STATE AND CITY ACT TO BALK LIVING COST
Hartigan Trying to Arrange for Direct Dealing by Producer and Merchant Here.
VIOLATORS OF LAW SOUGHT
Commissioner Dillon Urges His Terminal Market Plan Again—May Appeal to Legislature.
Not since the beginning of the European war, when it was feared that the price of foodstuffs would go to war prices overnight, have city, State, and Federal authorities been so aroused over the upward trend of the necessities of life. Legislative action is urged by some, the interference of the National Government is demanded by others, and the city authorities, through the Board of Aldermen, also seek relief measures.
All those who are now striving to better conditions are turning their efforts toward determining whether the law has been violated, whether honest weight is given, as well as how best to facilitate the getting of foods to market and eliminate the middleman. All realize that, unless there is concerted action, the merchant and the manufacturer will go on raising prices, either in accordance with the law of supply and demand or because they can profit by necessity and get more for their goods.
Within a few weeks, it is expected, information will be placed in the hands of United States District Attorney H. Snowden Marshall that will warrant the Federal Government taking some action regarding the unlawful holding of foods in storage. The State will be able to do but little because many of the storage plants are in New Jersey. The city may, however, be able to take a hand in the matter provided the investigation by Police Commissioner Woods and the Department of Health shows that the law regarding egg storage has been violated here.
Other lines of activity have been opened by John J. Dillon, State Commissioner of Food and Markets, and Joseph Hartigan, Commissioner of Bureau of Weights and Measures. Both these officials are giving attention to the problem of getting food into the market, believing that if this is properly and economically done the cost of living will be lowered. Commissioner Hartigan is having prepared a list of producers and manufacturers who desire to do business directly with the trade rather than through a middleman. Commissioner Dillon has a plan for a terminal market and co-operative stores here.
Investigation by City.
The Wicks Legislative Committee and the Mayor's Committee probably will get together to consult upon legislative measures. Another corrective measure will be the passage by the Board of Aldermen of an ordinance prohibiting the sale of coal except by weight. This measure has twice been introduced in the Board of Aldermen, but has been defeated.
Alderman Isaac Gutman introduced a commission of ten business men to be be questing Mayor Mitchel to appoint a commission of ten business men to go known as “the Commission on Common Commodities.” The duties of this commission would be to inquire into the high price of coal, and it would have power to summon witnesses. The commission, though appointed immediately because of the coal situation, would have power also to inquire into other commodity markets. The resolution was referred to the Committee on Rules.
Commissioner Hartigan conferred in the afternoon with ten business men, representing the retail grocers, butchers, and delicatessen trade. Each had a story to tell of how the increased cost of the articles they carried had forced them to a minimum of profit from their business in spite of the high prices. The retail grocer made a margin of 15 per cent. profit before high prices came, it was said, but now, Mr. Hartigan was told, a grocer was lucky if he made 5 per cent. In the delicatessen business the profit had been cut from 25 per cent. to 15 per cent., it was said. The butchers complained that, whereas in normal times they made between 15 and 18 per cent., they now had to be content with 5 per cent. These percentages, of course, it was explained, referred only to the small shopkeepers.
All these men told the Commissioner that never before had times been so hard with them, as housekeepers will not submit to prices that would insure greater profit. The dealers predicted that, within the next three or four months, the records of the bankruptcy courts would show more failures than ever before in the history of the trade.
Thinks It a Federal Problem.
“The attempt of any one man or group of men to remedy price conditions will be futile,” said Mr. Hartigan. “If the situation gets tense and prices advance as is indicated the only power to remedy conditions will be the Federal Government. The increase in prices of necessities has now advanced from normal times 40 to 150 per cent., according to the commodity. This advance is in the face of the fact that there is no scarcity of foods. We do not face a famine.
“The people who are going to suffer most are the wage earners, the bank clerks, the store employes and the persons employed in various professions. In times of low prices this class is happy and is able to save. In times of stress they are afraid to complain because they are afraid of losing their positions. Now these persons are barely able to make both ends meet. They have to pay more than 40 per cent. out for food alone. They have no chance to save and they will suffer if prices go higher. Of course one way out is for a raise in salaries. Indeed, some concerns have already done this. Others are buying in large quantities and selling to their employes at cost.
“Publicity and high prices are coincident. It is believed that wide publicity of high prices advertise conditions that would not have been thought of by some dealers. Perhaps it would be well to have less publicity until some program of relief is worked out and, when it is, then submit it to the press for discussion.
“I am ready to submit to retailers a list of manufacturers and producers who are ready to do business directly with them. It would be a good thing if some of the small dealers took advantage of the offer and brought in large quantities through their associations. I will not act as sales agent. I will simply give out the list and maintain an information bureau.”
Commissioner Dillon’s Ideas.
Mr. Hartigan said present prices had caused the boarding houses to suffer and, along with the advance in prices of certain commodities, the prices of articles that could be substituted for them had also gone up.
The cost of living would be materially reduced by the elimination of the excessive cost of handling in the opinion of Commissioner Dillon. The Commissioner said frankly he was not in favor of investigation and inquiries, which had done nothing, in his opinion, except to ease the public mind in periods of stress. The passing of commodities from hand to hand added to the price, he said, citing eggs as passing from the farmer to the speculator, who bought them in the West; then to the Eastern storage warehouses, where they are held until prices tempt their sale.
The establishment of a great terminal market is the remedy suggested by Commissioner Dillon, who has worked out a plan which he will submit to the Legislature. He wants to give the producers an opportunity to sell directly to the consumer, and believes prices can be lowered by 20 to 30 per cent. by this process.
“The solution of the problem is the establishment of a big open market, controlled by the city or the State, where the farmer can come or can ship his goods knowing that they will be kept in proper storage and disposed of. The great trouble is that it is costing too much to get the food from the farm to the dinner table. Prices show this.”
Pending the establishment of a central market, Mr. Dillon will propose the formation of a co-operative organization to back three popular price stores. One will be located on the east side, one on the lower west side, and one on Washington Heights. The stores will obtain their stock from the producer and sell to members at cost.
While all this is going on prices are advancing. Now it is the pickle that has joined the high price ranks. Not only is the demand for pickles greater than ever before but the pickle crop has not been up to former years. The car shortage has also influenced the market. Along with the other troubles that beset the pickle manufacturer, the price of glass has gone up, as well as the cartons in which to ship pickles. The only article that has not gone up, it is said, is the olive.
COAL INQUIRY BY GRAND JURY.
District Attorney Intimates That He Expects Early Indictments.
The Grand Jury announced its intention yesterday of immediately starting an investigation into the coal and food situation with an idea of fixing the responsibility for the present inflated prices. The jurymen expressed a willingness to sit all next month if District Attorney Swann thought it necessary.
District Attorney Swann and Assistant District Attorney Markewich will go before the jury this morning with evidence obtained from a score or more dealers in the city, but Mr. Swann refused to divulge the nature of this evidence, though he said he expected to get one or more indictments.
Michael Burns, President of Burns Brothers, coal distributors, conferred with Mr. Markewich for several hours yesterday. He charged present high prices to speculators, who, he declared, had brought up quantities of coal from the so-called independent mines when coal was selling at a low figure and were now reaping enormous profits.
“Mr. Burns told me,” said the District Attorney, “that these scalpers purchased the coal for as low as $5 a ton and hoarded it in the neighborhood until the present scarcity arose.”
Mr. Burns said he had recently been compelled to purchase several thousand tons of coal from speculators, which he had sold to his customers at a loss. When asked by Mr. Swann to divulge the names of these men Mr. Burns refused. “I do not want to be an informer,” was his comment. Mr. Swann immediately caused a mandatory subpoena to be served on the coal merchant requiring him to appear before the Grand Jury tomorrow. Subpoenas have been sent to a score of other dealers.
Leonard M. Walstein, Commissioner of Accounts, came out yesterday in favor of a municipally operated coal market such as are maintained in Terre Haute, Ind., and other Western cities.
Assistant District Attorney Markewich, who has also been investigating the unprecedented rise in prices of live poultry, examined several representatives of that business yesterday, as the result of which he said he learned that the producers and Western shippers have not been demanding any higher prices than they did six months ago. From this it was apparent, Mr. Markewich said, that the law was being violated by the local distributers. He said he probably would call several dealers before the Grant Jury today.
Joseph Hartigan, Commissioner of Weights and Measures, increased yesterday his force of Inspectors investigating the alleged practice of small dealers in selling short-weight coal. Three dealers were arrested yesterday, all charged with selling coal of short weight. The Inspectors also arrested a grocery, charged with selling a basket of potatoes for $2.50, representing the weight to be 60 pounds, when it was really only 54 pounds.
Investigations had shown, the Commissioner said, that some dealers were using two scales, one honest and the other not. Where there was any question or where the customer looked like a person who would “kick,” the honest scale was used. In a majority of sales, however, the crooked scale was used, he said.
CITY TAKES EGG INVENTORY.
Police and Health Departments Set Out to Learn True Supply Conditions
Police Commissioner Woods, in co-operation with the Department of Health, began yesterday an investigation into the egg market here to determine whether there was any conspiracy to advance prices. The city authorities especially wish to ascertain if the report is true that speculators and storage men are accumulating large quantities of eggs and holding them back for higher prices.
Commissioner Woods has detailed Inspectors in every precinct in the city to ascertain the actual egg supply in New York. Their efforts will be supplemented by those of men from the Health Department. The Commissioner has asked storage men to submit figures showing the egg stock on hand as compared with a year ago, also the comparative wholesale prices.
Commissioner J. J. Dillon of the State Department of Food and Markets has already warned the egg dealers that they must obey the law regarding the representation of storage eggs as the fresh article. He threatens, if the existing law is disobeyed, that the state will require each egg to be stamped with the date it was placed in storage. He expressed an opinion that good storage eggs could today be sold for 33 cents a dozen, but he said he suspected of such character were now being disposed of at “strictly fresh” egg prices.
More than 32,000,000 eggs are used in New York City every week. The trade figures this number of eggs at 90,000 cases, each containing thirty dozen, which makes an actual total of 32,400,000 eggs.
“There is a great deal of misapprehension regarding the present price of eggs and its reasons,” said C. F. Droste, President of the wholesale egg firm of Droste & Snyder, at 177 Duane Street, yesterday. “There is no combination on the part of any of the storage men to keep prices up. It is purely an economic question, based on supply and demand. The shortage is now 1,000,000 cases or more, about 25 per cent. fewer eggs in cold storage now than a year ago.
“The demand from abroad has tended to advance the price, but since Nov. 1, the wholesale price has reached such a point that no more exportations have been made. The last exportations were on the basis of about 36 cents a dozen. The price is now 38 cents. Within the last week, however, inquiries from abroad have begun to come in. Should the price fall to 33 or 35 cents, England stands ready to take 100,000 cases at once, and even at the present rate exportations are likely to be resumed before Christmas.”
Mr. Drost said the same condition that had led to a cessation in the exportation of eggs also prevailed in the case of butter. Since the first of this year more than 20,000,000 pounds of butter has been sent from this country to Europe, but since Nov. 1 hardly any has gone abroad.
DEFENDS PASTEURIZATION.
Dr. Brown Declares Milk Standard Should Not Be Lowered.
The Wicks Legislative Committee, which began yesterday its New York City investigation of the distribution of farm products to determine whether money was wasted in handling them, was told by the Department of Health that the city would not countenance any attempt to lessen the restrictions it throws around its milk supply. In reply to a question as to whether pasteurization would not purify milk at present branded impure under the standards of the department, Dr. Lucius P. Brown, Director of the Bureau of Food and Drugs, said:
“Pasteurization kills the tuberculosis germs, but we must not pasteurize an impure milk supply.”
After the session yesterday Senator Wicks, Chairman of the committee, said he was not trying to show that pasteurization was not necessary, but that the people of the city had the best milk supply in the world, and should not mind paying for it.
Mr. Brown told the committee the powers of the Health Department were very broad, that it practically made its own laws as to the importation and sale of food in the city, and enforced them. He said the department had little trouble with the adulteration of milk by the addition of water, but that consumers are sometimes fooled with cream that has been treated with sucrate of lime.
In reply to questions, he said that pasteurization could never be given up. He told of the reduction in the death rate since pasteurization was inaugurated in 1914. In 1913 the maximum number of typhoid cases reported in one week was 340. In 1914 after pasteurization went into effect, the number fell to 130. In 1915, the largest number of cases in a week was 145. New York got milk from five or six states, Mr. Brown said, and Michigan was planning to send cream to New York. He said 40,000 to 50,000 farms supplied milk to this city.
The shortage of Milk Inspectors was emphasized by Mr. Brown. He said the whole milk inspection of the city was done by thirty-two inspectors, whereas there should be 140 or more. The hearing will continue at 10 o’clock this morning.
CHOSE DEATH TO BLINDNESS
Eyes Ruined by Constant Reading, Brooklyn Girl Hangs Herself.
Special to The New York Times.
BRIDGEPORT, Conn., Nov. 21.—Depressed by the realization that she was going blind, Miss Irene Chornock, 24 years old, of Brooklyn, N. Y., hanged herself last night in the attic of the Greek Catholic Rectory. Her cousin, the Rev. Orestes P. Chornock, is pastor of that church. Her body was found this morning. Pinned to her dress was a note, which ended with four lines from “The Journey Onward,” by Moore, the girl's favorite author. The note read:
This deed I have done myself. I have lost my vision. Life for me has lost its joy. I am of no earthly use, doomed soon to become a burden.
From all the links that bind us;
So turn our hearts, as on we rove
To those we’ve left behind us.
IRENE.
Before coming to visit Father Chornock, three weeks ago, the girl consulted an eye specialist in New York, who told her that constant reading had ruined her eyesight, and that it was only a matter of time when she would be totally blind. Miss Chornock had an aunt and a sister in Brooklyn.
AIR LETTER TO ROTARY CLUB
New York Body Gets Message Miss Law Brought from Binghamton.
Ruth Law, holder of the new record for aeroplane flying between New York and Chicago, delivered to the Rotary Club yesterday one of the letters intrusted to her. It came from James G. Brownlow, President of the Rotary Club of Binghamton, where Miss Law descended before making the final dash to New York. It was addressed to William J. Bemish, President of the Rotary Club in this city, and said:
“Binghamton Rotary Club sends greetings to the New York Rotary Club by Miss Ruth Law. The little lady was forced to alight and chose Binghamton. We always try to attach the New York and Binghamton Rotary Clubs to any important world service and through the courtesy of Miss Law we find an opportunity.”
The letter probably will be framed and hung in the club at the Imperial Hotel.
$11,000 VERDICT FOR WIDOW.
Husband Killed by Faulty Electrical Equipment.
Special to The New York Times.
RIVERHEAD, L. I., Nov. 21.—A jury in the Supreme Court here today gave to Mrs. Jessie A. Purick a verdict of $11,000 in her suit against the Port Jefferson Electric Light Company for $50,000 for the death of her husband, C. Fred Purick, a merchant of Port Jefferson. This is the largest verdict ever given in a damage action in Suffolk County. Mr. Purick was killed in the bath room of his home last January by coming into contact with a lighting fixture. The plaintiff showed that owing to defective equipment the wires entering the Purick home contained 2,300 volts, instead of 110.
Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch got a $5,000 verdict in an action against the same company last week for the death of her husband, William H. Blatch, who was killed on the lawn of Channing Pollock, the playwright, at Shoreham, in August, 1915. Mr. Blatch attempted to remove a wire that had fallen across the path. Mrs. Blatch sued for $100,000.
William Wheeler, superintendent of the Lighting Company, committed suicide with electrical current in the company’s plant last May, after he had been served with complaints in the damage suits.
BART DUNN LOSES SUIT.
Must Pay Rockland County for Detectives Hired to Run Him Down.
Special to The New York Times.
NYACK, N. Y., Nov. 21.—Supreme Court Justice Tompkins, in a decision handed down today, directed Bart Dunn, the former Tammany leader in the Seventeenth Assembly District, to pay $1,035.35 to Rockland County or his $5,000 bail bond would be forfeited.
Dunn was convicted of defrauding Rockland County on highway work. His appeal was denied in January, 1915, and he escaped to New Jersey, where he was concealed in a sanitarium in Butler, N. J. He left the sanitarium and went to the home of Mrs. Olivia Lakeland, in Summit. After Dunn had served eight months at Blackwell’s Island he married Mrs. Lakeland.
The money Dunn must return to Rockland County was spent by District Attorney Gagan for private detectives.
DIET SQUAD LOSES FLESH.
Mere Reduction to Normal Eating Proves Costly to Chicagoans.
CHICAGO, Nov. 21.—The suspicion of Dr. John Dill Robertson, City Health Commissioner, that his diet squad had gorged themselves in preparation for the experiment of feeding them on 40 cents a day was verified today when the twelve subjects of the experiment were placed on the scales.
The experiment, designed to inform the public how to beat the high cost of living by eating only what is necessary to maintain the best of health, was to have begun yesterday, but the Commissioner suspected the squad had made undue preparations and postponed the start until tomorrow.
Today he placed them on the scales and observed that a mere reduction to normal eating had cost most of them some flesh.
Dr. Robertson has received letters from all parts of the country making suggestions as to the diet. One writer said his daily diet for years had not cost more than 40 cents.
“I eat entire wheat bread, cereals, and cocoa; never taste vegetables, fish, or meat; am 32 years old and weigh close to 200 pounds,” he wrote.
BRYAN STICKS TO NEBRASKA
Intends to Stay There and Keep Up Fight for Prohibition.
Special to The New York Times.
PITTSBURGH, Nov. 21.—William Jennings Bryan passed through here today and scouted the report that he intended to move away from Nebraska.
“Never in the twenty-nine years that I have lived in Nebraska have I been in harmony with so large a majority of the people there on political issues,” he said. “My home shall continue to be there, and there I will vote as long as I live. Mrs. Bryan and I arranged about four years ago to spend our Winters in Florida, and we shall spend part of the Summer in Asheville, N. C., but we shall spend part of the year in Nebraska, and that part will include Election Day.
“We were never more pleased with Nebraska than we are today. I firmly believe I shall have my Stat bhind me in my fight for prohibition. The Democracy of Nebraska was ‘wet’ in the primaries, but with the brewers, distilleries, and saloons closed, the Democracy will be ‘dry.’ We will now begin to build the organization on a ‘dry’ foundation.”
The song of love,
The spice of humor.
End
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