Judge — June 26, 1920 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

U di Revnes P. Sterner. Seer Jous A. Steiner te a Peearr Maxwert, E , Jaurs S. Mercaten, ¢ HE great sugar mystery is still a mystery. Is there any sugar? Is there enough to go nd? Or is there a surplus and, if so, where is that surplus? inefficient government at Washington seems able with unfailing accuracy to lo a keg home-made wine in the cellar of some poor Italian. By the use wers it can sometimes collect a letter in the upper New York and by the afternoon of the next day deliver it in the middle part of the town. It can always find some way of not deport ing lien and anarchistic enemy of American instituti But when it comes to tackling the sugar question, it seems entirely impotent to discover or to remedy Juc y its tremendous expenditures the government must have in its employ enough agents and investigators at least to find out and make public the facts. If these show that there is no sugar we would like to know so that we can ke philosophy take the place of it. If there is an under-supply with a definite and reliable knowledge of that condition we can tind some way to meet and solve it THE truth, so near as it can be ascertained from unoflicni sources, is that there is, or lately has been ample supply of the sweetening ingredient, but that much of it has been shipped away and much of it has been placed in secret storage for the purpose of permitting its owners to traffic and grow rich by manipulating this necessity of the people The initial increase in price imposed by this method to en rich the first profiteers would not impose an unbearable burden on the consumer. Unfortunately the commudity has to pass through the hands of a lot of other profiteers on the way down each of whom puts on his tax in fast-increasing ratio until it reaches the hands of the final autocrat, the comer grocery mar who also adds his bit as he condescends to allot her small portion to the housewife It would seem that a little of the governmental idealism so persistently and obstinately devoted to the betterment of foreign peoples might well be turned into a practical and prompt relief of some domestic problems that affict us For instance, Washington might direct some of its surplus energy and tax-money to answering two questions: Who has all the sugar? And where is it? N the editorial columns of one of the daily contemporaries there is an cloquent denunciation of the recent cowardly and disgraceful vote in the House, passing the bonus bill. The Grast EB. Hat article uses such terms as “the bonus herd,” “those House onus politicians” and “their minds have been intent upon buying votes for themselves out of Treasury funds Very fine, all this. But what earthly goed does it do? Glit tering generalities like these hurt no man, tauch less a re-clec tion-hunting Congressman or a Legion lobbyist. The New York Sun, from which journal ‘he expressions are quoted, has all the facilities for learning the names, and ail the ability appropriately to describe the sinister motives of the men in Congress and in the lobby who are promoting this legislation condemned by every self-respecting soldier who fought for bis country. It did print the vote, but to most readers this was simply a mass of type conveying no idea of individual responsi- bility If Maginnis of Michigan is handling the measure in the Finance Committee, tell us so, Mr. Sun, and give usa few short words about who, why and what Maginnis is. If Jones. the shyster lawyer of Hohe sas, is busy about the lobbies, picking up a litte easy money by telling timid Congressren what the Legion is going to do to them if they don’t vote right, give us some idea where the money is coming from to pay Jones's hotel bills, accompanied with sug gestions about Jones’s going back to Hohoko and attending to his neglected practice A little very concrete publicity of this sort about pending legislation would do a lot of good. Shooting your musket in the air pleases and profits no one W HAT a jolly and interesting quality inconsistency is in a pretty little woman. But in a big, ugly, daily newspaper it is something else again. The wailing of the dailies over the paper famine—usually accompanied in a near-by column by other wailing over the high cost of living—scems just a teenty weenty bit inconsistent. In the same sheet, in follow ing the tiny streamlet of news, one has to travel through acres and acres of display advertising inciting and exciting the reader, and especially the woman reader, to all sorts of ex penditure It is to be confessed that the gracefully posed groups of slender and symmetrical young persons frankly exposing lin serie, corsets and other things that used to be feminine mys teries are interesting. It must at the same time be admitted the pleasure gained from this ard similar displays helps seri ously in bringing about that paper shortage the esteemed con temporaries so strenuously lament and go to Congress aby comicbooks.com