The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1920-09-22

do what it did in making and preparing for war.
We fail to appreciate the butchers bill Of men
killed and crippled has taken out Of the worlds
work millions Of men-the best Of its workers;
and eqdallywe neglect the further fact that during
the long season of strife turned many more
millions from producing the things we live with
to producing things to kill with: ...s
Another fact from which there is no escape, but
which we generally overlook, is that the business
of living is not making money to live with, but
making things to live with-is the production and
exchange of products Money whether capital or
labor is only the convenient means of making the
exchange of the fruits of toll -,
So when capital thinks only of more profits
and labor only Of more wages, there is peril for
both. They can't eat, wear; live in or live upon the
mere money medium of profits and wages; they
must have the things that capital and labor produce.
And this peril, this need, is sharpened now by the
worldwide shortage of the joint products of capital
and labor that the world must have in order to live.
More than ever before, because these conditions
are so much more general and more severe, this
situation gives the trouble maker chance that
he is not missing. It is fine time to delude and
deceive men into thinking that there is something
terrible the matter with the government, with in
dustry, with everything, and that it can be cured
by some change of the laws, some theory of
existenc-by anything but work and saving
At the same time these conditions make it posi-
BILE, easy and tempting for all of us to turn loose
the natural selfshness that is always within u.s.
in such circumstances as now beset every place
and every man, the tendency is to "get while the
getting is good"-and everybody who can is more
or less of proteer in if not in fact. Those
of us who have anything to sell are busy marking
up the price-taking advantage of the scarcity of
everything to wiring more profit out of whatever we
make or handle. .... g. !. %.
And with all Of engaged in this process, who
can blame whom? Every of us, when accused
of profteering has the best Of excuses; he can
truthfully say "Look at what so-and-so is doing
to me, to all Of his customers" Am going to
sit still and be stung and not get even? Yes, l
not!
None Of the great principles and laws of life
have been changed. Water still flows only down
hill; supply and demand still determine costs and
prices; every of US still thinks most of his
own self. The man who works his best, produces
his utmost and all he is still the prosper
Gus man, and the loafer and waster is still the
poverty cursed-and SO it will be whether wages
profits prices high or low. .-
We in America have got it on the rest Of the
nations in almost every respect. We have the limit
less wealth of our millions of fertile acres Mines
forests and waters; the huge capacity of our fac
tories and workshops, the immense resources of our
workers, our vast network Of railways our newly
acquired merchant marine. ~::..
And above all we have form of government
that, backed by the newly welded and cemented
natonalsm, will stand the test of reconstruction
we'll it has stood the tests of war destruction
Let the agtators agtae the theorists theorize the
trouble-makers trouble-and they will change none
of the principles that guarantee us our freedom
and the right to enjoy within the law the results
of our work and thrift. =, |>ss*sSz~~ .
So let's put on our working clothes and our most
cheerful grin; let's buckle down to business of
working, saving earning rest and enjoying it,
getting the most out of life as we live it. There's
nothing the matter that we can't set right, each
man doing the best he can with his own head and
his pair Of hands. = --.,