i COMRADESHIP.
£
' Two hundred and fifty
thonsand workmen partici-
pated in a demonstration last
week organized by the Social-
ists of Budapest, Hungary, in
the interest of franchise re-
form.
By direct universal suffrage,
Sidonio Paes has been elected
President of the new Portu-
guese Republic. .
Socialist Party membership
passed 100,000 in March and
for the past six months shows
the highest average member-
ship the party has had since
1914, national headquarters
announces.
Determined to oust Govern-
or E. L. Philipp and obtain
greater political representa-
tion, nearly 600 farmers gath-
ered Wednesday of last week
in a convention at Madison,
Wisconsin, that rivaled the fa-
mous grange movement of
1872. The convention was
called to present state admin-
istration and the Governor,
whose private car lines are
blamed for great losses in last
year’s potato crop.
A coalition of parties rep-
resenting the big interests re-
cently resulted from a conven-
tion held in Minot, North Da-
kota, to oppose the farmers’
Non-Partisan League ticket.
A. C. Townley, president of
the farmers’ Non-Partisan
deague that captured all po-
litical offices in North Dakota
in 1916 and which is said to be
sweeping the great Northwest
like wildfire, appeared lately
before the Senate Military Af-
fairs Committee in Washington
to answer charges of disloyal-
ty brought against the League.
Mr. Townley quoted resolu-
tlons adopted by the executive
committee of the League to
show that the farmers of the
Northwest are co-operating in
every way in the prosecution
of the war on autocracy. He
refused. however, to diverge
from the position which he
took last year, that capitalists
have been permitted to reap
huge profits out of the con-
flict.
The Prussian Upper House
has awthorized eriminal joro-
ceedings against Prince Iich-
nowsky, who published a state-
ment lately collaborating the
statement of Dr. Wilhelm
Muehlon, an exile from Ger-
many, formerly director of the
infamous Krupp gun works,
which substantiates the Social-
ist contention that the present
war was a premeditated af-
fajr, planned by Prussian mil-
itary leaders to chloroform the
Socialist movement and labor
union activity in the principal
countries of the continent.
CIVILIZATION.
The Utah State Council of
Defense has decreed that
teaching of the German lan-
guage must be abandoned by
all schools, colleges and other
educational institutions in the
state.
W. V. Burke has to face
trial for sedition, having been
arrested last week in Grey-
bull, Wyoming, where he was
attempting to organize the oil
field workers into local unions
of the Industrial Workers of
the World. :
Alrs. Sheehy - Skeffington,
widow of the Irish martyr. was
speaking on the conseription
and home rule questions to an
audience in Red Branch Hall,
‘San Francisco, California, re-
cently, when her address was
Interrupted by federal author-
‘ities, who took her to the po-
lice station of the city. She
‘was later released.
+ Rev. William Short, head of
the People’s Council in San
ancisco, is being held in
$10,000 bail, on a charge of
violating the Espionage Act.
He was acting as chairman of
a meeting of 5,000 citizens, in
Red Branch Hall, when he was
placed under arrest.
Miss Jeanette Rankin, Rep-
resentative in Congress from
Montana, was prevented from
speaking in the interest of the
Third Liberty Loan in the
High School auditorium, Butte,
Montana, because certain in-
terests in control of the pub-
lic’s affairs were not in sym-
pathy with the attitude she
took during the strikes in that
cify last summer.
THE
Mayor M. R. Carlson, of Mo-
line, Illinois, refused a permit
for a May Day parade of Mo-
line Socialists, and denied the
party the right to hold meet-
ings on the streets of the city.
The Nebraska State Council
of Defense has asked the re-
gents of the State University
to discharge certain unnamed
professors because of disloyal
actions and attitude. The
Council was asked to make
specific charges that a public
hearing might be accorded
the accused, but it is opposed
to giving them a public hear-
ing. The regents refused the
request.
Lincoln Steffens, author, ed-
itor and magazine writer, was
stopped from speaking at a
church in San Diego, Califor-
nia, Iately, after he ad-
mitted that he had criticized
the United States government
“for twenty-five years.”
Joseph Wits and J. P. Antz,
charged with trying to bribe
military officers to secure ex-
emption for 14 Mennonite
boys. are held at Sioux Falls,
South Dakota, under $2.000
bonds for the next meeting of
the federal grand jury.
The study of German will
be dropped from the curricu-
lum of publie schools in Seat-
tle. Washington, at the close
of the present term.
The Stand Oil Company
earnings were approximately
one hundred million dollars
for the year 1917. After all
taxes were allowed for, also
depreciation and sundry re-
serves, over $30,000,000 clear
remained, to be divided up
among stockholders.
A regulation providing pun-
ishment for any person who
wears the svmbol or displays
the flag of the Sinn Fein Soci-
ety has been issued by the
Australian government, fol-
lowing representations made
by a delegation of citizens who
informed the Premier that the
Sinn Fein colors had been dis-
plaved during processions at
Melbourne and Sydney.
The United States Steel Cor-
poration shows net earnings
of about sixty million dollars
for the first quarter of 1918,
that is, exclusive of war and
other taxes.
The school board at Buhl,
Idaho, has withdrawn an or-
der recently issued requiring
pupils to be vaccinated before
admittance to schools would be
granted. Return of children
who were kept out of school
by non-compliance with the
order was asked for.
At East St. Louis, Illinois,
thirty milk dealers and restau-
rant proprietors were lately
fined for violations of a food
law which requires that milk
offered for sale must contain
at least 3 per cent of butter fat.
Profiteering in rents has
reached such a stage in Phila-
delphia that it has become a
subject of investigation by the]
Federal Department of Justice.
To stop profiteering in the
distribution of ice to the peo-
ple of the city of Philadelphia,
the Food Administration at
Washington has instructed Jay
Cook; the city’s Food Adminis-
trator, to assume complete
charge of the situation there.
AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT. 1
Two automobiles collided
near the water trough above
Mechanicsburg, Saturday. Each
car carried a number of pas-
sengers. The one was owned
and driven by Mr. Christ Ben-
der, who was returning home
from Meyersdale. The other
one was owned by Mr. Andrew
Rishel, and driven by Mr. Fike.
The engine had stopped for
Mr. Fike, causing him to get
out of the machine and crank
it. He forgot to disconnect
the engine and the machine
plunged forward into Mr. Ben-
der’s car, mashing the radiator
off the latter and otherwise
damaging it. Mrs. Bender
was thrown against the wind
shield, sustaining a few bruises,
no one else being injured.
There are those who think
that Revolutionary Russia
should have emerged as a per-
fect model straightway the
Czar was overthrown. What
the revolution needs is time
and what the world needs is
patience.
®
MEYERSDALE COMMERCIAL, MEYERSDALE, PA.
225355555053 5555BHHBS HES,
WE RECOMMEND
Eber K. Cockley &
~ Herman G. Lepley
For Representatives in the
General Assembly.
A. Lindstrom
For Nate Nenator.
Hon. L. S. Mellinger
For Representative in Congress,
230d Pennsylvania District.
We ----
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7
's Ps Fo
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“REPRESENTING THE VIEWPOINT
OF
PLAIN
PEOPLE
EVERYWHERE.”
PIPPI PII IP III PTI ITT FLL ITT PPP IPP IIPS 4
SEL See aids SSSTSTTTTSSSSS a a a a aa Se ee Tes eTo=SSs i
SEEN SES ew i
VARY YOUR DIET; °
WE ARE AT WAR
Director Crutchfield Tells House-
wives to Watch and Be Gov-
erned by “Fair Price” Lists.
“The people of Pennsylvania can
get along comfortably and in plenty,
go far as food is concerned, during
the ensuing months or until the end
of the war if they will only observe
the ordinary rules of supply and de-
mand in certain lines of food essen- |
tials,” said J. S. Crutchfield, Assistant
to U. S. Food Administrator Heinz,
and Director of the Division of Distri-
bution and General Markets.
“The question facing the people is
not one of restricted diet, but of a |
varied diet. A knowledge of these |
conditions is really essential to the |
comfort and happiness of our people. |
It has been tersely put by one of Mr.
Hoover's assistants in Washington, |
that ‘the eating of wheat flour bread-
is a habit.
“In the days of our fore-fathers
wheat flour was a luxury. Their sta-
ple diet was corn in its various forms,
and no healthier or happier people
could be found on this hemisphere.
But while we are asked to restrict
ourselves in the consumption of wheat
flour, there are a score or more of
other articles of diet that can make
up this shortage. It is simpky a ques-
tion of adapting ourselves.
“For instance, we are approaching
a time of year when the markets will
be filled with the finest of vegetables,
considering the war-time; the prices
of these vegetables will rise and fall
with the supply. No housewife need
be ignorar the most varied and
palatable methods of preparing vege- |
-_—
tables to take the place of wheat.
Indeed, it would be far better for the
health of the country if more vege-
tables were eaten, even under normal
circumstances.
“Vary your diet. We are at war.
Supplement and substitute vegetables
and meat while they are plentiful for
the specialized wheat flour bread. As
a rule many of our foreign-born citi-
zens utilize bread only as an addi-
tion to vegetable dishes, The lack of
it would be no special deprivation to
thousands of them. The American
housewife can well afford to fake pat-
tern from these races.
“Watch. the vegetable markets and
prices. Some of the former are un-
usually low in price at times; then is
the time to buy and consume them.
“The people of Pennsylvania must
realize that they constitute a great
army, and like an army they are un-
der orders that change from day to
day. The Food Administrator of
Pennsylvania is the Commanding
General. Market supply and demand
furnish him the basis for the “Fair
Price Quotations.” Watch the news-
papers for the published statements
by our experts as to what food sup-
plies are normal, plentiful or scarce
and be guided accordingly. There is
ne danger of want in a single family
in Pennsylvania as a result of our
war conditions, if the housewife will
but adapt herself to changing condi-
tions of food supply.”
THE PASS WORD—“WAR”
“We have got to reach the
place each one of us, where we
define every decision in eur lives
as an act of war policy.
“Everything that we do, plan,
eat, wear, must be analyzed and
measured from one single point
of view—will it centribute to the
carrying on of the war, or will it
contribute to tts prolongation?”
—Dr. Alonzo Taylor.
sons why we
WHAT'S SO AND WHAT ISN'T
Copyrighted by JOHN M. WORK
SUPPLY AND DEMAND.
No, Socialism will not repeal the law of supply and de-
mand.
But, will we not have to fix arbitrarily the price of prod-
ucts?
I do not think so. But if it were necessary it would not
be impossible. It is done to a large extent under the present
ystem.
The United States government has set the price of the let-
let postage stamps sold in its postoffices. You can always find
stamps at the postoffice, and you can always find butter at the
grocery. The supply of stamps varies fully as much as the
supply of butter does. The variation in the supply of butter
and the demand for butter causes the price of butter to fluctu-
ate. But the variation in the supply of stamps and the demand
for stamps does not cause the price of stamps to fluctuate.
Has the United States government repealed the law of
supply and demand?
No, it has not repealed it, but it has set it aside.
arbitrarily fixed the price of stamps.
If there were a thoroughly organized butter trust, it could
arbitrarily fix the price of butter, too.
The trusts do constantly set aside the law of supply and
demand by arbitrarily fixing prices. For example, the price
of oil is not fixed by the law of supply and demand at all. It
is arbitrarily fixed by the oil trust.
These instances demonstrate that the law of supply and
demand can be regulated.
We Socialists do not propose to attempt to repeal the law
of supply and demand, any more than the United States gov-
ernment and the trusts have done so. If it is necessary, we
will set it aside, as they have done.
But I do not think it will be necessary. I can see no rea-
should have to fix arbitrarily the prices of prod-
It has
ucts.
Of course, it will be necessary for us to put products into
the hands of the consumer at their real value.
But, when profitmongers and middlemen are eliminated,
the price of a product fixed by law of supply and demand will,
in my judgment, substantially coincide with its real value.
The object will thus be accomplished automatically.