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A Valsparred Laundry
is soap-and-water proot-

V

ALSPAR is proof against hot and cold water, water thick with strong soap or bluing. It is the varnish that won't turn white under any circumstances, any conditions.

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Besides Valsparring the laundry floor, go over the whole washing machine with this tough, durable coating of protection.

Then, Valspar the woodwork throughout the laundry-even the clothes basket will be better for a coat of Valspar.

There is nothing like Valspar for general household use. In the kitchen, pantry, bathroom, dining room, hall or porch-wherever water, weather or wear must be reckoned with-Valspar is the varnish to use.

Anything that's worth varnishing is worth Valsparring.

VALENTINE & COMPANY

Largest Manufacturers of High-Grade Varnishes in the World-Established 1832
New York Chicago Boston Toronto London Paris Amsterdam

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MAY 4, 1921

WHY ARE PRICES STILL SO HIGH?.

T

O most of us, at any time, the principal problem of life is the cost of living. Most of us, therefore, will take particular interest in reading the just published reports of the Federal Trade Commission and of the Department of Labor concerning this matter.

From these reports we note that the retail cost of food and other necessities has not declined as much as has the wholesale price. For instance, comparing wholesale prices with those of a year ago, we find that food has declined 39 per cent, but the percentage decrease in the retail prices on food was 22 per cent. Thus retail prices have not come down in proper ratio to the decrease in the wholesale prices of raw materials.

With regard to other necessities, we find that clothing has decreased 46 per cent and farm products nearly 48 per cent. On the other hand, fuel and lighting materials are about 8 per cent higher than they were a year ago.

The causes of the high cost of living, according to the Federal Trade Commission, are unfair methods of competition; important elements of transportation and credit; and especially the excessive price of coal, which also vitally affects the cost of other commodities, to say nothing of the effect upon the health and comfort of the people; moreover, the existence of typical corporate monopolies; open-price associations, tending to maintain unduly high prices; interference with the channels of trade by distributer and trade associations; and, finally, conditions with respect to foreign combinations in the international markets.

The Commission suggests the following remedies:

Legislation to meet judicial objections to the Commission's authority to continue its efforts in obtaining and publishing information respecting the ownership, production, distributing, cost, sales, and profits in the basic industries.

Prosecutions under the Anti-Trust Laws with a view to strengthen them to meet present conditions.

Encouragement of co-operative associations of agricultural producers and of co-operative organizations of

consumers.

Legislation to eliminate unnecessary reconsignments and brokerage operations, including "gambling in futures." A conference of official representatives of the trading nations to consider the question of clearing the channels of international commerce

The Announcement of the Prize Winners in The Outlook's Second Prize Contest is on page 40

so as to eliminate undesirable combinations.

Protection of the farmers by extending Federal assistance in giving more adequate and timely information concerning market conditions and in affording better market and storage facilities for the conservation of perishable products.

We note the absence of any reference to the tariff as a panacea for all ills, which is welcome; but we think it strange that no emphasis is laid upon the chief of all the causes for the high cost of living-inflation.

MR. LAUCK'S CHARGES

A

CCORDING to the newspapers, Mr. W. Jett Lauck, the "economist" for the railway labor unions, has charged that a "capital combine" has inaugurated a policy of Nation-wide shut-downs. Mr. Lauck, so it is reported, named about one hundred men who, through interlocking directorships, have centered in a dozen institutions the control of our wealth in basic raw materials and in railways. He is quoted as follows: "This interrelated capital group deliberately deflated the farms and then undertook, by precipitating industrial stagnation, to deflate labor. The dozen financial institutions-all of them New York institutions-are:

"The Guaranty Trust Company.
The Mutual Life Insurance Company.
The First National Bank.

The Equitable Trust Company.
J. P. Morgan & Co.

The Equitable Life Assurance Com

pany.

The American Surety Company.
The National Surety Company.
The Mechanics and Metals National
Bank.

The National City Bank.
The New York Trust Company.
The Chase National Bank."

Mr. Lauck's summary of the situation, according to the newspaper reports, was to. the effect that this "capital combine"

molds our economic destiny; that it has the power to adjust or to misadjust relative prices in a manner to stimulate or to suppress industrial activity; that this "focal capitalist group" has deliberately maintained high prices of steel, cotton, cement, and other basic materials;" that "the railways, financed by the same interests, have refused to place orders for plant maintenance, or even the orders necessary to prevent plant and equipment deterioration;" finally, that the greater factors in American industry "are all closely bound together by intercapitalist relations and interlocking directorates coming to focus in the house of Morgan." While the railways are pleading poverty, the banks, we read, "are making unprecedented profits and declaring unprecedented dividends, and the same applies to steel, coal, and railway equipment concerns." Finally, the "capital combine," in preparing to precipitate unemployment, adopted, it is alleged, the policy that the railways "should do it first."

With regard to these statements, The Outlook wrote to the dozen concerns in Mr. Lauck's list. The replies brought were, as might have been expected, denials of the allegations that a combination existed to deflate industry. For instance, Mr. Alvin W. Krech, PresiIdent of the Equitable Trust Company, says:

The notion that there may exist in this country a league of banking interests to break down the industrial life of the Nation is too silly to discuss, and therefore unnecessary to deny. So far as I know, the large banking interests of the country, and particularly my own company, are doing their utmost in a very difficult situation to maintain and support the Nation's activity. If a denial of the ridiculous charges said to be made... is necessary, you may make it as emphatic as the English language can frame it.... The charge probably developed from the loose talk originating with Senator La Follette.

Another President, Mr. Charles H. Sabin, of the Guaranty Trust Company, said:

So far as the Guaranty Trust Company is concerned, the statement reported. . . is absolutely and unqualifiedly false. Neither I nor any of my associates ever heard of such an alleged combination. . . . Mr. Lauck's statement that New York banks have combined to cause the spread of unemployment is also utterly false. . . . Any observer of the general economic situation must be aware that the existing industrial depression ..

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No institutions or organizations in this country have struggled harder against difficulties to preserve the financial, industrial, and commercial stability of the country throughout this period of world-wide reaction and economic readjustment than have the banking institutions of New York. . . . The burden of the situation has fallen far more heavily upon capital than upon labor. The values of securities and commodities have been deflated ... far more than have wages.

Mr. Lauck, it would appear, has charged the financial interests with biting off their nose to spite their facea surgical operation which they are not in the habit of performing.

IS THIS MAKESHIFT
LEGISLATION?

HE House of Representatives has

Trepassed the Fordner anvergenes

Tariff Bill. All tariff bills are given the name of the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives-as, for instance, the Dingley Tariff, the Payne Tariff, and now the Fordney Tariff.

From the quick and emphatic Republican vote which the Emergency Tariff Bill received in the House one might expect that it would go through the Senate with proportionate speed. The tendency there, however, to pass makeshift measures is not as great as it is in the House.

Doubtless most of the proponents of the measure believe that the addition of import duties on agricultural products will check the importation of those products at a time when their prices have been declining rapidly; that an emergency law, operating three months (the period provided for by the present bill), will help the farmer by relieving the pinch, and, indeed, will help to steady the general situation. Certainly no group was harder hit by the recent sharp decline in wholesale foodstuffs prices than that of the farmers. The Fordney Tariff, moreover, provides against the practice of "dumping"-that is, selling foreign goods cheaper than they are sold in the country of their origin, and prevents scaling of present tariff duties by valuations made in the depreciated currencies of Europe.

The opponents of the bill, on the other hand, who are strong in the Senate, believe that it has been drawn for its political rather than for its economic effect; that it will benefit chiefly the speculators who are holding large quantities of farming products which they bought before the decline in prices; that it is in the interest of the sugar, meat,

and wool trusts; that the amount of the import taxes will be added to the price the consumer pays-according to the Democratic minority, some $2,000,000,000 would thus be added to the cost of living; and finally that, if we want to help Europe to settle her debts to us, we must be prepared to buy from her; and, as Europe can pay only in goods, we cannot be paid unless we welcome the commodities which we need and which Europe is prepared to send to us; and therefore we should avoid any possible display of sectional or National selfish

ness.

The Fordney Tariff is frankly experimental and temporary. It has the merit

International

JUDGE LANDIS OPENS THE BASEBALL SEASON

of recognizing the claims of one great body of producers who have been generally overlooked in protective tariff legislation, and who, in the interest of the whole country, should not be ignored.

OIL BEFORE HONOR-AND NO
ASSURANCE OF THE OIL

HE Senate, after a bitter debate,

Tpassed the Colombian Treaty on

April 20 by a vote of 69 to 19. The Senators who voted against the treaty included 15 Republicans and 4 Democrats. The Republican Senators were Borah, Capper, Johnson, Jones of Washington, Kellogg, Kenyon, La Follette, Lenroot, McNary, Nelson, Norbeck, Norris, Poindexter, Townsend, and Wadsworth. The Democrats were Senators Dial, Reed, Simmons, and Watson of Georgia. Senator Cummins, Republican, and Senator Tramwell, a Democrat, were paired against the treaty.

We publish these names as a roll of honor.

This list of names may also be said to constitute not only a roll of honor, but a roll of intelligence, for these Senators were the only ones who voted against the poorest bargain which the American

Government has entered into in many

years.

With the Colombian Treaty the Government hopes to buy the unpurchasable commodity of good will. There are Senators, too, who hope to secure from the payment of this money certain commercial advantages for America which are unspecified in the treaty. We are paying twenty-five million dollars in the hope that the Government to which it is paid may endure long enough to deliver goods which it has not promised to deliver. As a guaranty of the fulfillment of this lively expectation of favors to come we are relying upon the faith of a Government which has proved faithless in the past. The chance is one which would hardly interest even a moderately cautious gambler.

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BASEBALL PUT ON TRIAL

T

HE opening of the professional baseball season has shown by the crowded grand stands and the full-page newspaper reports that the American lovers of the game (rooters and fans, in the language of the bleachers) have not lost their interest because of the scandals and crookedness of last year. Baseball has been given a chance to establish itself in public confidence as clean sport. "In a very real sense," says the New York "Tribune," "baseball is starting fresh, with a new lease of life and a revival of good will and old-time zest and applause."

All the more, therefore, serious responsibility rests on managers and on Judge Landis, now the supreme arbitrator in baseball law and ethics. If baseball is to remain truly the National game, it must not be allowed to be used by gambling syndicates and bribe-givers.

At the opening of the season Judge Landis issued a statement to the players. He told them frankly that every player who makes an error in a game or who fails to play up to the standard expected of him will fall under suspicion. There are charges even now circulating that baseball players are planning to make money out of their own misplays. Hugh S. Fullerton in the New York "Evening Mail" recounts some of these charges. One, for instance, is that the team to win this year's pennant is already decided upon. Another is that a pitcher is to get money for home runs made off his pitching. Certain of these stories Mr. Fullerton has himself disproved. The chances are that none of them are true at all. The fact that they are circulating, however, is an indication of the state of mind of the people who patronize ball games.

There is a strong feeling that the exposures of last year were not followed by sufficiently severe and drastic punish

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ment. A few members of the Chicago White Sox who were dismissed for their offenses last year have attempted to capitalize the scandal by forming a freelance club (called in derision the Black Sox) to travel about and give exhibition games; but their enterprise has not met with any marked public favor or patronage. Perhaps the exposure will insure a clean game this summer; if it does not, the only hope for the restoration of baseball to its pre-eminence as an honestly fought game, which attracts its aggregate attendance of millions of onlookers who want to see athletic skill and honorable contest for the two pennants and the final World's Championship, lies in getting at "the men higher up" who have besmirched baseball for sordid greed.

There are sixteen clubs in the two major leagues. There are thousands of local clubs-school or amateur or just boys. Tens of thousands of games are played every fine holiday all over the country. Perhaps we think too much of professional baseball and too little of the game as it is played for fun and exercise by our boys and young men. In the larger sense baseball is with us to stay.

AY

MX

BRINGING GERMANY TO TERMS 1, 1921, has long been fixed as a definite and very important date in the settlement of the war. According to the Treaty of Versailles, the amount of damage which Germany did to the civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers and to their property was to be determined by a Reparation Commission, whose findings were to be concluded and notified to the German Government on or before that date. Pending the full determination of the claims of the Entente Powers, Germany was to pay "during 1919, 1920, and the first four months of 1921, the equivalent of 20,000,000,000 gold marks," which is about $5,000,000,000. This payment was to be made in "gold, commodities, ships, securities, or otherwise." At a conference in London in January the Entente Allies presented to Germany a bill of 226,000,000,000 gold marks, which is about $55,500,000,000, plus a 12 per cent export tax-all to be paid within a period of forty-two years. On March 1 Germany made a counter-proposal of a sum which was totally unsatisfactory.

The Germans made an appeal for mediation to President Harding, which was courteously, but definitely, refused in a note issued by Mr. Hughes, Secretary of State. Now, at the last minute, under the menace of invasion if the terms of the Treaty are not complied with, the German Government has, it is reported, increased its offer to a sum

which, if immediately paid, would amount to about $12,000,000,000; this with interest over forty-two years would amount to about $49,000,000,000. Thus Germany and the Entente Allies would seem to be approaching a common agreement.

Germany's promise to pay, however, is not equivalent to payment. In the first place, there is the demand for an immediate payment on May 1 for part of the reparations; this probably, however, will be extended by some days of grace. In the second place, some method must be devised by which the ultimate payment will be assured, for German prom

International

GENERAL DEGOUTTE

With a notable record in the late war, this distinguished French officer is now emphasizing his service to his country by his administration of that part of the Ruhr region taken from Germany and occupied by France. Should the entire region be so occupied, General Degoutte would seem to be the most appropriate choice as Military Governor

ises have not been equivalent to performances.

By the time this issue of The Outlook reaches its readers the Entente Allies may have agreed upon definite measures to enforce their demands. Great Britain has virtually agreed with France that if something definite is not forthcoming French troops may march farther into the German industrial district known as the Ruhr.

The present situation is very unstable. It is quite uncertain what may happen from day to day. The German offer has not been officially divulged. All that is publicly known as we write is that Germany has made an offer; the amount of 200,000,000,000 gold marks (as against the Entente demand of 226,000,000,000 gold marks) has been stated, coupled with a suggestion for mediation.

Germany's course has been evidently with the object of prolonging the nego

tiations as far as possible and avoiding thus a definite committal until it can no longer be avoided.

Germany is virtually in the position of a bankrupt concern whose pledges are not to be trusted. Of course Germany cannot pay in gold, and the nations would not be well served if they were paid in gold. What Germany can pay must be chiefly in labor and in commodities. The problem is to secure such payment without flooding the markets of the world with German goods or admitting Germany in unequal competition with the labor of her neighbors. It seems as if the only way out were by establishing something which would correspond in commercial life to a receivership. It may be that the occupation of the entire Ruhr district, if it is undertaken, will be in the nature of a partial receivership.

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The doctrine proclaimed under Monroe, which ever since has been jealously guarded as a fundamental principle of our own Republic, maintained that these continents should not again be regarded as fields for the colonial enterprises of Old World powers. There have been times when the meaning of Monroeism was misunderstood by some, perverted by others, and made the subject of distorting propaganda by those who saw in it an obstacle to the realization of their own ambitions. Some have sought to make our adhesion to this doctrine a justification for prejudice against these United States. They have falsely charged that we have sought to hold the nations of the Old World at arm's length, in order that we might monopolize the privilege of exploiting them ourselves. Others have protested that the doctrine would never be enforced if to enforce it would involve us in actual hostilities.

The history of the generations since that doctrine was proclaimed has proved that we never intended it selfishly; that we had no dream of exploitation. On the other side, the history of the last decade certainly must have convinced all the world that we stand willing to fight, if necessary, to protect these continents, these sturdy young democracies from oppression and tyranny.

It is perhaps not so much the fear of American aggression which has caused South America to look askánce at the

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