at As I have. said before, the mel w sta ten1ent of the case is more than a h. indictment; it. is a conviction. It isn en necessary to prove what all the worl Id knows. You don't need a surveyor wit a. compass and theodolite, nor a doc-C od with stethoscope and X-ray apparatu k nor a scientist with microscope and te. at tube to tell you that a hog is a ho,
 You know it the minute you look at hij
 and see him feed.
 i'll Heaven profect us from socialism Ie the sort which the ordinary sociali 1t breaches! Its adoption would dump I he out of the frying-pan into the fire Bl
 can't the profiteers, (and in that ter Y must be included the prohteers of labe as well as capi.aD, can't they see tns
 they are doing more than ~an the otht
 forces of the universe combined
 plunge us into that furnace of destrut tion? Are they, after all, such hopeIes ly degenerate creatures as to act delil erately in the spirit of the old sayin After me, the deluge?" Or are the simply so blinded by greed as to be ul able to see the precipice towards whie they are headed, and towards whie they are dragging those more innt cent?
 pr. Sheldon thinks the farmer mu | Lake new mental attitude Probab b several new mental attitudes wouldu hurt him. But until the whole busine world takes a new mental attitude u state of the farmers brain-pan is n the sole problem. No matter to wh imaginative heights of altruiszn and d yotlon. he may attain. his climbing W I be of small avail to the big world u ! less the rest of mankind rise with hi, That will not be till what we c: business" has cleaned it's eyes al freed its heart and educated it's brai It will not be till the whole race h come to see that the true conception business" is not one of greed and D lage, but of help and service Will such millennium ever con, God knowsi With Him all things a possible-even. the elimination of he 3 gishness from human nature and t installation of good will instead