Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed]

THE PRESIDENT'S WAR ON THE

HIGH COST OF LIVING

EARLY in August the President told Congress what he thought about the high cost of living. The most interesting assertion he made was that the sooner the peace treaty was ratified, the sooner we should get back to normal conditions, with the "free processes of supply and demand" in operation. As the bear remarked when he poked his nose into the beehive, "Perhaps there's something in it."

The President urged capital and labor to "get together," agree on wages and hours, and cut out the strikes for which the poor old

A Review of Current Events

By EDWARD N. TEALL

innocent public has to suffer. It was good advice; but the strikes went on.

Increase of production was recommended. So was careful buying by housewives. Also, fair dealing by producers, middlemen and merchants. Here the President was appealing to the goodness and the good sense of individuals. Even the President of the United States cannot make us produce more abundantly, spend more wisely, or deal more fairly!

There were some suggestions of a more practical nature: That profiteering be made punishable under the Food Control Act; that a law be passed preventing food from being kept too long in storage and requiring food

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

packages to be marked with the date of their entrance into the storehouse and their market value at that time; release of hoarded food and other articles; and the sale of surplus stocks held by the Government. Where these matters could be regulated by law, Congress was urged to act. In other instances the Government Department of Justice got after the profiteers, more or less effectively, and army food and blankets were placed on public sale.

Putting it squarely up to the Government to make its laws and acts fit in. with the laws of nature to control the relations of men, just try to think out an answer to this question: Wouldn't all the problems be solved if every single individual played absolutely fair?

Here is one answer: No! But if every individual played absolutely fair, the work of the Government in regulating public affairs would be very much simpler. Common sense might flavor even political economy.

AMERICA'S ROYAL VISITOR

International Film

THE PRINCE OF WALES

IT is a hard job, we should think-being a Prince these days. But we don't think Edward, Prince of Wales, needs our pity or wants our

sympathy. His princing is admirably done, and he seems to get his share of fun out of it, too.

The House of Windsor, that used to be the House of Hanover (there is something in a name, you see!), has qualities quite different from those of the Houses of Hohenzollern and Hapsburg.

The young Prince of Wales brought to the Dominion of Canada friendship and good fellowship; and back of all the festivities of his reception there was a deep significance. The Prince was a living symbol of the unity of the splendid empire which, in spite of its human faults and errors, has done so gloriously much for the civilization of the world, and which today needs (more perhaps than ever before) team-work by its member-countries.

Don't forget the Prince does not!-that the U. S. A. makes a good clean triangle with England and Canada.

WARSHIPS IN THE CANAL "THIS is the biggest event in the history of the Canal," said Governor Harding of the Canal Zone, after the six dreadnoughts of the Pacific Fleet had passed through. At one time in their passage through the locks these huge floating defenders of Uncle Sam's liberty were 85 feet above sea level.

The ships went through nicely. "No trouble at all," said Admiral Rodman, commander of the fleet. But it was a relief to hear, about August 1, that the ships were at last floating safely on the western ocean.

The presence of this splendid naval force will be a source of satisfaction to the people out on the coast, even though there is no warlike necessity to call for their presence.

[graphic]

FROM MESSENGER-BOY TO
MILLIONAIRE

Andrew Carnegie, who died in August, was born in Scotland in 1835. He came to this country in 1848, and began working in a factory with wages of just a bit more than a dollar a week. When he was 14 he became a telegraph messenger-boy. He learned telegraphy, got a job as operator on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and rose to the position of Division Superintendent. The Scotch are a "canny" people, and Andrew had the thrift of his race. He saved money, and kept his eyes open for chances to make his savings grow. He made money in a sleeping car company, invested in oil lands, and started building up one of the world's greatest fortunes.

[graphic]
[graphic][merged small]

THE NEW MEXICO, FLAG-SHIP OF THE NEW PACIFIC FLEET, PASSING THROUGH THE PANAMA CANAL

In the Civil War times he worked for the Government, as superintendent of the military railroads and telegraph lines of the East.

After the war Mr. Carnegie went into the steel industry. He built up the great Homestead Steel Works, and in 1888 introduced the Bessemer process. In 1901, when the Carnegie Company was merged into the United States. Steel Corporation, Mr. Carnegie retired.

He had accumulated a vast fortune. The character of a man is shown both by the way in which he amasses wealth and by the uses to which he puts it. Mr. Carnegie used his for the public good. He established the Hero Fund, the Carnegie Institute of Technology at Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Institution at Washington, the Endowment for International Peace, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Millions of dollars were set aside for the support of these institutions, each of which embodied some pet idea or theory of "the Ironmaster." His libraries are in a thousand cities and towns. He gave away 350 million dollars.

Mr. Carnegie wrote several books: "Trium

phant Democracy," "The Gospel of Wealth," "The Empire of Business" and "Problems of

Underwood & Underwood THE LATE ANDREW CARNEGIE

Today." He built the Palace of Peace for the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague. Learning and peace were the two chief objects of Mr. Carnegie's interest in his later years. Andrew Carnegie was a leader in the wonderful industrial development of America. He had the courage of a pioneer. He dreamed the

[graphic]

dream of wealth and power, and by using all the brains and energy he had he made the

[graphic]

dream come true. He dreamed also the dream of a world at peace, and spent huge sums of money in the endeavor to bring about the happy state of affairs which he longed to see. This dream did not come true, and the War in Defence of Civilization brought grief to him. But the work of Andrew Carnegie for peace on earth, good will among men, was not done in vain. Out of the Great War must come at last a new era of happier relations among the peoples.

OUR SPLENDID BOYS ON PARADE Now that the men who served in France are home again, it is good, before we stop printing soldier pictures in the WATCH TOWER, to look at one more pair of photographs showing The Boys in action. The pictures in this number are not battle pictures, but they are an important part of the Great Story.

When those fine fellows marched, in Paris, in London and in New York, who could ever have supposed, from their splendid appearance, that they had learned their soldiering in so few months?

ALONG AND BEYOND THE BORDER POLICING the border between the United States and Mexico is a difficult task. Even if the Carranza Government were all it ought to be (which means about everything it is n't!) it would find great difficulty in trying to control the lawless men who hide in the mountains and ride hard in border raids, leaving a trail of what the editorial writers call "international complications."

When bandits captured two American officers and demanded ransom, there was only one thing for our Government to do: it was bound to save the officers' lives and try to punish the outlaws.

That is what the Government did. Incidentally, also, it let Señor Carranza know that we cannot forever accept his weakness as though it were free from guilt.

Who does the most harm in Mexico: Mexican bandits, foreign exploiters of the country's natural resources, or German plotters? They all help to make our Government's problem more difficult.

[graphic]

Wide World Photos

THE 5TH MARINES OF THE SECOND DIVISION PASSING THROUGH NEW YORK'S VICTORY ARCH AT MADISON SQUARE, NEW YORK

BACK TO WORK!

JULY and August had gone, and with September home come the boys and girls from mountain and seashore, ready for the new year of school-that most important of all events!

A new school year's opening is, certainly, a great event in this country. Public education is one of the big departments of the business of our Government. What with war work, Liberty Loan drives, and "flu" epidemics, school work has been rather seriously interrupted.

Now, however, we are "getting back to normal." No excuse for being behind in your lessons! More need than ever for Uncle Sam's nieces and nephews to pitch in and learn, learn, learn-learn all their heads will hold! Good luck to you, and happy days!

THROUGH THE TELESCOPE HUNGARY, after being torn up by the Bolsheviki, "took up" with a Grand Duke of the House of Hapsburg. She was then notified

by the Powers represented at Paris that they could not recognize nor deal with a Governmen with a Hapsburg in it. This raised the question, what would they do if a Hapsburg were to be chosen to high executive office, by a vote of the people. Then the Hapsburg Grand Duke stepped down and out! What with her internal problems, and with Rumania anxious to push her out of the way, Hungary has had a troubleful summer of it.

After the President had vetoed the bill for repealing the Daylight Saving law, the House and the Senate killed the veto. Old Father Time may have been bewildered, but, so far as we could see, the sun kept right on rising and setting in the good old way.

The new Prime Minister of Italy, Signor Nitti, warned his people that they must get "back to the land." If everybody lived and worked in cities, who would raise the wheat and work the mines?

« PreviousContinue »