The Mena weekly star., 1920-05-06
SEES SMALL HOPE
 OF LOWER PRICES
Senator Capper Tells Correspondent That Hog Prices May Drop. but Ba- con Still Remains Expensive
 Congress Marking Time
Fy WILLIAM PHILIP sIMdS. international News Service Stan
 Correspondent.

 1 International News Service stan
 Correspondent ] Washington. April sol hate to destroy anything good, especially hope, for hope is the greatest influ- ence for good which God in his wisdom put upon this earth.
 But, people. there is about as much chance of your hope of materially lowered cost of living coming true in the near future as there is of an inn mediate millennium.
 Senator Arthur Capper, of Kansas, has no such illusion. Nor has any other really informed member of Con- gress. Folks here, who have the inside track on what is going on, admit that such members of the government as are talking of cheaper living are either taking the wish for the deed, or are believers in miracles. Senator Cap per, who boasts he cannot make speech, is the only member of that august body with the gift of silence, but the flow of ideas from that gen. timely superior brain of his is not lessened an iota by reason of it. When he sits down in front of his type writer he can play it like Paderewski does grand piano.
 Out in Kansas he has a number of newspapers, and he writes for them all. One of them is sCapper's Week | ly," wherein, once a week, one can read the notes composed by Senator Capper on the keyboard of the in- strument of his choice.
 Hogs says the Senator's paper, raised to feed Europe, dropped to- s11 and Sl1.5o at Missouri River mar kets last week.
 But good bacon still costs the consumer 60 cents pound, the same price that was being asked for 1t last June when farmers hogs sold for twice as much.r
 There's the whole thing: If word gets out today that next month the price of pork on the hoof is going to be cent a pound higher, the cost of pork at the butchers goes up five cents a pound today. But with the price of pork on the hoof today one half what it was year ago, the cost of pork at the butchers remains the same as 1t was or even a little bit more.
 '.The food gamblers and profiteers," says Capper's newspaper, loud mouthed, self-possessed champions of law and order and 100 percent Amer icanism-these greedy men, as spoil CTS, agitators and troubiemakers, are thousand times more potent for harm than all the reds in or out of ! Russia. The situation demands sincere activity by this government against it's enemies-the profiteers and food gamblers.
 "A government that can lick the Hun 1000 miles. from home should be equal to few hundred or few thou sand arch-price ccnspirators here st 1 home.
 eThe Secret Service which, during the war, ran rings around the Ger man spy system could get these spoil CTS on short notice Evidence of the misdeeds is not lacking.
 Vocal war against profiteering is unavailing.
 If the Department of Justice will come 10 grips with the gougers, it will do more to stop strikes and re- store peace and order and good feel ing to the United States than all the speeches and propaganda ever utter ed or printed Let action speak
 Capper says we forbid gambling with cards, but we do not forbid gambling with sugar. with wholesale grocers and job bers and brokers gambling in sugar, he declared, ''the price has risen to 2S cents a pound and the people are warned il will soon go to 9.
 We are told that the refineriss are unable to provide for the enormous new stocks of sugar. but a corner in sugar is formed right under our eyes.
 And so 1t goes.
 The Republican Convention opens in Chicago during the first days of JunS The Democratic Convention be- gins at San Francisco the last of ] June From now until the Conventions Congress will keep on with it's game of passing the buck for fear of hurt ing the chances of individual mem bsrs for reelection or the party chances in the coming campaign. II During June there will be recess, in all probability, so that Congress can attend the conventions So there ! can hs no work in June. After June, should Congress con vene again. it will go on marking time lest one or the other of the two parties. hy some set, hlunder and lose the election h November. So do independent observers look at things here.
 Now turn back and re-read the first two paragraphs of this hulnbls item.
 A nice, pleasant pargative that slsc t { | .f.E Ee- .. = k f