The Washington times., 1920-04-17
Today
Only the Body Gets Old.
Beware the Sugar Problem.
Dynamite In That.
Arbitration viii Come.
By ARTHUR BRISBANE
tCopyright, isio)

By ARTHUR BRISBANE
' tcopyrisht, isio.l
The death of Theodore N. Vail
reminds men past fifty that they
are young, as long as they choose
70 De young. and if they have kept
their heads alive.
AT an age when most men be-
heve that their chance has gone,
mr. Vail, quite obscure, was work.
ing 70 build up the tramway sys-
tenn OF Buenos Aires. He was an
old man before he began the i'm
Portant work that made the world
hear of him, as boss of all the
.eiegraph and telephone wires in
the United States.
The world hears much about
, Napoleon or Alexander, world con-
qaerors in early youth; not enough
, about such a man as Vail, or the
. great English Admiral Blake, who
never went to sea, in command,
until after he was fifty. The body
gets old, not the mind or the will.
A Government board has taken
mp the question of wages for rail-
road workers. The procrastina-
ton has been disgraceful, and, nine
times out Of ten, the patience of
the men admirable. A govern
ment that does nothing to prevent
. profteers from adding one hundred
per cent to the cost of food must do
something to help workers get
wages enough to pay proiteers'
prices.
Outrageous and dangerous is the
increasing price of sugar. 1t could
be bought for five or six cents a
pound everywhere before the war.
One firm used to sell one hundred
pounds for three dollars, three
cents a pound; now there is an
nounced a coming price rise Of
thirty-two cents a pound, with a
prospect of fifty cents.
That is most dangerous seed of
discomfort and public hatred.
Every family Of small means must
buy sugar every week, and be re-
minded every week that it is being
deliberately robbed.
Relief would not be difficult.
We have, thanks to Mr.. Burle-
SON. an efficiently managed parcel
post system.
Even now sugar at wholesale
does not cost more than fourteen
/ or fifteen cents. Why couldn't
the parcel post to be the retailer.
delivering sugar from manufac-
turers to consumers at q profit Of
two or three cents q pound, in
! cluding delivery, the consumer
\ paying the letter carrier?
Would that be ANARCHY and So
; 'cialism7 Possibly, but you may
haye-a-worse bland of both, il you
I don't do something to convince
the people that they are not entire5
ly at the profteer's mSfcy.
!, A boy sixteen years old quits
/. high school to earn $21 a week.
He leaves a teacher who, after
(, years of preliminary training and
( teaching experience, is earning
SIT week. Do you wonder that
teachers complain, are hard to find,
hard to keep? The only wonder is
that any Of them are in the schools.
The business of the public is to
learn some way to help itself. In
strikes that cripple the nation, ar
bitration, in ordinary industrial
trouble, it ought to answer the pur-
pose. It does answer in New
Zealand and largely in Canada.
But the transportation system,
the telegraph and telephone sys-
TENS of the country are too big
for private ownership, private con-
, troll, or private financing.
The nation alone, the one hum
dred million people whose comfort
depends on national control of ma
tional necessities, are big enough
to own, manage, and finance them.
In connection with financing,
you read that railroads next year
will need six hundred millions of
dollars: "New money for regular
upkeep." Where are they going
to get it?
The country in this years first
six months of private management
will give to the private owners
one hundred and seventy-five
millions to help them out, and make
sure that they get dividends to
which they think they are entitled.
The Esch- Cummins bill gives
them that. Will there be another
bill next year to give the railroads
six hundred millions more? Is
the rickety baby of private owner
ship always to be kept alive with
special feeding and fattening from
the public purse?
T. r. -