Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1916 — HIGH PRICKS DUE TO COMBINE [ARTICLE]

HIGH PRICKS DUE TO COMBINE

Speculator* Who Forced Prices Up May Not Be Prosecuted. Washington, D. December 7. sources by government officials conducting the nation-wide inquiry into the high cost of living pointed with increasing directness tonight to the conclusion that the soaring prices of certain necessities of life were due, to some extent, at least, to the manipulations of food and other speculators who had combined to force quotations upward. These combinations are believed by the government investigators to have been criminal in character, rather spasmodic and rather shortlived.

Special attention is being given just now to alleged price manipulation In the so-called coal corner which recently resulted in sending prices to a panic level. Investigation of the high price of coal, hardly yet begun, has already convinced some officials that there was no warrant whatever sty SI 2 coal in Boston and New York, other than the activity of these alleged combinations. Whether the men Who profited most can be punished under federal laws is said to be still under consideration. At the same time officials make clear their conviction that no small part of the rise in prices was due to neutral economic causes. * Many of these causes, it. is pointed out, lay far beneath the surface, such conditions as the international balance of trade and the amount of currency in circulation having a direct bearing on the situation, although not generally understood. .