The Pittsburgh Press (August 13, 1946)
Background of news –
Year after war’s end
By Buel W. Patch
President Truman has proclaimed tomorrow, the first anniversary of Japan’s surrender, as Victory Day.
The president’s proclamation calls upon the American people to observe the occasion as “a day of prayer and of high resolve that the cause of justice, freedom, peace, and international good will shall be advanced with unremitting efforts…” On Armistice Day, 1919, President Wilson, ill in the White House, issued a statement in which he spoke of “gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of nations.”
A year after the end of World War I, the peace treaties had been written, but the League of Nations had not yet officially come into being. Eight days after Mr. Wilson reminded America of its international obligations, the Senate turned down the Treaty of Versailles and the League Covenant and so kept the United States out of the “councils of nations.” Today, in contrast, this country is actively participating in the new and already functioning world organization, as well as in numerous other international councils.
Labor troubles after both wars
In domestic affairs there are more similarities than differences between the two immediate post-war periods. Although the 1945-46 strike wave seems to have spent its force now, the 1919 strike wave was at its height a year after war’s end. Great steel and coal strikes were then in progress. On Armistice Day itself labor violence flared in Centralia, Washington, where I.W.W. members fired on holiday paraders and killed four veterans.
In those days there was no CIO-PAC for politicians to denounce but the country was full of anti-radical agitation. Four days before Armistice Day, Attorney General Palmer had opened his famous Red-baiting campaign. That Cabinet officer’s dealings with Communists, however, were on the domestic level. There was nothing then on the order of the Byrnes-Molotov brushes across the conference table in Paris.
Cost-of-living main problem
The rising cost of living, source of so much public concern today, gave even greater cause for lament in 1919. In the year after the Armistice, retail prices of living essentials rose 14 percent, compared with a rise of about 9 percent from V-J Day to mid-July of this year. Coffee had gone up in 1919 from around 30 cents a pound to over 43 cents; butter from 58 to 68 cents a pound; eggs from 57 to 63 cents a dozen; milk from 14 to 16 cents a quart; potatoes from 48 to 57 cents a peck. (Potatoes were to jump to 95 cents in 1920, when the cost of living hit its peak.) It is true that some of today’s prices are as high or higher, but wages were much lower in 1919 than they are now.
If a man had to be wherewithal to buy an auto after World War I, he would get delivery without much difficulty. Production of passenger cars had not stopped during the war and demand had not reached the heights it rose to in the ensuing decade. Tires were no problem either; the sources of crude rubber in the Far East had remained open. Some goods and services now or until recently in short supply did not exist in 1919. There were no radios or nylon stockings. Commercial air transportation was still in the future. There was no shortage of rail facilities for domestic travel, but foreign tourists, then as now, were being advised to stay home until the food situation improved abroad.