Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 157, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1918 — WILSON VETOES $2.40 WHEAT [ARTICLE]

WILSON VETOES $2.40 WHEAT

SAYS PRICE WOULD BE UNFAIR TO ALLIES AND FARMERS DO NOT DEMAND IT. President Wilson has vetoed the act passed by congress placing the price of wheat at $2.40 per bushel. Among other reasons he gives the following: “A fixed minimum priee of $2.40 per bushel would, it is estimated, add $2 a barrel to the price of flour; in other words, raise the price of flour from the, present price of $10.50 to $12.50 at the ipfll, and inasmuch as we are anticipating a crop of approximately 900,000,000 buShels of wheat, this increase would be equivalent to the immense sum of $387,000,000. Such an increase in the price of wheat in the United States would force a corresponding increase in the price of Canadian wheat. The allied government would of couse be obliged to make all of their purchases at the increased figure, and the whole scale of their financial operations in this country, in which the government of the United States is directly assisting, would be thereby correspondingly enlarged. The increase would also add very materially to the cost of living and there would inevitably ensue an increase in the wages paid in practically every industry in the country. These added financial and economic .difficulties, affecting practically the whole world, can not, I assume, have been in contemplation by the Congress in passing this legislation.”