The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-09-24
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC J. HAsKIN, Director.
washington, d. C.
THE BEWILDERED PATRIOT.
with Apologies to Ade.)

said, Where do I get off? For that
is more than make in a day and more
than 1 used to pay for a whole dinner"
And then heavy party in a plug
| hat who was standing HARDLY spoke
to him and said, Do you know why
you have to pay so much for a piece
of cheese? And Dub said No, and
the heavy party said, IT'S because of
the way the politics OF this country
are run. If you voters and sterling
citizens will onIy turn the Demopub-
Iican party out and put the Recratic
party in, the price of cheese will top
pie, and here is-the ballot which you
should vote.
And the Dub took the ballot and
folded 1t up and put it in his pocket
and took his cheese and started for
home, but at the door he was stopped
by a small wiry party with long hair
and tortoise-rimmed spectecles and a
flowing tie, and this party said, am
a Socialist. and that guy in the plug
hat was giving you a bum steer. The
problems which beset our great re-
public, and the causes which boost the
price of cheese are not political at
all One party is Just as bad as an
other. You have got to go deeper.
The fundamental cause of the trouble
is economic. It is merely necessary
for the proletariat to organize and
Rockefeller and the rest of the pluto
Gratis, and place the money and the
land and thu, factories and the rail-
roads in the hands of the people, and
We will have cheese at the good old
price of five cents a pound, and no
body will have to work but five hours
a day, and the rest of the time we
will spend in cultivating our souls and
all will be lovely.
Marx Proved 1t All.
And the Common Dub said, where
do you get that stuff, and how do you
prove il? And the small guy with the
long hair said, here is a book by a
guy named Marx. and if you can read
it all the way thru. and are still alive
and awake, and do not perceive that
capitalism is the curse of civilization
and that the day of the brotherhood
of man is about to dawn, you are a
saphead, and there is no hope for you,
even in Russia. And the Common
Dub thanked him and took the book
and put it under his arm. and went on
his way rejoicing and thinking what
he would do with his share of the
Rockefeller mezuma and that he was
getting a lot of light on the price of
cheese.
And as he was going home on the
street car, he met a friend of his who
was a professor in a college, and wore
a Prince Albert, but never had much
to eat. And he told the professor all
that he had learned about the price
of cheese, and the professor said, you
have got the wrong dope. AS my emf
nent colleague, Professor Irving
Fisher, of Yale, has indisputably dem
onstrated the entire confederation of
duce the present high cost of living
is traceable to perfectly remediable
defects in our distinctly anachronistic
currency system. With the dollar
having a value expressed in terms of
only single commodity. to-wit, gold. it
is inevitable that the purchasing
power of said, dollar as measured in
all other commodities will vary in
versely with the relative abundance
of said commodities. That is why
your dollar at present buys but forty
nine cents worth of nineteen-fourteen
goods. The remedy is simple and evil
dent. We have merely to abolish the
gold standard and establish a dollar
which shall be evaluated in the terms
of one hundred representative COM
modities of common consumption. and
which, will therefore always buy the
same amounts of those commodities.
Then, when once wages and salaries
have been adjusted on an equitable
basis. they will be adjusted for all
time, and the cost of living will never
vary.
Brains No Help.
And the Dub replied Altho 7 can
not trail you all the way, you GER
tainly make a noise like a man with
the Information, and sorry that I
haven't got enough brains to under
stand it. And the professor said, You
are welcome and dent worry about
the brains, which are a handicap in
the struggle for existence, as witness
me.
And as the Dub was riding home on
the car that night and turning over
in his mind these several ideas and
tying to make them jibe, which was
about as easy as solving a Chinese puZ-
zle of which several parts have been
lost, he was accosted by a friend of
his who had moved to the country and
looked it. Part of his skin had been
burned off and the rest had evidently
furnished grazing for a variety of in
sects, and he had a hoe and a rake
under one arm and a young peach
tree wrapped in gunny sack under
the other. And he said, 1 see, or
rather I smell, that you have there a
piece of cheese. And the Dub said,
Yes, and It'll set me back what used
to be considerable money and still is
to me. And his friend said, Why
do you stay in the busy marts of trade
and wear the skin off your heels walk
ing on sidewalks and pay for your food
exorbitant prices which go into the
pockets of seventeen middlemen that
don't need it? Why do you not come
out into the country and. raise your
own? Do you realize that one acre of
ground will support a family of five
and that you can now can anything
from a radisn to a watermelon? The |
whole problem of the cost of living
lies right there. my son. There are
no more people in the country now
than there were ten years ago but
there are millions more in the cities, |
and so of course there isn't as much |
to eat. And the Dub said. So I notice. !
And his friend said. Back to the land
is the solution and the only possible |
solution, and the sooner we do it the |
better. And the Dub said, Yes, but
where do I get the acre? And the |
friend said, will sell you mine cheap. |
1 like the country fine and am strongl
for nature and the Good Brown Earth !
and all that stuff but my wife has a |
passion for the movies. and she can't |
keep a maid and she says we either !