THE HIGH COST OF LIVING

SEPTEMBER 3, 1919

the rights of the workers will be properly

THE

the high cost of living. One of these was an appeal to the public addressed by the President to "my fellow-citizens." The other was an appeal to the striking railway shopmen. In both these documents the President points out that unreasonable and obstinate demands for great additions to wages not only do not solve the problem of the high cost of living, but complicate and increase it. This method is simply traveling round and round in a vicious circle.

Increases in wages will, moreover, certainly result in still further increasing the cost of production, and therefore the cost of living, and we should only have to go through the same process again. Any substantial increase of wages in leading lines of industries at this time would utterly crush the general campaign which the Government is waging with energy, vigor, and substantial hope of success to reduce the high cost of living. And the increases in the cost of transportation which would necessarily result from increases in the wages of railway employees would more certainly and more immediately have that effect than any other enhanced wage costs. Only by keeping the cost of production on its present level, by increasing production, and by rigid economy and saving on the part of the people can we hope for large decreases in the burdensome cost of living which now weighs us down.

These principles which lie behind a correct solution of the problem have been stated before, but they come with special force from the Chief Executive of the Nation. The President calls upon his fellow-citizens to have patience, to refrain from class antagonism and from class profiteering, from costly strikes and industrial warfare, at least until normal conditions can be re-established. This appeal to the public is followed by an appeal to the railway employees. He tells them that we are facing a graver crisis perhaps than any precipitated by the war; that if the problems of social reconstruction and industrial readjust ment in this country are not studied with sanity and restraint "it will mean National disaster." The President recognizes that some of the uneasiness of railway employees is due to their misgivings about the future of American railways, but he does not think that this "uneasiness is well grounded." He believes that, whatever is finally decided upon as to the administration of the railways, whether public or private ownership is adopted,

In these two appeals the President has made very clear the one incontrovertible fact in the situation. Profiteering by groups inflates the high cost of living even more seriously than profiteering by individuals. The situation is made worse, not remedied, by strikes and industrial warfare. If we do not get together and co-operate in saving and in increased production of the necessaries of life, we shall all suffer together.

INCREASE PRODUCTION

The high cost of living needs to be abated by diligent, efficient, and conscientious labor and by avoidance of waste and extravagance.

The real unit of value is not a dollar but the purchasing price of a dollar. The price of all things is fixed by the average compensation received for one hour's work.

The only sure remedy for the high cost of living is increased production and the stabilization of prices in conformity with wages now being paid.

Any workman who demands a greater proportionate return for his labor than his fellow-workmen in other lines are getting, is as guilty of profiteering as is a grocer who charges exorbitant prices for the necessities of life.

These axioms were not proclaimed by any "highbrow" body of professors. They are to be found among the resolu tions passed on August 23 at Atlantic City by the elected representatives of the employees of the Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company, one of the major steel corporations. The enunciation of such economic doctrines is, we believe, significant of broader thought among working

men.

Exactly the same position was taken a few days previously by Mr. Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister. In a speech in the House of Commons he declared, "We shall never improve matters until we increase production."

"In every direction," declared Mr. Lloyd George, "we are consuming more and producing less." He dealt specially with the coal crisis as the chief factor in the general industrial situation. Although thirty thousand more miners are employed now than in 1914, this year's production of coal will be but 200,000,000 tons, of coal will be but 200,000,000 tons, compared with 287,000,000 before the war. The Premier rejected the majority report of the recent Coal Commission which provided for the gradual nationaliwhich provided for the gradual nationalization of coal mines. Instead he proposed a plan for partial Government control by

which the Government will buy out mineral rights and raise a fund for the promotion of the social welfare of the miners. The country would be divided into areas; in each the workers are to have directors representing them in the body controlling the area.

Turning to the general situation, the Prime Minister outlined his bill calling for a forty-eight-hour week and "living wages," the measure to apply to all industries with but a few exceptions.

In addition, Mr. Lloyd George announced forthcoming legislation to check the importation of goods at prices below British cost of production.

The measures proposed are what might be expected from a statesman of Mr. Lloyd George's cleverness and courage.

GOVERNMENT REGULATION
OF PRICES

A good many people have been skeptical as to the practical usefulness of the Government's undertaking to regulate prices and prosecute individual profiteers. They have pointed out that even the laudable attempt of the Government to sell its stocks of food to the public is merely a temporary expedient, as there is only about a dollar's worth of food in the entire accumulation for every man, woman, and child in the United States. But whatever may be the complications, and they are very great, of trying to regulate prices by Government fiat, there is an aspect of Government activities with regard to the high cost of living that may be of great value in one particular, namely, in giving general publicity to important facts. This is illustrated in the preliminary statement of the two Commissioners appointed by Governor Smith, of New York State, to report to him on the high cost of living. These Commissioners are ex-Governor Martin H. Glynn and Dr. John H. Finley, State Commissioner of Education and President of the State University.

Their preliminary report is devoted almost exclusively to the question of milk, a food which forms the most important foundation for the health and physical welfare of a great city like New York. The two Commissioners say that the milk problem has been investigated over and over again, despite which the price of milk has rapidly risen in the last three years and is likely to go still higher during the coming winter. Some of this increase is due to natural causes, but

some requires explanation. For example, the Commissioners state that in Philadelphia, where the milk-producing farmers are paid slightly more than the milk producers who supply New York City, the retail price of bottled milk is so much lower than in New York "as to challenge our special attention."

What this slight difference in the price of each quart of milk means to the people of New York City may be estimated from the fact that in round numbers 2,000,000 quarts of milk are daily consumed in New York City. Of this forty-four per cent is bottled-that is, approximately 880,000 quarts of bottled milk are sold in New York City daily. This difference between the selling price of bottled milk in Philadelphia, which is fourteen cents a quart, and that in New York City, which is sixteen cents a quart, means that the people of New York in a year would pay $6,424,000 more than the people of Philadelphia for the same amount of bottled milk; and $3,212,000 a year more than the people of Chicago; and $1,106,000 more than the people of Boston.

Undoubtedly it costs more to do business and to distribute milk in New York City than it does in Boston, Philadelphia, or Chicago, but a milk system that costs the people of the city of New York comparatively $6,000,000 a year more than it costs the people of Philadelphia, and $3,000,000 a year more than it costs the people of Chicago, and $1,000,000 more than it costs the people of Boston, needs either explanation or reformation.

To remedy this situation ex-Governor Glynn and Dr. Finley recommend the creation of a "Fair Price Milk Committee." If such a Committee cannot succeed in making proper adjustment, the Commissioners believe that Governor Smith will be driven "to the regrettable alternative" of urging "legislation which would make it possible for the State or the municipality to regulate the distribution and sale of this necessity of life." This work would be done by a State Milk Commission. This Commission would concern itself, not with the price of milk to the farmer, but with the distribution of milk in cities of the first and second class.

Ex-Governor Glynn and Dr. Finley add, as to other foods, that all sorts of investigations are now going on and to duplicate these would be useless. "The important thing to do is to co-ordinate these investigations, correlate the data produced, and devise such legislation as may be necessary." On the whole, ex-Governor Glynn and Dr. Finley have supplied the public with one of the most sensible and hopeful documents on the high cost of living that has so far come to our attention.

BETTER AND CHEAPER MILK

One solution to the problem of secur ing cheaper milk for our cities has been worked out by the city of La Crosse,

Wisconsin. In a letter from Dr. H. Clay Evenson, of that city, we find the following:

You may be interested to know that we are making it possible for the people in La Crosse to obtain pure, clean, fresh milk daily for eight cents a quart. . . . The farmers bring their milk into the city in large cans, and in place of pouring the milk from the cans into bottles on their farm they pour it from the large cans into the bottles or pails that the consumer brings with him to these depots. These depots are the city's voting booths, and are located in the wards about the city. They are kept clean by the women in the wards. This milk is poured three hours after it is cooled and is always morning's milk. The cream that is sold is the cream from the night's milk of the day before. This milk is better and fresher for the babies, and each poor mother saves five cents on each quart by going to the booths (depots) and carrying home the milk in her own container. No other food is sold or allowed to be sold in the booth, and the milk is all sold out in less than an hour.

Dr. Evenson further states that the health officer of La Crosse has examined this milk and declares that the milk sold through the city depot system is the cleanest and best milk sold in La Crosse.

The La Crosse plan has met opposition from milkmen, milk dealers, and other food distributers, but it has been in operation since February, 1918. Dr. Evenson states his belief that any city of the size of La Crosse that can get its milk direct from the farm can sell milk advantageously in the same way.

GRADING UP OUR LIVE STOCK

The Department of Agriculture plans for this fall a Nation-wide drive for better live stock.

The plan is to hasten the replacement of the multitude of scrub domestic animals in the United States with pure-bred or high-grade stock and also to improve the quality of pure breds themselves. It has been evolved through long and careful observation of the live-stock industry in this country and after extensive consultation with specialists and breeders.

The figures compiled by the Department show that the average dairy cow in the United States yields about four thousand pounds of milk a year, a figure scarcely two-thirds the average production in some European countries, such as Denmark. The United States has thousands of cows which have milk yields of more than twelve thousand poundsdouble the Danish average-but, on the other hand, it has hundreds of thousands which are kept for milk and yet yield only a small fraction as much as the best cows, though receiving nearly as much feed and care.

It is to be hoped that this campaign

will meet with widespread success, for the doctrine that "the sire is half the herd" has still to make converts in many parts of the United States. Even in sections where cattle-breeding either for dairy purposes or beef has reached a high standard of efficiency there are still to be found many farmers who fail to realize the importance of grading up their stock by the selection of suitable sires. The same principle which underlies the demand for grading up our dairy and beef cattle is of course equally applicable to horses, pigs, and poultry.

THE NEW GERMANY

On August 21 Friedrich Ebert was inaugurated President of Germany under the Constitution just adopted.

The first thing to strike the American in the text of this Constitution is the absence of the word Republik and the presence of the word Reich. But that need not bother us unnecessarily. If the Germans call their country not a "republic" but apparently an "empire," they use the word Reich in its basic sense of "realm." To quiet all fears, however, the Constitution declares that the Reich is actually "a republican state."

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As hitherto, Germany continues to be a federal realm and a series of particular states. Each state must have a liberal constitution with a legislature elected by universal suffrage.

The Reich is naturally also under universal suffrage. All the people, men and women, elect the President for a term of seven years. As regards the relations in Germany between the people and their Chief of State, this seems a wonderful advance. Nor is this all. Though, like our Executive, he is Commander-in-Chief of the defense forces, Parliament, not he, is to have power to declare war and to make peace. To be sure, he, like our President, is to make treaties, but, as here, Parliament must approve them. But the President can dissolve Parliament. Thus the Executive still holds the whip hand.

The Chancellor is a kind of vice-president, but with more power. The President appoints him, as well as his other Cabinet members.

As to Parliamentary control, the new Council is to be composed of the various German states, each state having at least one vote and no one having more than two-fifths of the total number of votes. As before, Prussia can control this upper house only by combination with other states. To the gratification of non-Prussians, however, the Chief of the whole German state is no longer also the Chief of the Prussian state.

Contrary to the customs of most parliaments, the Council must approve bills

before they may be introduced into the Reichstag, the popular branch of Parliament. Hence Prussians can still regard the new Constitution complacently.

On a petition of one hundred members of the Reichstag, that body may impeach the President, Chancellor, and Ministers. This sounds big and would seem to place the Executive as definitely answerable and responsible to the people. We shall see!

Last, but not least, the German flag is to be changed from red, black, and white to red, black, and gold. What will the Belgians say to this infringement?

ACROSS THE MEXICAN BORDER

In last week's issue The Outlook told of the dramatic rescue of the two American airmen held by Mexican bandits for ransom. Following the return of the airmen and their rescuer to the American side of the line American military forces immediately crossed into Mexico and took up the pursuit of the bandits. For six days the punitive column, consisting of five troops of cavalry, packtrains, machine-gun troops, and other units, searched the country in which the bandits were hiding.

The result of the expedition was the killing of four bandits by the American troops and the killing of another by machine-gun fire from a scout American airplane. It is reported, but not officially confirmed, that the bandit killed by the airplane scout was the chief of the band which captured the two American aviators. Carranzista troops are also credited with the capture of nine bandits said to be a part of the same band which the American troops were pursuing.

The punitive expedition was launched with commendable promptness and seems to have attained all the success which could have been expected from an expedition of this kind. The troops have now returned to American soil.

TENNIS AND GOLF

Once more the doubles championship of the United States has been carried away from America. This time it falls to the lot of the Australians, Norman E. Brookes and Gerald L. Patterson, to carry off this coveted trophy of the tennis world. A photograph of these players in action appears in the illustrated section of this issue. The National singles championship is still to be decided as we go to press.

Golf, as well as tennis, occupied a large place in the recent news columns, for the National championship held at the Oakmont Country Club, at Pittsburgh, resulted in one of the most dramatic tournaments of recent years. Many of the most prominent American players

were forced out of the race early in the progress of the tournament, leaving as contenders in the final round S. Davidson Herron, of Pittsburgh, and Robert Jones, of Atlanta, Georgia. Herron is barely twenty-one and his rival is only seventeen years old. As Grantland Rice said of the result of this match:

Who was it that said youth must be served? Old man Dave, an ancient veteran of twenty-two, tore this maxim into shreds. It is hard to see how any one thus far along in life could down a youngster of seventeen, but the older man, despite the five years' handicap that he had to give, won out.

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Herron in his progress through the match defeated Hamilton Gardner, Jack Stearns, Will Thompson, J. Wood Platt, and Bobbie" Jones. Platt was the conqueror of Francis Ouimet, who in turn defeated Charles Evans, the former amateur champion.

There have been many comments made on the unsportsmanlike conduct of the galleries both at the National tennis matches and at the National golf championship. There are, unfortunately, a number of people in this world who never seem to outgrow the pop-bottle-throwing attitude of the old-time baseball fan.

It might be a good plan if a few rules for the conduct of spectators could be drawn up and distributed at our National tournaments. The rules should not contain any words of more than one syllable and should be printed in type large enough for any one to read even though he or she happens to be suffering from hay fever.

GOVERNMENT BY MINORITY

An example of government by minority may be found in the repeal of the Daylight Saving Law. Through its operation millions of men, women, and children have enjoyed an extra hour of work or play. The annual half-billiondollar value of our war garden crops has been largely due to the extra hour when the "tired business man forgot both business and fatigue in the invigorating absorption which comes from " puttering in the garden." Our parks and playgrounds, our golf and tennis and baseball players, have borne evidence of what an

extra

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hour after work has meant in health and pleasure-getting. Households have saved much money in their coal, gas, and electric bills. There has also been gain through the saving of eye-strain.

So the great majority of Americans, especially in the industrial centers, in our cities and smaller communities, favors the continuance of the Daylight Saving Law. But a minority does not. This minority is represented by the coal, gas, and electric-light concerns, whose profits have been much lessened by having an extra

hour of daylight, and also by the dairy farmers, who have been seriously inconvenienced by the conflict between the milk-train schedule and their daily chores, and by the marked inclination shown by their hired help to start work by the old schedule and end it by the new. Members of Congress, whose first thought is always of the voters who make the loudest protests, attached a Daylight Repeal "rider" to the annual Agricultural Appropriation Bill. The President objected to the rider and promptly vetoed the bill. Thereupon Congress passed a separate Daylight Saving Repeal Bill. The President no less promptly and properly vetoed that too, saying that, while the law may have worked hardship to some farmers, its benefit to a far greater majority was sufficient reason for a veto. Then Congress passed the bill over the veto.

Thus daylight saving will come to an end on the last Sunday in October, when the clocks will go back to "sun time" and apparently remain there. We say "apparently," for next year the majority of citizens, beginning to miss the extra hour of sunshine at the end of the day, may make itself heard in Congress in no uncertain tones. Even if this should not occur, workers in the cities may demand the privilege of getting to work an hour earlier and quitting an hour earlier. In any event, we agree with Mr. Hermann Hagedorn, who writes in the New York "Tribune" as follows:

The majority of the American public, I am convinced, derive pleasure, comfort, satisfaction, and profit from the new adjustment of the clock in summer. This majority, however, which is technically and sentimentally supposed to govern, is completely disregarded. If the public were composed of quadrupeds, some charitable soul would undoubtedly long since have organized a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Rabbits.... It is time that some rabbit should make his fellow-rabbits realize that a million rabbits making a united front might possibly be more than a match for twenty thousand foxes. "Bre'r Fox" was outwitted by one.

AMERICANS ALL!

ONE of the Americanization is being

NE of the most promising experi

carried on by the War Department. The experiment is being made in connection with the campaign to obtain recruits for the Regular Army, a campaign which is of vital importance at this time when our war armies are melting away into civil life and the plans for our after-the-war Army are still unmatured. But it is not the military side of this work but its social value of which we are speaking here.

Previous to the present war no person (except an Indian) who could not speak, read, and write the English language was

permitted to enlist in the Regular Army. Under the Emergency Act the enlistment of illiterates and non-English-speaking men was permitted during the war. The necessity for this change in policy will be recognized when it is stated that nearly one-fourth of the selected men were unable to read an American newspaper or write a letter home.

Under this Emergency Act the War Department began, in May of the present year, accepting for enlistment in the Regular Army illiterates and nonEnglish-speaking citizens and aliens. As soon as they are enlisted, men of this type are being sent to Recruit Educational Centers, where they are given a thorough course in English in addition to being instructed in the duties of a soldier.

The methods employed at the Recruit Educational Centers for the training and instruction of illiterates and nonEnglish-speaking men were thoroughly tried out during the war. There were thousands of illiterates and non-English speaking men in the draft. In six months the development battalions handled over two hundred and fifty thousand soldiers. It was conclusively demonstrated that men of this type could be readily trained into good soldiers almost as quickly as men who knew English by coupling a course in English with the military instruction. When the armistice was signed, these schools were in progress in every camp. It was found that men brought together in this way soon forgot racial distinctions; they were all learning English; they were all members of one army; they all acquired the American viewpoint.

In three months-and often in less time men were taught sufficient English to enable them to receive, execute, and transmit verbal orders and messages intelligently, and also to read and understand ordinary written or printed matter as contained in the various drill regula tions, soldiers' handbooks, etc. It is because of the great success obtained during the war that the Army decided to continue this practical Americanization scheme.

The aliens who enlist under the provisions of the Emergency Act after three years in the Army are entitled to naturalization upon discharge a saving of two years over the civil process. From the standpoint of the Army, the soldier is trained and instructed in English for about three months, and the Army gets the services of a soldier for the remainder of the three-year enlistment period. So as far as the Army is concerned, it is a practical business proposition.

In order that the country at large may learn of this work the War Department early in September plans to send throughout the country a recruiting detachment

made up of men who have graduated from the Recruit Educational Center at Camp Upton. This particular detachment will be trained in accordance with a drill system developed by Lieutenant-Colonel Bernard Lentz, of the General Staff. Since this drill system, because of its emphasis upon the mental development. of the individual recruit, is a vital part of the plan for Americanization, it deserves discussion here.

It is called "The Cadence System of Close Order Drill." Those who have seen men trained under this system are most enthusiastic. One officer of the Regular Army writes us:

as

The most severe tests to prove the merits of this system of teaching drill were given last summer. A battalion commander turned over for experiment about fifty men who had been given up "undrillable.” These were the awkward ones, the mentally slow, and those who lacked a knowledge of English. These men were drilled for an hour a day for three weeks. At the end of this time they drilled like West Point cadets. General Shanks has written of his experiments at Camp Kearney with this system in the following words:

It made a wonderful improvement in the drill of the men at Kearney. Soldiers who before were going through movements in a perfunctory sort of way when they actually gave the commands themselves and executed the commands at the same time put an amount of snap and pep into the drill that was most gratifying.

What is this system and wherein is it an improvement on the "hay foot, straw foot" system used by the awkward squads of our Revolutionary ancestors?

Briefly, it is a system in which the men themselves give the actual commands of execution. At first thought that sounds as though this system might have been developed by a Soldiers and Sailors' Council of the new Russian army, but such is not the case. It is the child of a colonel on the General Staff, and its object is to promote discipline and not to destroy it.

Those who are interested in military training as a social asset should most certainly secure the text-book of "The Cadence System," which is published by the George Banta Publishing Company, Menasha, Wisconsin. The system is not a substitute for the close-order drill of the

Infantry Drill Regulations, but a development of it. The method by which the men give the commands of execution can be from the text-book of the system. Here briefly illustrated here by a quotation

are the directions for the execution of the simple movement, "Right, face:"

the soldier raises slightly the left heel and right toe; faces to the right, turning on the right heel, assisted by a slight pressure on the ball of the left foot.

At the count of "2 "the soldier places the left foot smartly by the side of the right. Left face is executed on the left heel in the corresponding manner.

In other words, the instructor or the officer tells his men what the command is to be, and then, instead of giving the command of execution or ordering "March!" merely orders "Command." The men immediately give the proper command themselves and execute it in cadence.

The recruit detachment which is to illustrate both the benefits of this new system of training and the social value of the War Department's new work will probably be known as the "Americans All!" Detachment. No happier name could be chosen. It is a fortunate augury of the day when the War Department will be permitted to bring to every young man of the country, under a system of universal training, the advantages which are accruing to these men who are fortunate enough to be chosen for this new and liberal experiment in Americanization.

TO EVERY ONE HIS DUE

IT

T is reported that wage-earners are receiving more money than they know how to use; that high wages are producing habits of luxury and even of vicious self-indulgence; and that comparatively little money is being laid aside for the hard times that may come in the future. And critics contend that this is the reason why wages should not be increased or even should be lowered.

If the facts are as these critics think, they furnish a very good reason why newspapers, teachers, preachers, and popular leaders should urge on the community the duties of thrift, simple living, and wise savings. But they furnish no reason why wages should be lowered or even should not be increased. It is not the duty of the community to determine for us how we should spend our money. The Bourbon aristocracy took the money of the people of France in taxes and spent

it for them and this aristocracy included telligent, and, measured by the current not only the wealthiest but the most innotions of the times, the most religious, portion of the community. The result of this theory of government was first an intolerable despotism and then a tragical revolution.

Government has two duties to perform in solving the industrial problem.

It has, first, to do all that can be done by legislation to secure for each worker his due proportion of the product of the