FOOD SHARKS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12069, 26 July 1917, Page 2

FOOD SHARKS.

FOOD GAMBLING CALLED MURDER AND TREASON. (New York "Tribune.") WASHINGTON, June 9. Food gambling was bitterly arraigned in a. statement issued to-day by As-sistant-Secretary of Agriculture Carl Vrooman, charging that food speculation at this timo is both treason and murder. Secretary Vrooman declared that on a. recent trip through many States he had found tragic conditions of hardship and suffering, among the poor. " Everywhere I have found a growing feeling that there must soon come. a. reckoning with these manipulators of the food supply," Mr Vooman stated. ,; Four classes of men are vainly trying to postpone that day of reckoning. "First, the impractical theorists who. on principle, are so opposed to any increase in the authority of the Federal Government, however temporary, that , thev would rather risk the safety of the nation than to sacrifice their theory on the altar of national efficiency. ATTACKS FANATICAL PACIFISTS. " Second, the fanatical pacifists who are unwilling to take, any steps that* will make this Government into an efficient war machine, even after war has been thrust upon us by the greatest and most relentless military power the world has ever seen. "Third, those sordid, unscrupulous

denizens of the business jungle who, in this decisive world conflict between democracy and despotism, are intent only Upon filling their own pockets with the price of economic treason to the repnb. *ie, and the. blood money of hungry men, women and children. "Fourth., the enemy within our' gates, American citizens who with treason in their hearts and a lying pretence of loyalty on their lips, are! seizing: on every trifling detail of proposed defensive legislation as n. pretext for bitter opposition to everything that I will help us to a. quick and deceive victory. "WOMEN DRIVEN TO SUICIDE. "The other day in Chicago a Polish priest told a Government official that, during the last two months five women members of his congregation either had gone insane or had committed suicide because of their inability to feed their children. j "I stand in wonder and admiration before, the patience and forbearance of the American people. Fortunately, they feel that the Federal Government! at Washington, which has done so much for them in the recent past, is going to take care of them now. Out of a confidence that Congress is going to give the President power to protect the people from spoliation by food sharks, is born a calm tolerance under injury such as none but a lenient people like ours would ever evince. This is the sort of tolerance that led Germany to believe that it had no limits. " AVoe to the food gamblers and their champions if they make the same mistake."