The Washington times., 1921-02-04
Today
The Puzzled PeddIer.
U. s., $3.50; Abroad, $l20.
Look Out for Plaques.
Worst Standing Army.
BY ARTHUR BRISBANE
lCopyrlxht. lslI.l

An aged peddler Of Berkeley,
Cal, told that he had inherited
one million dollars from a rela-
i've, said only: "This puzzles
me-" Well II may, for as men get
Old they ought to realize that
money Is the least of things, ex-
cept just enough of it to keep
away absolute poverty that means
slavery.
Many men, now striving for
their million will wonder, before
they die, and perhaps after 1t, why
they worked so hard for what can
do them SO little good.
1t will help American manufac-
turers and workmen who take an
interest in politics, the tariff, and
other public matters to read this
true story told by a man in bust
ness on q big scale:
Il wanted a supply of machin-
cry laid down in New York city.
German manufacturers offered to
deliver it for $120 per unit. The
best bid / got from an American
was $3.50. Sixty per cent duty
would be added on the German
price, which would make it cost
I. o. b. New York $192 against
$3.50, the American bid. What
chance would the American have?"
Think it over.
London is worried by an epi-
demic of sleeping sickness, come
to take the place of influenza.
Great cities are as popular with
germs as with young men from
the country. DR.. Copeland warns
New York and other big American
cities that they also will have
trouble unless they take every pos
sible hygienic precaution, espe-
cially killing off rats.
Typhus has been found in New
York city. Cholera has appeared
in this country. Other infectious
and contagious diseases threaten.
DR.. Copeland says hundred
thousand families with no houses,
in New York, sleep crowded into
the limited accommodations Of
hundred thousand other families.
In some cases 'twelve persons live
in three ROBINS. four sleep in a
kitchen every night"
Profiteering in building ma
terials, and the failure Of me-
chanics to do . fair days work for
q fair days pay, have produced
these conditions. All classes will
have to pay for them, including
profteers to whose pleasant house
on the hill disease creeps up from
the slums, including workmen that
stupidity thought they were help
ing their class when they took
wages and did not earn them with
good work.
\ Publishers of small newspapers,
recently travelling rocky road OF
worry, will hear cheerfully that
the American Writing Paper
Company has cut it's price dras-
tically and undoubtedly will cut
more. The reason is: NO DE-
MAND. What goes up, as the
sugar men found out, must come
down. Sometimes it hits the
ground pretty hard.
The most dangerous standing
army" is not the kind the Kaiser
drilled, trained, taught to stand
straight. That sort of army, TAX
ing a million men away from pro-
duction, is bad enough.
But worse is the army OF un--
employed, the idle men that stand
around and grow bitter.
We have in the United States
standing army of four millions and
more now. 1t should not grow
bigger.
We should consider ourselves on
the road to disaster, if we actually
had an army of four million men
producing nothing.
They, at least, would be trained,
drilled, and BUSY. The idle
standing army is a menace.
The war corporation, possessing
xpower to finance business between
Europe and the United States, ar
ranges q credit that will send
abroad 100000 900 worth of dried
milk.
There couldn't be a better be-
ginning. That will feed starving
children there and help farmers
here, on a basis of business, not
charity.
French scientists announce that
soon they will control the sex OF