The Union daily times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1918-current, 1922-09-30
Government Interference
Disastrous to All IntsrSsts
(From Manufactures Rs.ord)

(From Manufactures Rsrord)
II there is ons cxrdinai.srror nsthisi
country it is the bslief Of educated
and responsible citizens, in and out
of Office, that violation of the law, by
them, for what they conceive to be
good purposes, Is Gxcuseble and ought
not to be questioned. We find men all
over the country who violate the Vol
stead Act, dealing with bootleggers,
and yet they are Mortified that other
lawless men WELD bludgeons at night
and rob and kill.
The voluntary price control organi-
zation brought into being in Washing
ton through the efforts of Secretary
Hoover and the administration has
voluntarily" dissolved. The reason
fer this dissolution, we understand, is
that eminent counsel advised that the
whole affair has been illegal from the
beginning, without any authority of
law, but in defiance Of law. It is just
as lawless for government officials to
combine with producers to keep prices
down as it is for them to combine to
keep prices up. The truth is that COM
binations to maintain low prices con-
stituted one of the reasons why en-
actment of the antitrust laws was
considered requisite.
Another feature of this particular
experiment in illegality, however, was
the fact that governmental interven-
ton probably increases instead Of sta
bilizing coal prices. Seldom is there
my trouble in the coal fields but that
high officials at the capital rush into
print and gravely inform the coun-
try that frightful shortage is in
sight. Instantly, timid citizens, fear
full of the winter, plunge into the
market and create an apparent short
age. There is at least one classic in
stance when a similar cry of shortage
in another commodity did create such
an immediate public demand that a
real shortage promptly did occur
Enough Of the commodity was sold
we hear, to last five years.
We think it is susceptible of proc
that if the government had given 70
non-union miners the protection TO
which they were entitled under the
law, those non-union miners would
have produced enough coal to have
prevented fuel debacle and at prices
within reason. Washington, however
where maintenance Of law would have
solved the problem, preferred to un-
dertake solution by reputation of
the law.
Likewise, it is notorious that the
check-of has been declared illegal
Yet the government in Washington
boasts that truce in the coal strike
was brought about by ignoring that
fact and permitting settlement con-
tanning the check-off.
L For weeks the newspapers have
been filled with stories to the effect
| that this or that official was assuring
this or that industry THAI It might do
this or that thing, in spite Of the law,
since the official felt that the results
would be good. That means a govern
q
laws. It means the substitution of
the ipse dixit Of single person for
the high authority of the statutes.
How can citizens whose facilities
for education have not been Of the
best be expected to have respect for
the law if men in high places, who
ought to know better, flout the law
when it suits their convenience?
Nor are men, when they get to
Washington, content merely to ig-
more the laws. They insist, when any
emergency arises, on the enactment
of emergency statutes. For instance,
the president himself rushed up to
congress to demand that the law-mak-
ing body quickly establish a great
coal purchasing and distributing
agency, sort of United States Coal
Corporation, to spend the money Of
taxpayers in commerce. And within
two weeks his spokesman on the floor
Of the house was solemnly announc-
ing that the president had changed
his mind and did not any longer think
such an agency required! Neverthe-
less, this experiment in socialism
would have been attempted had con-
gress been better disciplined. No
wonder the country talks about half
baked policies!
Nor can farmers fail to notice that
when they, in despair, suggested that
the government might undertake to
sell their products and save them they
were coldly advised that the govern
ment could not venture into 80 radical
an undertaking. 1t is as much func-
ton Of government to protect pro-
d1cere aa m rrotoct ronaun,ors