UC-NRLF
B H D77 121
Bristow's Editorials
That Caused Such a Stir
in Kansas
WAS HE RIGHT?
Read them, note the date when pub-
lished, and observe the accuracy with
which he has analyzed the trend of
governmental affairs.
ADAMS BBOS OO. TOPEKA
\-^
A FRIEND'S TRIBUTE
When Seuator Bristow was in Washington last May, as chairman of
the Kansas Public Utilities Commission, to oppose the 15%, or $1,000,000
a day, increase in interstate freight rates, he saw the menace to this coun-
try from greed, extravagance and graft.
He thought some one ought to speak out against it. So he wrote from
there a signed editorial on "The Situation in Washington," which appeared
in the Salina Journal. He was at once denounced vehemently by the parti-
sans of the President and the metropolitan press as unpatriotic for criticis-
ing the administration while the country was at war. However, he never
flinched before the criticism and denunciation, nor hesitated in his fight for
efficiency and honesty in the public service, but has kept it up to the present
time. He has maintained from the beginuir.g that honesty and efficiency in
governmental affairs in time oi war is as essential as in time of peace.
Events have confirmed every statement he made. A number of the
abuses he so severely cri'cicisad iiave bsen ternedied and other conditions im-
proved. Men, who condemned him then, now say he has rendered a great
public service. If he had been in the Senate how much more effectively he
could have fought and how much more useful he could have been to the
nation.
This country now imperatively needs men of his discernment and cour-
age in public life. Kansas can render a great service to the nation by
sending him back to the Senate. — Beloit Gazette.
Special attention is called to the last two editorials in this pamphlet.
"• (The signed editorial that started the
Kansas fight.)
that ai-e to m^ke
billions out- of the
THE SITUATION IN
TON.
WASHING-
Washington, May 23, 1917, (by
mail) — Never, except at inauguration
times, have the hotels of Washington
been so jammed as now. Hundreds
of contractors, salesmen, and manu-
facturers besiege the departments
and special boards in desperate ef-
forts to get their share, and more,
of the seven billions which congress
has authorized to be spent in carry-
ing on the war. There are hundreds
of lobbyists Vrho are for the war and
high taxes, but who want to get out
of paying their share, or as much
of it as they can. There are hun-
dreds of railway officials and experts
who want to drive through a fifteen
per cent increase in freight rates so
as to get their share of loot in this*
period of grab and plunder. Hun-
dreds of others are applicants for
civil appointments or commissions in
the army or navy. Altogether they
make up a grand rush of visiting
patriots, heroes, economists, states-
men, experts, grafters, and all man-
ner of men and women.
This assemblage is a fitting con-
comitant of war. Cupidity and greed,
gloating appetites for pillage and
plunder, vain desire for pomp and
gold-laced parade, unrestrained con-
viviality, which arouses the latent
passion for rapine and destruction
are there. Behind it all, in the dimly
concealed background are the giant
financial and industrial organizations
war. Mr., V/ils^n; in ,sjud.\ea ^Ji^i^ 'glee-
ful phrases proclaims tills ^ holy
cause. Mr. McAdoo, secretary of
the treasury, flies about the country
making frantic appeals to the peo-
ple to lend their money to the gov-
ernment at 31/^ per cent, when they
hesitate because they need all the
return on it they can get in order
to procure the necessities of life and
pay the excessive taxes due to the
war.
What will happen when a full real-
ization of the nature of these pro-
ceedings comes to the average citi-
zen, we do not know; but we con-
fidently predict that some vain and
arrogant statesmen who knowingly
or unknowingly have been the pliant
tools of unrestrained avarice will un-
derstand what has happened to them.
JOSEPH L. BRISTOW.
SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1917.
SUGGESTIONS TO MR. HELVER-
ING.
Mr. Guy Helvering has telegraphed
the governor, demanding that the edi-
tor of this paper be removed from
the chairmanship of the public utili-
ties commission, because of certain
observations he made as to the pres-
ent situation in Washington. From
Mr. Helvering's somewhat indefinite
telegram we infer that his objection
was directed to the following state-
ment that appeared in the Journal
over our signature:
"H'u R d'r e (is cf contractors,
fale^n^ert, arid manufacturers be-
siege the departmsnts and spe-
cial boards in desperate efforts
to get their share, and more, of
the seven billions which con-
gress has authorized to be spent
in carrying on the war. There
are hundreds of lobbyists who
are for the war and high taxes,
but who, want to get out of pay-
ing their share, or as much of it
as they can. There are hun-
dreds of railway officials and ex-
perts who want to drive through
a fifteen per cent increase in
freight rates so as to get their
share of loot in this period of
grab and plunder. Hundreds of
others are applicants for civil
appointments or commissions in
the army or navy. Altogether
they make up a grand rush of
visiting patriots, heroes, econo-
mists, statesmen, experts, graft-
ers, and all manner of men and
women.
This assemblage is a fitting
concomitant of war. Cupidity
and greed, gloating appetites for
pillage and plunder, vain desire
for pomp and gold-laced pa-
rade, unrestrained conviviality,
which arouses the latent passion
for rapine and destruction are
there. Behind it all, in the dimly
concealed background are the
giant financial and industrial or-
ganizations that are to make bil-
lions out of the war."
Now my dear Mr. Helvering, for
your information we beg to advise
you that those statements are true.
You know, or ought to know, thai
it is common rumor in Washingtpn
that congressmen and other influen-
tial men have obtained commission':
in the army for relatives, said com-l
missions have been dated before the
parties were sent to the training
camps or had taken any examination.
This was done, so we were informed,
that said favorites might have sen-
iority in rank over thousands of
other worthy young men who wwe in
the camps working honestly for the
rank to which they aspired, believ-
ing that they would be ^ven a
square deal if they earned it.
You know, or ought to know, that
at hearings of the house and senate
committees charges have been made
that contractors are being paid by a
per cent of the cost for construction
of army cantonments. That these
contractors were paying $7 a day for
labor that could be obtained for $4.
That they were paying excessive
prices for materials, thereby inflating
the cost of the work, so as to get a
larger commission for construction.
You know, or ought to know, that
it is openly alleged that such methods
and blunderings have resulted in an
increase in the estimated cost of the
construction of these cantonments
from 75 millions of dollars to 150
millions.
You know, or ought to know, that
the lobby of the munition makers
was strong enough with the senate
committee on finance to have the tax
on munitions removed from the reve-
nue bill and a tax on tea, coffee and
other articles of universal consump-
tion substituted therefor.
You know, or ought to know, that
the lobbies that now swarm the cor-
ridors of the capitol have induced
the senate committee on finance to
remove from the revenue bill the in-
creased surtax on excessive inxiomes
of more than $40,000 per annum, that
was put in the bill on the floor of
the house, on motion of Mr. Lenroot
of Wisconsin, and that as the bill now
stands the tax on great incomes
will not be half so much as that by
Great Britain.
You know, or ought to know, that
under pressure from innumerable
lobbyists this revenue bill is being
so shaped that great corporations
with watered stock will practically
escape taxation, and that large in-
dustrial concerns are going to be
permitted to pass the tax on to the
consumer.
;, You know, or ought to know, that
there is now a powerful lobby of
metropolitan newspapers and maga-
zine publishers in Washington de-
manding that the increased postage
rates recommended by the postmas-
ter general be not adopted, but that
a gross tax on advertising be sub-
stituted therefor, and that these lob-
byists state that they want that kind
of a tax because they can pass it on
to the advertiser and thereby get
out of paying it themselves, while
'they could not pass on the postal tax.
You know, or ought to know, that
the amount of money to be raised
by taxes on wealth and income is to
be reduced and the amount obtained
by the sale of bonds increased, so
that the poor man will not only carry
the burden of this war on the field of
battle, but also carry the load of
taxes for years to come.
You do know that thousands of
men have flocked to Washington and
are using every device known to the
the ingenuity of man to obtain and
are obtaining soft berths for them-
selves, their relatives and political
friends. Yet because the editor of
this paper called the attention of
the country and the administration to
this condition, you pronounce him a
traitor. Apparently instead of try-
ing to correct the evils, you seek to
hide them. However, your blatant
babblings will not fool the people
long, if at all.
I further beg leave to suggest to
you that men will not be deterred by
vituperation and abuse from stating
the truth about the manner of con-
ducting the public business. This
is a country where free speech has
not yet been denied. The facts as
to the expenditure of the seven bil-
lions of dollars will be known, and
further, Mr. Helvering, I beg to ad-
vise you that, the traitor is not he
who exposes graft, but the one who
covers it up. You may think it
patriotic to draft the youth of this
land to die in the trenches of Europe
and to permit the bloated munition
maker to escape proper taxation and
keep his blood-stained gold, but we
do not. And regardless of the brazen
effrontery with which you seek to
intimidate men from the expression
of facts, we propose to continue to
portray the conditions as they are.
Not as a traitor to his country, but
as a patriot who has contempt for
a congressional trimmer and hatred
for a public thief.
TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1917.
SHOULD NOT OBJECT TO OUR
SHARE OF THE TAX.
It is unfortunate that certain news-
paper organizations of the country
are making such a determined effort
to prevent an increase in the rates
of postage on second-class matter.
There is no reason why the news-
papers should not bear their share of
the war burden. If there is any
change made in the postage schedule
it should be in a reduction of the
letter postage from three to two
cents, because we must admit that
our government is carrying our pa-
pers at less than cost of transporta-
tion, while it is making a profit on
the handling of letters at two cents
per ounce.
One of the strange things to us is
that some of the newspapers that
have b^en loudest in their demands
for war and heavy appropriations are
now fighting vigorously to prevent
any increase in their postal tax.
The Journal does not relish paying
more than double the postage it has
been paying. It amounts to a heavy
tax; but we can see no reason why
our business should not be treated,
so far as taxation is concerned, as
other business is. Of course, it takes
just that much out of our profits, but
the business of the country has to
sacrifice profits to pay these war
bills. Our protest has been against
creating the bills.
They were not created with our
consent or approval, but they have
been created. The people of the
United States are legally and moral-
ly bound to pay them, and it is far
more honorable for this generation to
shoulder the burden than to pass it
on to our children. They will have
burdens of their own, when the re-
sponsibilities of human affairs rest
upon their shoulders. So the pub-
lishers' lobby that is in Washington
to fight the increase of second-class
rates should come home.
FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1917.
MORE HUMOR. i
General Pershing has been selected
to lead the first expedition to France,
because of his brilliant achievements
in Mexico, so we are informed by dis-
patches sent out from Washington.
We do not reflect upon General
Pershing as an able military officer.
He stands well in the army, and so
far as we have ever heard has always
discharged his duties ably and patri-
otically. He is one of our best men.
But the amusing part of the dispatch
is that he is to go to Europe because
of his meritorious service in Mexico.
We suppose that the merit con-
sisted in obeying the orders of the
Washington administration. He was
sent out with instructions to capture
Villa "dead or alive." After he had
gotten some 150 or more miles into
Mexico, giving some prospects of
breaking up the band, Pershing was
ordered to stop and there he was
held for month after month in th«
enemy's country, forbidden to execute
any military movements or to carry
out his former orders. He experi-
enced a long period of "watchful
waiting" and then was ordered to
return.
The patience with which he obeyed
orders to go to Mexico and do noth-
ing and come back again are very
creditable to him, far more so than
to the Washington administration
that gave the orders, and we trust
that his experiences in Europe on
this second mission will be less
humiliating to him, the army and
the country than were his experience?
in Mexico.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 1917.
MAKING MONEY FROM WAR.
Mr. Arthur Sears Henning, Wash-
ington correspondent of the Ghicagc
Tribune in Saturday's issue, said:
"Recent hearings in the house
and senate appropriation com-
mittees have thrown some light
on the tremendous increase in the
estimated cost of building the
cantonment camps. In some
cases it has been charged that
contractors have been paying two
or three times as much for their
material as necessary, because
their profits are to be based on
a percentage of the total cost of
their work.
"Furthermore, it has been
charged that contractors have
paid as much as $7 a day for
labor which they could get for
$4 a day, the cost of their work,
and consequently their profits,
being increased."
Mr, Henning should be careful.
The publication of such charges may
cause him to be arrested for treason.
Does not Mr. Henning know that to
intimate that there is graft, or to
publish statements that would ques-
tion the infallibility of the admin-
istration is to commit a felony, and
that rank partisans would have free
speech and freedom of the press both
suppressed.
When the embalmed beef contro-
versy broke out during the Spanish-
American war and the scandal relat-
ing to it was exposed, nobody was
accused of treason, and the papers
that now demand the execution of
all critics of the administration, were
the- foremost in the attacks on the
McKinley administration. McKinley
accepted the criticism, corrected the
abuse, and did not send district at-
torneys and United States marshals
over the country to arrest, and
threaten with arrest, those who had
criticised his administration. He did
not demand censorship of the press,
or ask that he be given dictatorial
power over the lives and fortunes
of his opponents.
But not so now. Any man or
woman who demands a square deal
for the government and the people,
or denounces duplicity, vaccillating
weakness or graft is branded a hire-
ling of Germany. But the attorney
general and his district attorneys and
marshals will find that this is yet a
free country, though its liberties are
threatened. That there are men and
women who still have the courage to
expose dishonesty in the public serv-
ice. That they will not be deterred
by threats and abuse, and that time
will demonstrate that they are true
patriots, and not the plunderers who
are coining millions out of the blood
of their fellow men,
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 19177"
A PERTINENT ILLUSTRATION.
The report of the conference com-
mittee on the war budget was re-
jected by the house of representatives
and sent back to the committee for
revision. One of the items that
brought the severest criticism was the
appropriation of $1,400,000 to pur-
chase the old Jamestown exposition
site as a naval training station.
An item of $3,000,000 was incor-
porated by the senate committee into
the bill to pay for this site. This
was done, so press dispatches indi-
cate, upon the request of Senator
Martin of Virginia, chairman of the
committee on appropriations of the
senate. It was reduced in the con-
ference between the two houses from
$3,000,000 to $1,400,000.
When the conference committee re-
port was before the house, this item
was attacked by Representative Kel-
ley of Michigan, It appears that the
buildings on this site had been pur-
chased at sheriff's sale years ago for
$250,000 and many of them were
practically junk, yet these old build-
ings were included in the appro-
priation bill at $600,000. Mr, Kelley
in discussing the matter, said:
"This proposition is not a new one.
It has been before congress for ten
years and was never looked upon
with favor. The present chairman
of the naval affairs committee never
believed the price was a fair one."
Representative Bathrick of Ohio, a
democrat, speaking of the bill, said:
"This thing is full of graft, and the
people ought to know about it."
Representative Longworth of Ohio,
developed the fact that many of the
buildings for which the $600,000 was
to be paid, had not been occupied for
ten years, and, therefore, were prac-
tically worthless.
Mr. Kelley declared that the price
of $1,400,000 for the whole tract was
extravagant and ought not to be
paid. He stated that he had been
all over the ground and that the
water front site was a shoal for 1,200
feet out, having a depth of water of
only from one to three feet.
This is an illustration of what is
going on in Washington. We are
glad to know that some members of
congress are giving attention to their
obligations to their constituents and
trying to stop a few of the grafts.
We are also pleased to note that
some democratic congressmen have
the courage to stand out against tlic
loot.
Let me inquire, where was the
Hon. Guy Helvering when the discus-
sion of this bill was before the
house of representatives. Was he
too busily engaged in formulating
advice to the governor of this state
as to how he should run the affairs
of his office to give attention to his
own business? Or has he any ob-
jections to such items as this going
into the apprcpriation bills in this
period of "grab and plunder?"
Probably he thinks it is all right
to permit patriotic Virginians to
obtain such choice and juicy plums of
graft from the national treasury in
these times of war. Why did not he
and his brilliant colleague, the Hon.
Dudley Doolittle rise in their might
and denounce as traitors Bathrick,
Kelley, Lenroot and others for de-
claring that the bill was full of
graft?
MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1917.
WHY NOT GET TOGETHER?
The Kansas City Star enquires,
"What is the matter with Bristow?"
Our answer is, "Nothing." He is the
same today he has been heretofore.
It happens that his opinions and
those of the Star on some subjects of
current interest differ. This occurs
occasionally. At such times Bristow
wonders what is the matter with the
Star. The Star asks, "What is the
matter with Bristow?"
The matter is that they hold dif-
ferent opinions. That is all. Bris-
tow does not believe that Wilson,
having acquiesced in the invasion
of Belsfium and having declared that
the sinking of the Lusitania was not
a hostile act, had any other sufficient
cause for a declaration of war. The
Star evidently believes he had.
Bristow believes that after we were
in the war the army should have been
raised by the volunteer system. The
Star was for conscription.
Bristow does not believe that we
should draft millions of the flower of
American youth and send them into
the vortex of the European hell, to
be torn and mutilated in the awful
carnage that prevails there. The
Star evidently believes we should.
However, the war is here and the
draft has been ordered. Those sub-
jects, therefore, are water that has
already gone over the dam. Now
for the nub of this article.
War is upon us and, as is always
the case, cupidity and insatiable
avarice are getting in their work.
Graft is manifest in many places.
The army camps are costing twice
what they ought. This is due to
unwarranted extravagance and in
some places to open corruption.
The administration is urging the
people to economize in their personal
affairs and contribute liberally to
every governmental activity. The
people are responding beyond its ex-
pectations. Yet, at the same time
there is the wildest profligacy in
governmental expenditures. Property
is being sold to the government at
two and three times what it is worth.
Last week congress authorized the
purchase of the old Jamestown ex-
position grounds at $1,200,000. These
temporary buildings were sold ten
years ago for $250,000 and many of
them have stood idle since. This old
ruin is not worth $200,000. Many
similar transactions are occuring.
The tax bill is being shaped to
favor the rich and oppress the poor.
Ti-ust magnates are supervising gov-
ernment purchases and selling prod-
ucts of their own factories to it &•
prices which they fix themselves.
They claim great credit for work-
ing for the people for nothing and
say they are selling their goods to
the government at less than the mar-
ket price. The fact is they fix the
market price at what they please
because they completely control the
product. The market price is of no
consequence since they name it and
can collect from the government
whatever they choose to charge.
This is illustrated by the case of
the president of the aluminum trust,
who is a member of the advisory
council. He has sold to the govern-
ment a million canteens, made at his
own factory and claims great credit
because he has charged less than the
market price. Yet, he himself, fixes
the market price for aluminum the
world over, for he has, admittedly,
a world-wide trust on that metal.
This is but one illustration. The cop-
per trust and the steel trust are
doing the same thing. Now, why
does not the Star denounce this in-
sidious and destructive graft? It has
done so before. Why not now?
We believe it is patriotism, not
treason, to destroy these evils by
ruthless exposure. They are as dan-
gerous to the life of this republic as
cancer is to the human body. They
are as infamous and as destructive to
the welfare of the nation in times
of war as in times of peace. There-
fore, while the Star is asking what
is the matter with Bristow, he is
asking what is the matter with the
Star. Why not come in and help
us fight for the preservation of
national integrity and the protection
of national honor?
FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1917.
A MEASURE OF GREAT CON-
CERN.
We have not been favored with a
copy of the present food bill which
is now before congress and the pas-
sage of which is being urged by the
administration, so we are unable to
pass judgment upon the wisdom of
its provisions.
We are somewhat apprehensive
when we note that Representative
Haugen of Iowa, a sturdy old Nor-
wegian statesman is bitterly oppos-
ing the measure because he thinks
it is aimed at the producing agri-
cultural class; and when Senator
Gore of Oklahoma, Senator Vardaman
of Mississippi and a few other sena-
tors whose devotion to the pTiblic in-
terests cannot be questioned are bit-
terly fighting the measure.
However, this must be said that
any measure that undertakes to im-
pose a burden on the producers of
food products will be a grave injus-
tice to the agricultural interests of
our country, and a serious injury
to the welfare of the American
people.
It is of the highest importance no'W
to encourage food production. How-
ever anv legislation that seeks to
curb the greed and penalize the crim-
inality practiced bj' the dealers in
food products will meet with a hearty
response from every honest Ameri-
can. Large fortunes are not made
by the producers of the food products.
They are made by dealers in food
products. We reproduce an article
this week from the Wichita Eagle
showing that potatoes were selling
within 100 miles of Wichita, in Okla-
homa, at $1.50 per bushel at the rail-
way station; that the freight rate to
Wichita was 18 cents; and that the
poatoes were selling in Wichita for
over $4 per bushel; that there was
somewhere added to the price of
these potatoes $2.50 per bushel be-
tween the freight yard and the
consumer in Wichita.
This is alleged to be substantially
the case in respect to other cities.
Great fortunes have been made in
the last year by speculators in food.
Cold storage plant combinations have
bought up and monopolized the avail-
able supply and then charged the
people excessive profits.
Some years ago we created a trad^
commission and gave it powers, sup-
posedly, to correct such gross abuses
in commercial and industrial affairs,
but it seems to have been without
avail. What this trade commission,
composed supposedly of experts who
are paid a salary of $10,000 each per
year and given large resources to
prosecute their investigations, a
doing, we are unable to say.
It endeavored to protect the news-
papers against the print paper trust,
but has thrown up its hands and said
in substance, "We cannot help you.
Take care of yourselves." The de-
partment of justice has indictments
against the promoters of the print
paper trust, but they are dragging
along the course which suits always
take when millionaires are being
prosecuted. '
If some poor wretch had broken
into a grocery 'store and stolen a sack
of flour, he would have been on the
road to the penitentiary ere this;
but these men, who robbed the news-
papers of the United States of ap-
proximately one hundred million dol-
lars last year, will probably not
10
be tried, or if tried, never convicted.
They still are maintaining their un-
lawful combination and reaping the
profits from their monopoly.
We sincerely trust that congress
will work out a wise law so that the
food speculator, who is coining his
millions out of the necessities of the
people and then frequently with
grandiloquent generosity contributing
to the Red Cross or buying large
quantities of government bonds with
patriotic fervor, will receive the pun-
ishment which his infamous practices
merit.
MONDAY. JUNE 25, 1917. ~
LOCK THE DOOR AFTER THE
HORSE IS STOLEN.
The Kansas City Star in further
commenting on our editorial of Mon-
day, June 18, says that there doubt-
less is graft, but that the Star has
a "weather eye" on Washington and
at the proper time when graft ap-
pears will go after it.
The substance of the Star's edi-
torial is that after the grafters have
gotten their money, robbed the gov-
ernment and plundered the treasury,
the Star will go after them, which,
of course, is entirely satisfactory to
the grafter. All he wants is to be
let alone now, while he is getting the
money. After that he can stand all
of the abuse and vituperation that
can be heaped upon him.
We remember some eight years
ago the editor of this paper made
a speech at Winfield, Kan., in which
he denounced Senator Aldrich's at-
titude on the tariff bill and illustrated
it by the duty on manufactured rub-
ber, which was controlled by a trust
and some members of Senator Al-
drich's family had stock in the trust.
The duty had been increased, as we
remem.ber about ten per cent when it
seemed to us that there should have
been a reduction instead of an in-
crease.
The Star printed several columii?
of our speech and commented in thci
most flattering manner on the cour-
age ?.nd ability with which we had
uncovered the rottenness of the tariff
bill. But criticism by us of a more
important character it now condemn.'.
A letter from a friend in Washing-
ton says that we have criticised too
soon; that we are putting the
grafters on notice that there may be
trouble ahead, and they are conceal-
ing their tracks, while if they had
been let alone they would have over-
played their hands.
Continuing, this gentleman, wao
has been connected with the United
States government for fifteen year?
and whose standing with all whc
know him is the highest, says:
"The greediest and cheapest set
of grafters that have ever disgraced
this country come from the souttt.
Do not expose them too early. Let
them play their game and when they
get a sufficient number. of cards on
the table so that they cannot sneak
them away, then we can go to it."
We may have been premature and
inexpedient. When in Washington
we saw the whole panorama and un-
dertook in a modest way to describe
it. As a reward for our efforts to
protect the people of this country
from a shameless lot of crooks, we
have been denounced from one end of
the nation to the other as a traitor
and guilty of treason.
After these grafters have obtained
their loot and are complacently en-
joying their plunder then the Star
will turn on them with a viciousness
that will be highly commendable and
by that time the public probably will
be ready to join in the attack; but
the Journal prefers to 'try to "prevent
the robbery than denounce it after
it is over.
When Aldrich was framing the
tariff bill, the Republicans who
against their own party organization
were demanding a square deal for
every interest, the public as well,
had the hearty support of. the Star;
but today when we demand honesty
in the administration of affairs, the
Star says hold on, we are at war; the
first thing to do is to get the Ger-
mans, and then we will get the
crooks.
If. it was wrong for Senator Al-
drich to increase the duty on rubber
when it was not needed and v.'hen
some of his family had stock in the
rubber trust, is it not wrong for the
present head of the aluminum trust
to be appointed as president of an
advisory board which passes upon
the purchases of aluminum by the
United States government and fixe?
11
the price which the government shall
pay?
Is it also not dangerous for B.
M. Baruch, who confessed to making
some $476,000 on the turn of the
market due to the leak of President
Wilson's message to be given the pur-
chasing of all copper?
Is it right that the leading muni-
tion manufacturers of the country
should constitute a munition standard
board ?
Is it right that Edgar Palmer,
president of the New Jersey Zinc
Company should be> a member of the
sub-committee on zinc purchases by
the federal government?
Does the Star think it good admin-
istration to appoint the heads of
great manufacturing concerns to
supervise the purchases made by the
government from those concerns?
We do not.
THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 1917.
TAKE THE STEEL PLANT.
There is a great deal of just criti-
cism being made against the system
of distribution of food products of
the country. The average prices
which the producers received last
year were not abnormally high, but
the average prices which the con-
sumers had to pay were very exces-
sive. This has led to a practically
unanimous demand for legislation
giving the government authority to
regulate the distribution of these food
products; but the speculation in food,
products, so far as individual profits
go, is small as compared with the
enormous profits made by the steel
trust.
■ The New York Evening Post of
June 18th, in discussing the tax bill,
had the following:
"The Steel Corporation earned
$104,000,000 in 1911, $108,000,000 in
1912, and $137,000,000 in 1913 making
an average of $116,000,000. In the
first quarter of this year the corpora-
tion earned $133,000,000, or at a rate
of $452,000,000 a year. It is now
estimated to be earning at a rate of
$520,000,000. Take the conservative
figure of $464,000,000, or an increase
of 300 per cent over the three-year
average. Ignoring the phrase, "and
the excess of last year," these earn-
ings bear a tax of 75 per cent on
the excess; the tax would be $261,-
000,000, leaving profits at $203,-
000,000."
In 1910 an investigation was
made as to the profits in steel. Steel
plates were then selling at $31 a ton,
and it appeared from this investiga-
tion that the Steel corporation was
making a profit of more than ten
per cent on its common stock at that
time, and when it is remembered that
all of the common stock of the steel
trust is watered stock and repre-
sents not a dollar of original invest-
ment, it looks as though such a profit'
ought to satisfy the greed of any
human being.
If any cd^cern can float hundreds
of millions of stock that represents
no invested capital and make more
than ten per cent per annum on such
stock, it certainly ought to be satis-
fied. But not so with the steel trust.
It appears that at $31 a ton, its earn-
ings were more than $100,000,000 a
year. It pushed the price up step by
step when the war came on until its
earnings became more than $500,000,-
000 a year.
It was during this period that it
was exhausting the resources of \.he
allies. The nations of Europe were
taxing their people to the limit of
their endurance and pouring a golden
stream into the coffers of these con-
scienceless exploiters. When finally
our country was drawn into the war,
this steel trust again boosted the
price of steel and demanded $96 per
ton. It actually sold some to the
United States government at that
price.
While the government is drafting
the young men of this nation, taking
them from their business and requir-
ing them to risk their lives and
health and future in the service of
the country, why should not it at
once seize the steel plants of the
United States Steel corporation, take
possession of them and operate them
in the interests of the public, con-
forming to the requirements of the
constitution and allowing the same
return on the -value of the property
that the government has to pay on
its securities. No other step should
be considered. Any* less drastic
action should not be tolerated.
This would not only protect the
government from the outrageous ex-
12
tortions of this gang of highwaymen,
who are as criminal in their purposes
as any bandits who ever plundered
a town or robbed a bank, but it
would protect the people of the
United States front the oppressive
extortion which this trust is impos-
ing upon them in every industrial and
commercial activity.
FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 1917.
A NECESSARY PROVISION.
The food bill, which has been the
subject for such animated debates in
both the Senate and House, has been
re-written so we are advised by the
press dispatches from Washington.
Be it said to the honor of the com-
mittee that re-WTote it that they have
incorporated in it a provision of the
highest importance providing that "it
shall be unlawful for any person
acting as either a volunteer or paid
employee of the government, includ-
ing any advisory capacity to any
commission, board or council, to at-
tempt to procure or make any con-
tract for the purchase of any sup-
plies for the use of the government,
either from himself or from any firm
of which he is a member, or corpor-
ation of which he is an advisor or
stock-holder or in which he has any
financial interest." The penalties
provided are $10,000 fine and five
years imprisonment.
If this provision goes into effect, it
probably will • cause a scattering
among the present war boards or ad-
visory committees of numerous and
various kinds. Mr. Davis, who is the
head of the aluminum trust which
has sold to the government more
than a million canteens made at his
factory, will have to stop selling his
stuff to the government or cease as
a government agent to supervise such
purchases; and a number of other
men will have to withdi'aw from
their official capacities as purchasing
agents or supervisors of contracts
made with firms in which they have
financial interests.
But the astounding thing is that
congress should be required to legis-
late in regard to such a matter. The
boldness and amazing audacity of ap-
pointing men to positions where they
supervise the purchase of their own
products and fix the price which the
government shall pay for such prod-
ucts, is the most shocking thing in
connection with the present situation
tn Washington.
Senator Crane of Massachusetts re-
fused the position of secretary of the
treasury under the Taft administra-
tion, because he was largely inter-
ested in the paper mills that sold
supplies to the government. Senator
LaFollette refused to vote on the
tariff on zinc in the senate, because
he held stock in zinc mines. But no
such sensibilities seem to prevail in
Washington now.
The shocking thing is that in order
to protect the people of the United
States from the present situation a
committee of congress, a majority of
the members of which are adherents
of the political party in power, finds
it necessary to incorporate a pro-
vision in the law fixing heavy penal-
ties for such mal-administration of
public affairs as is now admittedly
going on.
MONDAY, JULY 9, 1917. ~
"IT MAKES US TIRED."
One of the most amazing editorials
that has recently appeared in any
paper in the United States, was
printed on the front page of the Kan-
sas City Star last Friday, under the
head of "It Makes Us Tired."
In the article the Star commends
the policy of appointing the heads
of great trusts as committees to
pass upon purchases made from their
own factories. It apparently ap-
proves all the exploiting not only of
the people of the United States, but
also of the Allied nations by the in-
dustrial combinations of this country.
It approves the placing of Davis,
president of the aluminum trust, at
the head of a sub-committee which
passes on aluminum contracts and
purchases.
That the readers of the Journal
may understand the infamy of the
proposition, we quote the testimonv
of Mr. Davis before the house com-
mittee on foreign affairs. He told the
committee that his company con-
trolled the aluminum business of the
United States. Representative Por-
ter asked him whether the govern-
ment could make aluminum canteens
without "buying the aluminum from
13
your factory?" to which Davis re-
plied, "No, sir." Porter asked Davis
how much actual cash had been put
into the aluminum trust by the
org-anizers and owners of all the
stock. His answer was, "I suppose
$3,000,000 or thereabouts." He was
asked what was the capital stock
now. He replied $20,000,000. When
asked the value of the plant, he said
$80,000,000.
We now quote from the Record:
Mr. Porter: The actual cash paid
in, not money from the profits ?
Mr. Davis: I suppose $3,000,000, or
thereabouts.
Mr. Porter: What dividend did you
pay last year?
Mr. Davis: Ten per cent on $20,-
000,000.
Mr. Porter: And the year preced-
ing?
Mr. Davis: Ten per cent, I think
it was.
Mr. Porter: Last year how much
of your profits did you apply to bet-
terment, in addition to paying the
10 per cent dividends ?
Mr. Davis: Practically all of the
balance. We have always paid very
small dividends, but I cannot remem-
ber off-hand the exact figures; but
for the first eight or ten years of
our existence we did not pay any
dividends at all.
Then Mr. Porter asked a long ques-
tion. He concluded by saying:
In other words, how much did you
make last year?
Mr. Davis: We made a little over
$20,000,000.
Mr. Porter: Last year?
Mr. Davis: Yes, sir.
Mr. Porter: You made about 100
per cent on the capital stock?
Mr. Davis: Yes, sir; and about
25 per cent on the investment.
Mr. Porter: You declared a' divi-
dend of 10 per cent? ^
Mr. Davis: Yes, sir.
Mr. Porter: And 90 per cent, or
the balance, went into the better-
ment of your plant?
Mr. Davis: Yes, sir.
During the Roosevelt administra-
tion this trust pleaded guilty to vio-
lating the Sherman anti-trust law.
It paid its fine and continued to
operate its monopoly. Today its con-
trol is world-wide and since its com-
plete domination of the market its
profits have been fabulous. Davis
admits that last year his company
made a profit on the original invest-
ment of 666%. Yet today this man
is supervising the purchase of alum-
inum for this government and fixing
the price that it shall pay not only
for canteens, but for the aluminum
which goes into numberless other
articles, including the airplanes for
the construction of which congress
is now being asked to appropriate
$650,000,000.
But Davis is not the only one.
Farrell of the steel trust which is
making one-half billion a year out
of the war, is also on the advisory
committee, as is likewise, Ryan of
the copper trust, which is selling
to the government at sixteen cents
a pound copper which his company
produces at a cost of from four to
eight cents a pound, depending upon
the mine from which it is obtained.
Men representing concerns which
have been indicted or against which
suits are now pending for violating
the anti-trust laws of the nation are
holding important positions in the
government service. Yet when citi-
zens protest against this shameful
and dangerous condition they are
denounced as disloyal.
While the youth of America is
being drafted into the army, to
be sent into foreign lands and the
people are being oppressed with un-
precedented taxes, these captains of
high finance sit in the Munsey build-
ing at Washington and direct — at a
profit to themselves — the expenditure
of the billions which are being poured
into the war fund.
One of the first results of the war
will be the creation of the American
billionaire, for while the mills of
the war god grind out the lives of the
brightest of America's sons, they are
also grinding out gigantic fortunes
for the trust magnates. How long
a patriotic and intelligent people will
stand for this condition, time alone
can tell.
We must support our government,
but that does not mean that we
should tolerate such shocking mal-
administration of public affairs.
14
WEDNE SDAY. JULY 11, 1917.
SHOULD BE PROTECTED IN HIS
RIGHT.
In our opinion the people of the
United States will not approve of the
administration's plan of suppressing
Socialist newspapers. According to
the press dispatches it appears that
it has assumed from the espionage
bill that it has a right to suppress
papers that do not believe that we
should have become involved in the
European war and a number of So-
cialist publications have been thrown
out of the mail.
We were given to understand, at
least by the press dispatches, that
the censorship provision in the
espionage bill had been cut out
completely. We never have been an
advocate of the Socialistic theory of
economic progress; but this is a
country of free speech, and the Post-
master General has no right to throw
out of the mails a publication because
he does not agree with its economic
views. To find an excuse in some
criticism of the present war policy
in order to persecute Socialistic pub-
lications, if it is kept up, will be
a most potential influence in creating
Socialists.
No man advocating unsound heresy
can succeed with an intelligent, self-
governing people. This is a govern-
ment in which public opinion is the
sovereign power. No administration
can live that does not conform to the
dictates of public opinion, and this
administration will find that if there
is one thing sacred to the American
people, yet it is the liberty of the
press, where criticisms can be in-
dulged in and where economic
theories can be expounded and the
responsibility for approving the good
and rejecting the bad is upon the
people themselves.
We deeply regret that the Post-
master General is disposed to perse-
cute Socialists. Up to this time
he probably has made as few errors,
as any of his predecessors, who
served in that capacity as long as
he has, but this one is the gravest
made by any postmaster general in
modern times. The Socialist ha§ the
same right to the use of the mail
r\? has the Democrat, Republican or
Prohibitionist. And he should be
protected in that right.
FRIDAY, JULY IsTlQlT.
WILL SOON BE SUPPORTING US
FULLY.
From the report of the speech
which Governor Capper made at Win-
field on July 9 that appeared in
the Topeka Capital the morning of
July 10, it appears that he is warn-
ing the people against graft in the
federal service and suggests that
some of the appointments that are
being made in Washington should be
closely scrutinized.
On July 5, the Topeka Daily Capi-
tal, owned and edited by the Gov-
ernor, made an attack upon the
critics of the Wilson administration,
plainly indicating that the criticism
was intended for the editor of the
Salina Journal and styled the graft
as mere "fly specks," asking the
people to overlook them in the in-
terests of the larger things of the
war.
When the editor of the Journal
wrote an article from Washington
that has created so much discussion,
the Governor promptly criticised him
for such expressions; and it is ex-
ceedingly gratifying now to us to
have the Governor in his mild and
placid way, practically confirm the
statement which he so recently criti-
cised us for making. After he has
more knowledge of the conditions
that prevail in Washington, he wib
be cordially supporting our proposi-
tion instead of criticising it, because
no man who has in any sense the
proper view of public service can
with any patience tolerate the reck-
less and chaotic extravagances that
are now permeating the military de-
partments of the United States gov-
ernment.
SATURDAY, JULY 14, 1917.
t
GIVE US ACTION INSTEAD OF
WORDS.
President Wilson, in his statement
issued this week, warned the trusts
and combinations that have, during
recent years, been exploiting the
American people and the nations of
the world, against a continuation of
such extortion. He expressed some
15
very beautiful sentiment in his usual
admirable rhetoric.
If Mr. Wilson were the editor of
a newspaper and held no position of
authority in the g-overnment of the
United States, his address would be
I admirable and an object of universal
,'. praise; but, being president of the
' United States and in control of all
K the powerful agencies of the govern-
ment, it appears to us weak. What
the American people want now is
action, not words. ,
The men in control of these power-
ful industrial enterprises are serving
in an advisory capacity to Mr. Wil-
son and his cabinet officers and con-
trolling contracts for the purchase of
materials which they themselves pro-
duce. It is within the power of- the
president to correct every evil against
which he warns these men. He has
under his direction the department
I of justice, the trade commission, and
other departments of government
:'ossessed with tremendous power.
He has now serving on these ad-
visory boards committees who de-
termine the material that is to ba
used and the prices paid in the con-
struction of battleships, merchant
ships, the manufacture of munitions
and war materials of every kind, men
who are interested in the industries
and who profit by the price.
A representative of the great lum-
ber combination is on the lumber
committee. Officers of the steel trust
I are advising as to the construction
I of battleships and merchant vessels.
Some of the concerns whose officers
are on these advisory committees
are under indictment and have cases
now pending against them in the
United States courts.
If the president will exercise his
great power and drive out these
money changers from the govern-
mental temples, prosecute with vigor
nnd send these culprits to jail, such
action will be much more enthusiasti-
cally received than the beautifill
phrases which he uses in warning
them.
TUESDAY. JULY 17, 1917. ~~
SOME OF THE PROFITS OF WAR.
Secretary Lane, who, up to the time
he became secretary of the interior,
had made an admirable record as a
member of the Interstate Commerce
Commission, appointed by Mr. Roose-
velt and re-appointed by Mr. Taft,
has, since he became a member of
the present cabinet, seemed to feel
that it is his duty to defend every
act of the administration, right or
wrong.
He is now defending the advisory
council and says that the members
are not clothed with official authority
and cannot let contracts, which is
true; but nobody knows any better
than Secretary Lane that they con-
trol the contracts; that their advice
is accepted; and that the govern-
ment has rented elaborate quarters
in the Munsey building where these
captains of industry meet every day
with an army of governmental clerks
and pass upon the administrative af-
fairs of this government in the pur-
chase of materials of every character,
and that with rare exceptions their
recommendations are followed.
While they have no legal authority
to control prices, they do control
them and determine the quantities
and character of materials and the
prices that shall be paid.
If this advisory council were abol-
ished and some of the men compos-
ing it were compelled to defend them-
selves in the courts by a vigorous
prosecution of the cases which are
now pending against them, the Amer-
ican people would have more confi-
dence in the good purposes of this
administration.
If there is no graft or extortion on
the part of these monopolies, why
does the president warn them in one
sentence that they must bev/are,
and appeal to them in another, to
lay aside their avarice and be gov-
erned by patriotic impulses instead of
by an insatiable desire to pile up
added millions.
Consider for a moment some of
these profits as shown by their official
reports.
The net profits of the powder trust,
as shown by their annual reports for
the year 1914 were four million dol-
lars. Two years later, or for 1916,
these profits had advanced to 82 mil-
lion dollars, an increase in two years
of more than 2,000 per cent.
The profits of the steel trust in-
creased from approximately 100 mil-
lion dollars a year to 500 million dol-
16
lars a year during the same period
of time.
The profits of the Swift Packing
company increased from nine mil-
lions to 20 million dollars during the
same period. The Armour Packing
company's profits increased from
seven million dollars to 20 million
dollars.
The Central Leather company,
commonly known as the leather trust,
increased its profits from four mil-
lion to 15 million dollars.
These great commercial and indus-
trial concerns, as a result of this war,
are amassing millions and millions of
dollars every month. This does not
come wholly from the sale of war
materials to the allied nations and
the United States, but partly from
the greatly increased ' price they
charge the American people for near-
ly everything they use.
Secretary Lane may continue to de-
fend these men and the president
may continue to make addresses, but
if that is all that is done these
men will continue to exploit the
American people. What is wanted,
we repeat, is not beautiful addresses
and charming language, but effective
action.
FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1917. ~
PLUNGING TOWARD NATIONAL
BANKRUPTCY.
The senate has adopted an amend-
ment to the food bill making it un-
lawful for any parties interested in
contracts to have any position on an
advisory committee passing upon the
merits of such contracts, whether
they serve with or without pay.
The surprising thing is that such
legislation should be necessary in
order to prevent an administration
from putting in responsible positions
men interested in the profits of con-
tracts, the letting of which they
supervise. They, themselves, not only
represent their own interests, but
those of the government as well.
Since the United States entered
into the European war there has been
the most amazing condition existing
in Washington that ever existed
there in the history of this country.
With a brazenness shocking to man-
kind, men have been making millions
out of government contracts, which
they supervised, fixing the prices, de-
termining the materials and reap-
ing the rewards.
This scandal has become so offen-
sive that the senate, which is strong-
ly jjemocratic, last Wednesday, by an
overwhelming vote, amended the
food bill so as to forbid the continu-
ation of this practice.
The amendment, is involved and has
complicated phraseology. It seems to
be satisfactory to the grafters a.*
well as the senators who are opposed
to such practices, which casts sus-
picion upon the effectiveness of the
legislation.
From the foundation of this gov-
ernment down to the present time
there never has been any adminis-
tration so shameless in its method?
of plundering the public revenue.
You may search the history of man-
kind from the time of Roman pro-
fligacy down to the present hour and
you cannot find any organized gov-
ernment among the nations of the
earth, that has expended public
money with such reckless and crim-
inal extravagance as the present ad-
ministration has during the last six
months.
In wasting the money exacted
from the people by taxation, this ad-
ministration stands alone and un-
paralleled in the history of the
human race, and it seems from re-
ports from Washington this era of
profligacy has just begun. It is now
estimated that the expense of this
war during the first year is to be
more than 12 billions of dollars,
practically three times as much as
the cost of the conduct of the great
Civil war during the four years that
it continued. Unless there is a rad-
ical change before two more years
expire, we will be facing national
bankruptcy.
SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1917.
THE SHOE CONTRACTS DISTURB.
Senator Townsend of Michigan, a
conservative and courteous gentle-
man, became so overcome with in-
dignation in the senate debate on
July 17, that he declared a "host
of vultures are flocking to Washing-
ton to secure war contracts," and
Senator Kenyon, who has had quite a
friendlv leaning toward Mr. Wilson.
17
severely oriticised the shoe contracts
let by the council of national de-
fense.
Why should Senator Kenyon criti-
cise the shoe contract? Is he not
aware that Mr. J. F. McElwain, pres-
ident of the W. H. McElwain com-
pany of Boston, that has seven shoe
factories, is the chairman of the com-
mittee on shoe and leather indus-
tries; and that John A. Bush, presi-
dent of the Brown Shoe company of
St. Louis, which last year more than
doubled its profits by charging war
prices; Charles P. Hall of the Amer-
ican Hide & Leather company of Bos-
ton, and W. G. Garrett of the Cen-
tral Leather company of Boston, are
also members of the committee?
The particular contract which
seems to have started the discussion
was one for 400,000 pairs of shoes,
which was let to Mr. McElwain at
fifteen cents per pair more than was
bid by a company not represented on
the committee.
Does the senator expect these high-
toned gentlemen who are serving
without pay to let contracts to them-
selves without a sufficient profit to
compensate them . for the time they
are "patriotically" devoting to the
service of the government?
As for Senator Townsend, we have
s always admired his courtesy and his
I inclination not to say anything that
would give pain or even discomfort
to anyone. However, instead of say-
ing that a "host of vultures are
flocking to Washington," he could
more fittingly have declared that a
host of vultures are in Washington
clothed with official authority by
Mr. Wilson and are devouring the
substance of the American people in
an orgy of public plunder and pillage
the like of which this country nor
any other has heretofor seen.
We respectfully call to the atten-
tion of the Kansas City Star, and the
Topeka State Journal and our
esteemed contemporary, the Topeka
Daily Capital, the stories of the con-
ditions in Washington that are now
being widely printed, and ask them
to join with us in an effort to stop
this orgy of waste and profligacy
which the present national adminis-
tration has turned loose upon the
;"ountrv.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 1917.
LOSING CONFIDENCE IN MR.
WILSON'S ADMINISTRATION.
Mr. Wilson in a letter to Repre-
sentative. Lever of the House of Rep-
resentatives demands that a provision
in the food bill for a committee tc
supervise the expenditures of the
war be eliminated and states that he
regards it as a vote of lack of con-
fidence in him.
Mr. Wilson demands absolute and
unqualified authority in all things
and resents congress assuming to ex-
ercise any of the functions which the
constitution of the United States pro-
vides that it shall. But as to con-
fidence in Mr. Wilson, if the presi-
dent will inquire from some of his
advisers as to why that provision
was incorporated into the bill, he
will learn that it was incorporated
because of the manner in which the
money which congress is voting is
being expended.
The president has appointed what
he calls an advisory council, which
in fact is passing on all contracts
which the government makes for war
materials. This council has a num-
ber of sub-committees, one of which
passes upon shoe contracts. Con-
tracts were recently let for shoes.
J. F. McElwain, president of the Mc-
Elwain Shoe company of Boston,
which has seven shoe factories, is a
member of the sub-committee on the
shoe purchases. His company was
given a contract for 100,000 pairs of
one grade of shoes at eight cents a
pair more than was asked by other
bidders, and 400,000 pairs of another
kind of shoes at 15 cents a pair more
than was bid by other firms.
Th^ Brown Shoe company of St.
Louis, whose president, John A.
Bush, is also a member of the same
sub-comrriittee was also given a con-
tract at a higher price than other
bidders were paid for the same shoes.
These shoe contracts simply illu-
strate what is going on in Washing-
ton. The same process is being fol-
lowed in the purchase of all the sup-
plies for the great army that is being
organized. The exposure of the graft
that is going on led to the incorpor-
ation of this provision in the bill. In
the debate there was the usual
18
amount of oratory expended in ex-
tolling the patriotism of these men
who are ^making so many millions
out of contracts with the govern-
ment and in answer to one of these
criticisms Senator Borah said:
"There are those of us who oppose
the situation as it now exists, not
because we assail the individual in-
tegrity of these men, but because we
do not think it wise to start into
this war in violation of the great
underlying principle of honesty that
a man should not be permitted lo
contract with himself. It is true, as
the Senator says, that technically he
does not do that, but substantially
he does it. Let us assume for the
sake of the argument, that the gov-
ernment will suffer no actual financial
loss; let us accredit these men with
honesty and patriotism. Is not there
some way to avoid having a lot of
men selling millions of dollars of
property to the government upon
their own counsel- and advice?"
Can the president expect the people
to continue confidence in his adminis-
tration when such practices are pre-
valent everywhere. Moreover if
those trust magnates that have been
robbing the American people out of
millions for the last few years be-
cause of the European war are self-
sacrificing patriots they ought to
demonstrate that by turning into the
public treasury to help bear the bur-
dens of this war some of their ill-
gained wealth. Let them first dis-
gorge, beginning with the steel trust,
which made approximately $500,000,-
000 last year, the powder trust which
made over $80,000,000, and the lesser
ones.
JULY 28. 1917. ~ .
FOOD BILL AFFECTS GREAT
KANSAS INDUSTRY.
There is a great deal "of appre-
hension among the farmers of the
country as to the effect the food bill
will have on the price of wheat, and
we think that there are abundant
grounds for such concern.
Wheat is selling now in Central
Kansas for around $2.40 a bushel. If
the government fixes the minimum
price at $1.75 or $2 a bushel, there is
grave danger that the buyers will
take that as a government sanction
and not pay more fearing chat the
margin which they will be permitted
to have for handling the grain will
be fixed upon the basis of the $1.75
or $2 a bushel.
The speculator, if he thinks he can
sell wheat for $3 later on, will take
his chances and bid up for the wheat.
If he believes he is going to be re-
quired to sell at a margin slightly
above that which he pays and the
government fixes the price at $1.75
or $2, there is a possibility that he
will consider the price which the
government fixes as a government
price and hesitate to go beyond that
Of course, this is simply specula-
tion. It may not be realized. The
buyer may continue to pay more than
the minimum price fixed. There is
nothing to prevent him from paying
more except the apprehension that
he will not be permitted to sell it
for much more than that by the food
commission upon tne grounds that a
fair margin over the minimum price
fixed by the government is rea-
sonable.
Ordinarily $2 is an excessive price
for wheat in this western country.
In the eastern part of the United
States it is not any more than it
costs to raise it and there wheat is
only grown because it is necessary
for a rotation of crops not because
it is profitable. However, taking into
consideration the loss due to failure
in Kansas, considering the state as
a whole, with the price the farmers
are now being compelled to pay for
everything they buy, there is no more
profit in $2 a bushel now than there
was in 90c or $1 wheat before the
war began.
If you applied the same system of
accounting to the business of farm-
ing that is applied by the corpora-
tions when they are demanding a
reasonable profit on their products,
wheat would not be less than $1.50
a bushel, in normal times.
A great complaint is made by the
theoretical economists of the country
about the desertion of the American
farm and a movement has been agi-
tated for years to get men to go back
to the farm. "Back to the farm" has
been the cry, but it has not worked.
The young men leave the farm at the
first opportunity, because they can
find more lucrative employment el~€-
19
vvhere, and as a man said to me not
ong ago, "I intend to quit the farm
-xnd go to town because I can earn
I living a great deal easier there
ihan 1 do here."
We do not know what the effect of
this food bill may be, but if it is in-
tended to keep down the price of
farm products while the prices of
other commodities are soaring to the
iky, it will be a disastrous piece of
legislation. We have not opposed it
because we can see some elements of
good in it. If properly adminis-
tered, it can be very useful to the
people of the United States. If im-
properly administered, it will become
a burden upon American agriculture
and a grave injustice to the produc-
ing element of our population.
I sympathize with the apprehension
of the farmer, but trust that this ap-
prehension may not be realized.
Somehow or other I , feel that we
need niore wisdom in the adminis-
tration of our government at Wash-
ington. Abraham Lincoln was presi-
dent of the United States during the
greatest crisis our nation has ever
gone through. We had a terrible war
devastating our country. More than
one-third of the states were in open
rebellion. It was a long and bloody
conflict lasting four years, but he
guided the destinies of our country
and asked for no such power as Mr.
Wilson is asking congress to give
him. He sought no arbitrary con-
trol of the ordinary business transac-
tions of the people and if we only
had that homely wisdom and sound
common sense of Abraham Lincoln
at the helm of the nation now, we
would feel much more secure than we
can under the present conditions.
What we need in public life today
is more sound common sense and less
theory, more inherent honesty and
less greed, more real patriotism and
less arrogant bombastic declamation.
THURSDAY, AGUGUST 2, 19177~
"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE."
We received a clipping from a
friend in a western county, from a
published letter of one of the Ameri-
can soldiers in France to his mother.
The headline was "Somewhere in
Prance." He is not permitted to
let his mother know where he is.
Nothing could illustrate the super-
ficial gullibility of the present officers
of the war department any more than
such a headline — as though it were
possible for the American govern-
ment to conceal the location of
American troops from the command-
ers of the German army.
There "never has been a war of any
consequence when all nations in-
volved have not been able success-
fully to locate the armies of their
opponents. The secretary of the
navy was indignant to think that the
officers of the German navy knew
where the American fleet was and
were able to attack it with sub-
marines. If he had the ordinary in-
formation which an American high
school boy ought to have, he would
have known that any civilized govern-
ment of any consequence engaged in
war first organized its lines of com-
munication so as to have perfect
knowledge of the movement of the
enemy; but the silliest thing is to
refuse to permit boys, who have been
sent to France to take part in this
European war, to let their mothers
know what part of the republic they
are located in, as though a letter
written back home, telling where a
soldier is located, would be valuable
information to the German army.
It is very unfortunate that in 'the
great crisis through which the Amer-
ican government is passing that we
have not men in control of the great
departments of the government, who
are broad-minded and endowed with
the profound common sense required
to understand the movements of the
affairs of the world and of nations
as well as the natui'e of the Ameri-
can people.
When Germany is defeated, as we
believe she ultimately will be, it will
be done by a powerful organized
military force and not by such kin-
dergarten strategy as the present of-
ficers of the war department are en-
gaged in. In the other wars in which
our- government has been involved,
and which it has succrssfully fought,
it was not a crime for a soldier to
write home and tell where he was.
There is an additional illustration
of the size of the administrative of-
ficers now in charge of the govern-
ment; namely, the action of George
Creel, the official censor of the state
20
department, in withholding informa-
tion from the American public as to
an attack by submarines upon the
American fleet, until he could write
it up in his own style, coloring and
distorting the facts, so that he could
make what he believed would be a
good Fourth of July story and feed
it out to the American press.
To show the wisdom and far-
sighted sagacity of this man Creel,
he refused to let the American people
know where the attack was made
upon their fleet, because he did not
want the Germans to know about it.
Since the Germans had discovered the
fleet and attacked it and were suc-
cessfully driven off, we presume that
he supposes that the officers of the
German fleet of submarines will con-
ceal from their government the
whereabouts of the American fleet,
or even refuse to tell where it was
when they found it. But this piece
of intelligent censorship on the part
of Mr. Creel is in keeping with the
whole policy of the present adminis-
tration of our national affairs.
Heretofore the dispatches of the
American navy have been printed
when received so that the American
people could know what their army
and navy were doing; but now our
government looks upon the people
in a different light from that in
which they have been regarded by the
administrations of the past. It is not
thought safe to give them informa-
tion or the facts as they are, but
they must be fixed up according to
the notion of some newspaper cor-
respondent in the state department as
to what he thinks will be good for
them to have.
We suppose from now on during
this war this official pabulum will be
cooked up in the state department
and 'handed out at convenient sea-
sons. The American people may
stand for this for a time, but not for
a great while.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 4. 1917. ~
CRITICISM A DUTY.
A Salina alleged Republican has
severely assailed the editor of the
Journal for his criticism of the pres-
ent national administration, upon the
theory that this is no time to criticise
the government. He inquired of a
friend of ours why we did not com-
mend the government instead of criti-
cising it. It is a source of deep re-
gret that we are not able to com-
mend the present management of our
government. It certainly would be
more pleasant for us to do so than .
to criticise, but we cannot conscien-
tiously commend that which is not
worthy of commendation; and criti-
cism in times like these is of the
highest importance. He who still
calls attention to the shortcomings
of this administration, and thereby
helps to avoid a repetition of th»»
blunders that have been made renders
the greatest public service.
If it had not been for the criticism
that has been levelled against Mr.
Wilson, this infamous advisory com-
mission of the council of national de-
fense, which marks probably the most
disgraceful episode in the history of
our government so far as the pur-
chase of government supplies is con-
cerned, would still be in force, and
men like Arthur V. Davis of the
aluminum trust, John A. Bush, presi-
dent of the Brown Shoe Company,
J. F. McElwain of the McElwain
Company, James A. Ferrell, president
of the United States Steel corpor-
ation, and J. D. Ryan of the Ana-
conda Copper company would still be
advising as to the contracts and fix-
ing the prices which their companies
are to receive from the government
for their own wares.
Criticism has resulted in the aban-
donment of at least the form of the
graft which has been so manifest.
Criticism caused the war department
to change the per cent which those ''
who are erecting cantonments are to
receive from ten per cent to 7 per
cent of the cost of construction. A?
it is working out, this change may
not be very desirable and may merit
greater criticism than the former*
method, because the war department
permits each one of these contractors
building these cantonments a maxi-
mum of $250,000 as compensation.
That is *to be the maximum he can
earn and in order to get the $250,000.
he may ru^ the expense up sufficient-
ly to make seven per cent aggregate
the maximum allowance which he can
receive, so it really may have been
cheaper to have paid the ten per cent
Then it would not have been neces-
21
sary for the cantonments to have cost
go much, in order for the contractor
to get the $250,000, and from the
methods employed by these men they
all seem bent upon getting the maxi-
mum allowance.
Two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars makes a pretty good fortune
for the ordinary man and if the con-
tractor for each one of these canton-
ments makes that amount in a few
months' time, without any risk, as the
government has the national treasury
to draw on for the payment of all of
these bills at whatever price the con-
tractor sees fit to pay, it is a pretty
soft snap for the contractor, so the
reduction of the rate per cent from
ten to seven ultimately may result
in an increase of the expense to the
government.
The perfidy, however, is in the sys-
tem the war department is using in
order to construct these cantonments.
It was not necessary to use the
methods followed, it was simply de-
sirable to a lot of grafters and they
seem to be in control in national af-
fairs.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1917~
AN OUTRAGE.
The editor of the Journal, while re-
cently in Washington, was called
upon by the husband of one of the
suffragists who have been arrested
for picketing. He made a bitter com-
plaint against the treatment his wife
was receiving in the work-house of
the District of Columbia. He seems
to be a responsible business man of
Chicago, whose wife is an ardent and
enthusiastic suffragette.
Able lawyers declare that these
women committed no violation of the
law — that when they were arrested
for obstructing the sidewalk, if legal-
ly held, it was upon an extreme tech-
nicality, and that their incarceration
is arbitrary and tyrannical. But Mr.
Watson, of Chicago, declared that
his wife was rudely treated, kept in
filthy surroundings, compelled to eat
unwholesome food and that the chief
officer and his assistant were insult-
ing and abusive to these women pris-
oners. Many of them are women of
refinement. They are enthusiastic
and believe they are martyrs to a
righteous cause. They sxiffer indig-
nity and imprisonment for opinion's
sake and nothing else.
Their incarceration is in line with
the actions of the former czar ol
Russia, when he sent thousands of
political prisoners to the jails and
banished them to the wilds of Siberia.
While we are fighting for the liberty
of the world in the European war, we
seem to lose sight of the fact that
the liberties of the American people
are fast being sacrificed by an arbi-
trary tyranny, the like of which
would never have been tolerated in
any other period of American history.
There is enthroned in Washington
today an arrogant autocracy, whose
counterpart the American people have
never heretofore known and the awful
catastrophe that confronts the nation
as a result of the European war, so
appalls thinking people that they
pass by with little notice the outrages
that are being committed on these,
it may be, over enthusiastic cham-
pions of the suffrage cause.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 19177
MR. RIPLEY'S EFFUSION.
Mr. E. P. Ripley, president of the
Santa Fe, in a letter to the Chicago
Tribune made a violent attack upon
the Public Utilities Commission of
Kansas because it refused to in-
crease the minimum car load weight
for grain and grain products from
24,000 pounds to 40,000 pounds. !n
this letter among other things he
said:
"When it is considered that the
average equipment of today will
carry about 60,000 and most of it
80,000 pounds and over, the minimum
of 24,000 pounds which the state of
Kansas refuses to advance is nothing
less than an outrage upon investors,
a gross discrimination against ship-
pers furnishing large loads, and in
this time of war such an 'aid and
comfort' to the enemy as to be really
treasonable."
Mr. Ripley seems to think that the
only business of the common carrier
is to earn returns for the stock-
holders and provide equipment for
large shippers. The fact that the
majority of the freight cars will
carry from 60,000 to 80,000 pounds
has practically little bearing upon the
action of the Kansas Commission
22
which he so severely criticises. The
railroads are operated for the pur-
pose of serving the public. The com-
mercial conditions that exist in Kan-
sas are such that any material in-
crease in the minimum car load
weights from 24,000 pounds wouid
seriously interfere with the normal
commercial operations of the people.
It is not practicable to load every
car to its capacity. Where it is
practicable to load cars to their ca-
pacity shippers are urged to do so,
but a railroad should be required to
provide equipment to properly servp-
the commerce of the state and com-
munities which it is chartered to
serve. The smaller communities are
worthy of, and entitled to, considera-
tion as well as the railroad. The
commercial and industrial condition
of the people is one of the important
factors in all transportation questions
and is of greater importance than
the character of the equipment which
the railroad has acquired. If the
railroad has not equipment proper
for the service required of it, then
it should obtain it. That is one of
its obligations. We have no doubt
that the 60,000 pound and 80,000
pound cars are very useful in hand-
ling through traffic where long dis-
tances are to be covered and heavy
commodities are to be carried, but
it is just as important that the
smaller communities that cannot use
such large quantities of the commod-
ities necessary for their existence and
welfare shall be able to get reasona-
ble rates on smaller car load lots,
and the Commission was mindful of
the interests of the people of the
state as well as the carrier when it
issued the order.
It would be well for Mr. Ripley
and other railroad magnates to real-
ize that they are servants of th^
public and not masters of mankind,
and it would be far better taste for
them to use judgment and sense in
discussing questions that concern
their interests as well as those of
the public and not indulge in the
usual billingsgate which cheap graft-
ers and politicians use in accusing
everybody of treason who may do
something that is not exactly to their
taste or in harmony with their no-
tions. For the president of a rail-
road company that is making enor-
mous dividends and amassing millions
upon millions of surplus ^s a result
of this war and the sufferings of
the people to accuse a public body
of treason because it demands that
railroads render a proper service to
the communities which are bearing'
the burdens of the war and sharing
none of the profits, is at least a re
flection upon his good sense and sin-
cerity of purpose.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1917.
A MATTER OF SELF DEFENSE.
The Topeka papers last week had
rather a sensational article upon the
organization of the Farmers' Non-
partisan League in Kansas, stating
that it was a movement of the I. W.
W. and was being promoted by Ger-
man influence. It is customary novf
for the partisans of this administra-
tion and the defenders of its war
policy to accuse everyone of treason
who is not a sub-servient votary of
the existing order of things and to
denounce them as pro-German. If
the authors of the articles that ap-
peared in Topeka papers had given a
little attention to this movement thej
would have known that the Non-
partisan League which is being or-
ganized by the farmers throughout
the western states is a great move-
ment in the interest of the farming
industry in the United States.
In the Dakotas and other north-
western states, it is already power-
ful and exerting a beneficial in-
fluence upon the public affairs of
those commonwealths. The purpose
of the Non-partisan League is to
elect men to office who will give the
farmer a square deal and not be con-
trolled by organized wealth and other
organizations that are unfriendly to
the agricultural interests, or who
seek to exploit the farmer and his
products for financial gain; in such
an organization seems to be about
the only hope left for the farmers of
the west. Practically all of the legis-
lation affecting commerce and indus-
try that has been enacted in the last
few years in Washington has been
in the interest of dealers in farm
products, manufacturers and business
men instead of agriculture. The
present food bill in its operations ha.<?
accomplished nothing up to date ex-
23
cept to hold down the price of wheat
below what it would have been if
such bill had not been passed. If
everything- which the farmer is com-
pelled to buy was controlled by the
same agency and the prices held
down in the same manner, he would
have no cause of complaint, but when
the things which he buys are ad-
vancing in price without limitation
and the prices of the products which
he has to sell are kept down, as a
matter of self defense it becomes
necessary for him in some way to
seek protection. As we understand
the Non-partisan League it is in
substance a pledge on the part of
the farmer to support for office can-
didates who will in his judgment best
epresent the farming interests^
For forty years the railroads,
manufacturing concerns, labor organ-
izations and other lines of industry
and business have had organizations
for the purpose of influencing legis-
lation to the inteuest of their own
lines of industry and business, why
should not the farmer. The news-
papers that are now so tender and
solicitous of the welfare of the rail-
roads are horrified when the farmers
)i the country propose to organize a
Non-partisan League the purpose of
which is to support candidates for
office who will give their business the
attention it deserves in the legisla-
tion of the nation. This movement
is different- from the old Populist
movement which was the organiza-
tion of a political party. As we un-
derstand the Non-partisan League is
not a political party. Its members
may support a Democart; or a Re-
publican; or a Socialist. That will
depend upon what the candidate
stands for and existing conditions
are forcing the farmers into such
organizations in self defense.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1917.
IS SLOWLY ADMITTING THE
TRUTH.
The Kansas City Star has discov-
ered that the war department let a
contract for a large number of sash
for windows in the cantonments and
then, after the sash had been made,
discovered that there was no glass of
the size required by these sash, and
that it would be cheaper to throw
the sash away or burn them up and
have others made than to have glass
made to fit the odd sizes.
This is one of a number of gross
mistakes which have come to the
Star's attention and leads it to de-
mand that a board be appointed to
supervise the work of cabinet officers
so as to protect the government from
such reckless waste and extravagance,
if not corruption.
Has the Star any evidence that
satisfies it that the contractors for
the cantonments were not perfectly
agreeable to having large, wasteful
expenditures made? They get their
per cent just the same. If there was
a half million dollars wasted in that
way they would get their seven or
ten per cent commission on it just
the same as though it had been wise-
ly and properly expended.
The Star knows, if it were frank
enough to admit it, that the whole
administration of the government's
affairs for the last six months has
been one of incompetence, extrava-
gance and corruption beyond descrip-
tion. Yet it has defended the out-
rageous waste at Fort Riley. It has
denounced vehemently the editor of
the Journal, because months ago he
called the attention of the country to
these facts. After weary months the
Star and the Capital and other
papers that were acquiessing in the
demand that the editor of this paper
be sent to jail for exposing grafl
and rottenness in public affairs ar&
now feebly suggesting that thess'
things be stopped, but fail to fix ox-
attempt to fix the responsibility for
the malfeasance.
In due time they will be denounc-
ing the awful blunder of sending our
soldiers on the battlefields with de-
fective ammunition and demanding
that those guilty of such abhorrent
neglect or malfeasance be punished
summarily.
These metropolitan papers have
made some progress. They are now
printing extracts from the speeches
of Hiram Johnson, Senator LaFollette
and others and actually commending
the attitude of these patriotic sena-
tors in their efforts to compel the
men who are making millions out of
this war to pay a fair share of their
24
war profits into the treasury of the
"federal government.
In the morning- issue of September
7, the Capital conceded that Wall
Street was controlling the legislation
of the nation, so far as the tax bill
was concerned; but the editor of that
paper is too intelligent not to know
that it has controlled the legislation
of this country in every movement
from a period antedating the declar-
ation of war.
FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 14. 19177
WHERE DOES MR.
STAND.
WILSON
In the great fight which a group
of senators made in Washington for
an equitable tax upon war profits,
they outlined an issue which will be
carried into many states of the Union
in the next campaign.
In this debate Senator Hiram John-
son declared that the drafting of the
young men of the country and the
exemption of excessive war profits
was a crime against the manhood of
the nation. Senator LaFollette in a
great speech that lasted for three
hours graphically portrayed the in-
famy of the legislation. On the last
day Senator Borah who is one of the
strong orators of the present con-
gress declared that the people would
not tolerate tenderness toward the
profits of speculators in the flesh and
blood of the nation.
These senators, in as righteous a
cause as was ever championed by free
men, lost and. when they lost, wrong
triumphed. The Journal enquires,
where was Mr. Wilson while these
men were making such a gallant fight
for human rights?
When the declaration of war was
before Congress Mr. Wilson appeared
and called for its immediate passage
and denounced, as treasonable, op-
position to it. When the bill for the
drafting of young men into the army
to be sent to foreign lands was pend-
ing Mr. Wilson was there demanding
its enactment. When the fight is
made to conscript wealth — to take a
reasonable portion of the war profits
from the munition vendors and those
who are amassing great wealth as
a direct result of the war — Mr. Wil-
son is silent and Democratic senators
such as Gore of Oklahoma and Hollis
of New Hampshire who stood with
Johnson and LaFollette and Borah
are being branded as traitors to the
administration. Senator Gore is
being threatened with defeat in his
campaign for re-election because he
insists that men who are making for-
tunes out of this awful conflict shall .
bear a just portion of the burdens
of taxation. War journals are ridi-
culing these patriotic men. but when
the people come to understand the
real issues involved in this fight they
will be overwhelmingly sustained.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1917?
WILL BE THE VICTIMS.
Mr. Hoover the sole achievement of
whose official efforts since he began
operating in the United States has
been to reduce the price of the
farmers' wheat fifty or sixty cents
per bushel, now proposes to take hold
of the packing situation. He evi-
dently thinks that the farmers are
receiving too much for their live
stock.
In his first proceeding he guar-
anteed to the millers and the manu-
facturers of wheat products a higher
profit than they ordinarily expect to
obtain. Then he fixed the maximum
amount at which wheat should be
sold, making the dealers in wheat
safe from loss and imposing all risk
upon the producers. Kansas will
have this year, so our State Agricul
tural Department says, about forty
million bushels of wheat. Consider-
ing our acreage on an average crop
we should have had three times that
amount. Following the lines of ac-
counting that are applied to every
other business, it has cost the wheat
producers of Kansas this year from
$2.00 to $2.50 per bushel to produce
every bushel of wheat that has been
raised and probably it has cost the
people of the United States on an
average fully $2.00 or niore, so that
Mr. Hoover has said to the Ameri-
can farmer that he should not have
more than cost and in many cases
less than cost for his product, but
that the man who handles the
product after it leaves the farm
should be guaranteed a safe and de-
sirable profit. The result is that
the consumers of bread are passing
exactly the same as they did before
the price of wheat was reduced and
when he begins to operate ' on the
meat market the livestock men of
this state may expect a reduction in
the price of livestock but the con-
sumers of packing house products
will never know from the prices they
pay that a reduction has been made.
We were somewhat apprehensive
before this food bill was passed as to
its effect. We had already had an
example of the voluntary services
of millionaires such as Mr. Hoover
planned to call around him in the
advisory board which the President
called together in Washington at the
beginning of the war. From the date
these men met to the present time
they have been exploiting the Amer-
ican people for their own gain in
the most high-handed and infamous
manner that jj^s ever been practiced
in the history of civilized nations.
We have frequently described in the
Journal their methods and when Mr.
Hoover calls together the American
captains of industry to help in ad-
ministering the food law, we may
expect the men who have amassed
enormous fortunes from dealing in
farm products of the United States to
control the policy of the food ad-
ministration and the victims of their
avarice will be the American farmer
and the consumer of small means.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 19177
WILL NOT BE SO EASILY MIS-
LEAD.
Every political grafter who has his
hands into the United States Treas-
ury and wants to distract attention
from his criminal operations declares
that he is helping the United States
to win the war and denounces as un-
patriotic criticism of his methods.
Every railroad that wants to avoid
giving the people proper service or
to increase its rates and impose upon
public credulity raises the cry that it
is doing its bit to win the war and
the public must help it. Every dema-
gogic politician who is the hand-tool
of predatory wealth and special in-
terests frantically declares that he
is determined to do his bit in help-
ing win the war. Every metropoli-
tan newspaper that is a friend of
special privilege or controlled by
Wall Street capital is widely calling
upon the public to overlook extrava-
gances and if need be, corruption in
public affairs, that we may win the
war. The munition vendors and
beneficiaries of army contracts who
are amassing millions out of the ex-
travagances of the present adminis-
tration, are vehemently declaring that
they are determined to do their bit
in winning the war and when pa-
triotic public servants like Senators
Johnson of California, Borah of
Idaho, LafoUette of Wisconsin, Gore
of Oklahoma, and Hollis of New
Hampshire, demand that they give a
reasonable amount of their exclusive-
ly war profits to sustain the govern-
ment in the financial crisis which it is
rapidly approaching, they denounce
them as traitors.
If this war is won it will be by
the sacrifices of the rank and file of
the American people, not only of
their blood, but of their substance,
and the most infamous thing in
American history is the exhibition
now going on in Washington in which
the grafters and politicians are work-
ing in absolute accord. What this
country needs is more men in public
life like Johnson and his co-workers
and fewer sniveling time servers like
Helvering of this district and Shouse
of the seventh. Here at home the
state is full of politicians of the same
type who hope to obtain further polit-
ical honors by pleasing the exploiters
of the nation's wealth and blood
without letting the people find it out.
They think they are fooling the rank
and file of our population. We • be-
lieve, however, that the sturdy com-
mon sense of the citizen of this state
will assert itself in the next election
and that they will not be so mislead
by high sounding phrases and hypo-
critical pretense as they were last
year.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1917.
THE MOST PATRIOTIC SERVICE.
The Journal has severely criticised
the incompetence, profligacy and cor-
ruption that now prevails in the ad-
ministration of our national affairs.
Almost every day we are met with
this statement: "We believe what
you say is true, but you ought not
to say it now, because we are at war
and any criticism of the Government
26
encourages the enemy." In other
words, it is contended that when our
country is involved in war it is not
expedient to denounce gi-aft and cor-
ruption in public affairs.
We do not believe that these
friends realize the purport of their
attitude. It means that during a
state of war profligacy, extravagance
and dishonesty can run rampant in
government affairs, and he who ex-
poses it, and not the thief is the pub-
lic enemy.
We cannot concur in this view.
The man who cheats the government
in time of war, who takes advantage
of the conflict that is now going on
among the nations of the earth to rob
the public, should be executed as a
traitor to his country, and the men
who expose the graft and rottenness,
instead of being abused for it, ought
to be commended by every good
citizen.
To illustrate. A contract has been
let to three companies for the manu-
facture of rifles. Technically, it was
approved by the Secretary of War
upon the recommendation of General
Crozier. According to the testimony
of both the Secretary of War and
General Crozier, it was in fact ap-
proved by them upon the recom-
mendation of the Council of Na-
tional Defense, headed by Mr. Scott
of Cleveland, 0,
This Council for National Defense
recommended, and it was approved
by the Secretary of War, that these
companies, the Remington Arms
Company, the Remington Arms-
Union Metallic Cartridge Company,
and the Winchester Repeating Arms
Company, be given the contract to
manufacture the rifles for the United
States Government at cost plus ten
per cent. They were allowed six per
cent on the value of the plants as
a part of the cost of manufacturing,
and then in addition given a net
profit of ten per cent on the total
cost of manufacture, whatever that
might be. They are not only guar-
anteed six per cent on the value of
their plants after all expense of
operation and manufacture has been
provided for, but in addition a bonus
of ten per cent on all the cost, in-
cluding the six per cent.
In an investigation before the Com-
mittee on Appropriations of the
House, it appeared that upon this
contract these companies would make
from thirty to fifty per cent every
year on the capital invested, over
and above the six per cent. The full
profit depends upon the amount of
work they turn out and upon their
skill in inflating the cost. That is,
their profits will be not only six per
cent on every dollar invested, which
is guaranteed as an expense, but
from thirty to fifty per cent per
annum in addition. It is alleged by
some that when the contracts are
completed this ten per cent will ag-
gregate from three to four times as
much as the entire cost of their
plant. That is, they are not only
guaranteed six per cent on their in-
vestment, but vdll be given in addi-
tion a gratuity of three or four times
the value of the plants.
When Mr. Scott, Chairman of the
Council for National Defense, was
interrogated about this matter, he
said he thought it was a good con-
tract because the cost would be less
than the amount the Allies had paid
for the arms they bought in the
United States. That is, if these com-
panies do not rob us as much as they
did the Allies before we got into
the war, Scott thinks we are getting
off well.
Now we ask our good friends who
question the expedience of our criti-
cism, how can anyone with conscience
ask an American citizen to approve
of such an administration of public
affairs? If this profligacy continues
during Mr. Wilson's term or while
the war lasts, this nation will be
hopelessly bankrupt, and all sense of
moral obligation to the public will
be destroyed. There never has been
any government which tolerated such
corruption that has not gone down.
We believe that our country today
has reached the most critical period
in its history. We are a rich and
powerful nation. We can defeat any
foreign foe which may attack us.
But if we give way to the avarice
of the times and tolerate gross in-
conjpetency, corruption and shame-
less graft in our public affairs, the
end of our national existence will
soon be reached. The most patriotic
service that any American citizen
can today render his country is to
demand that honesty and efficiency be
27
restored in the management of its
affairs. He owes this to himself as a
citizen, to his country as a patriot,
and to the boys that are sent to the
front to carry the country's flag on
fields of battle. They should be made
to feel that an honest and efficient
government is behind them, not one
seething with corruption.
THURSDAY, OCTO BER 4, 1917.
THE REVENUE BILL.
The revenue bill as agreed upon
by the conferees is a complete vic-
tory for the plunder-bund.
While the conferees increased the
amount of tax that will be raised
some i?300,000,000 over that carried
by the senate bill, they did not in-
crease the excess profits tax, but im-
posed a 3-cent postage tax on letters,
a tax on mortgages and evidences of
indebtedness on telegrams, telephone
messages, railroad fares, amusement
tickets, etc., leaving the men and
corporations that are making fabu-
' luus sums out of war profits to enjoy
their ill-gotten gain.
The proposition made by Senator
Johnson of California when the bill
was before the senate was to take
the average profit of a firm or in-
dividual for three years before the
war, in any event not less than six
per cent, and to exempt that from
any excess profit tax, but to impose
a tax of eighty per cent on t^e excess
over and above the average profits
before the war.
To illustrate: The E. L du Pont
Powder company, which is the pow-
der trust and controls the manufac-
' ture and sale of explosives in the
United States, made an average profit
before the war of something over
,^ $4,000,000 per annum, which is more
t than six per cent on the capital in-
l vested. Last year its profits were
f $82,000,000.
The amendment of Senator John-
son would have deducted the $4,000,-
, 000 from the $82,000,000 leaving
f $78,000,00, which is the profit due
Wholly to the war, and taking eighty
per cent of that for the government
which would still leave the powder
company a profit of approximately
$20,000,000 more than it made on an
average before the war. The same
principle would have been applied to
all other war profits, which would
have guaranteed to every concern
twenty per cent more profits than
those made before the war began, or
than the normal peace profits.
This is what Great Britain does;
but Senator Johnson's amendment
was overwhelmingly defeated in the
senate and the house conferees ac-
quiesced in the senate's action. The
administration was perfectly satis-
fied with the results, or in other
words approved the action of the sen-
ate because every administration
leader in the senate voted against
the Johnson amendment; and while
we are taxing the rank and file of
the people in every conceivable way,
we have refused to make the men
who are coining millions out of the
blood of our sons pay a fair share
of their excessive war profits into
the public treasury.
We are spending more money in
this war than any other nation today
that is involved in it and we are levy-
ing the lowest taxes on the war
profits.
We feel that it is the duty of
every patriotic American citizen to
hold to an account every senator and
congressman and President Wilson
for this inqiuitous measure that
places not only the bitrden of this
war upon the masses of the people,
but permits ill-gotten wealth to
escape a fair share of the burden.
^SATURD AY, OCTOBER 6, 1917.
AS GUILTY AS THE THIEF.
Thousands of homes in Kansas to-
day are grief-stricken because of the
chairs made vacant by the absence of
sons whose welfare is dearer to
many than life itself. These boys
have voluntarily or by the command
of the government gone into the
United States army to represent this
country in the great European con-
flict.
Whether they go voluntarily or at
the command of the government, they
are entitled to all the comforts and
all the protection it is possible for
the government to give them, and no
sacrifice which those of us at home
can make for their welfare should
be spared.
The people of Kansas and the na-
tion are unanimous in the desire that
28
the army shall be equipped with every
possible facility for effective work
and that the soldiers' life, hard and
exacting as it must be, shall be made
as comfortable as possible. No ex-
penditure of money should be with-
held that is necessary to provide such
facilities and comforts, but the obli-
gations which the people of the
United States have assumed in the
support and maintenance of this
army make it incumbent upon every
public officer concerned to be ef-
ficient and# honest in the discharge
of his duties.
To waste the government's re-
sources, to misappropriate its money
and to make useless and unnecessary
expenditures mean that this army
will not be properly equipped and
supported, and that the people whose
sons compose the army and upon
whose shoulders rests the burden of
paying the taxes to sustain it are
being grossly mistreated by officials
whose duty it is to protect them.
The attitude which administration
journals so flppantly take that any
criticism of maladministration must
not be tolerated is infamous.
The young soldiers at Fort Riley
are suffering today because of mis-
management and incompetency. Mil-
lions of the public money, which is
to be provided by the most onerous
taxes, have been wasted in the most
profligate manner, not for the bene-
fit of the United S^tates army but
to enrich an army of grafters who
like vultures are hanging about the
camps and hovering about the capi-
tal of the nation expecting to gorge
themselves out of the fabulous appro-
priations that are being made by
congress.
When rottenness in the expendi-
tures of the nation is exposed, ad-
ministration organs at once cry out
that it is giving aid and encourage-
ment to the enemy, and that regard-
less of the incompetency, the crimi-
nality, or the perfidy of our govern-
mental officials at this time silence
should be maintained.
The facts are that the criminal
who commits the offense is the real
traitor and those who would con-
ceal it or denounce his, exposure are
as guilty as the thief himself.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1917.
BETRAYS THE INTERESTS OF
THE COUNTRY.
The Red Men are to be commended
for the position they took in their
state convention at Topeka in regard
to the drafting of wealth.
If you can draft a young man, take
him from his farm or business,
leave his wife and children helpless,
compel him to sell all of his hold-
ings and practically close up his busi-
ness indefinitely at great loss and
take him to France to risk his health,
limb and life for the government
why should we not be able to take
the excessive wealth of men, which
they do not need, to pay the finan-
cial burdens of the war?
But the most radical proposals
made in congress were not to con-
fiscate the wealth, but to take 80 per
cent of the exclusively war profits.
Congress and the administration re-
fused to assess a tax of 80 per cent
on the exclusively war profits; and
during the next year while hundreds
of thousands of the best young men
in the land are sacrificing everything
for the country, the munition makers
and exploiters, who are growing rich
out of this war, will continue to reap
their harvest of blood-money, thanks
to the present congress and the na-
tional administration in Washington.
The steel trust, whose profits last
year were approximately four times
its normal peace profits, has about
one-third of that excess assessed for
taxes. The same is true of the pack-
ing houses, the shoe manufacturers,
the gun maker and other firms, in-
dividuals or corporations that furnish
war materials. For them the war
is still a source of inexhaustable
profits.
The clerk in the store, the laborer
on the street or in the field, who
struggles and toils for the comforts
and necessities of life, meets the
tax-gatherer everywhere. His net
earnings are reduced far below what
they were before the war, while the
profiteers from war materials ar^
making their untold millions.
The average citizen will bear his
burden uncomplainingly. He will
make any sacrifices which a patriotic
citizen should for the welfare of his
29
country, but he has a right to de-
mand and it is his duty to demand
that no man be permitted to amass
enormous fortunes out of the war,
and any public official, whether he
be in the legislative or executive
department of the government who
does not favor taking exclusively war
profits for the support of the govern-
ment betrays the interests of the
public and should be repudiated by
the people.
_ TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1917.
HAS NO RIGHT TO EXPECT IT.
Colonel Roosevelt criticises the ad-
ministration severely because eight
months have passed since we de-
clared war and nothing has been
done except inefficient preliminaries
and excessive talk. Manifestoes are
not what the Colonel wants and he
seems to be growing weary of them.
But the Colonel must reflect a
while and permit his indignation to
cool. He should remember that the
president made war on Mexico twice
before he declared war against Ger-
many. He captured Vera Cruz and
actually shed some blood; and then
had the troops, after staying there
a few months, get aboard the trans-
ports and come back home. He sent
them there to compel Huerta to sa-
lute the flag and brought them back
apparently because he would not do
it. Then when some Mexican bandits
plundered an American village, he
sent the American army with a flour-
ish of trumpets and the expendi-
ture of hundred of millions of dollars
into Mexico. General Pershing led
the expedition. As the Colonel will
I recall, when Pershing got near the
enemy he was ordered to stop and
was held there inert for seven months
and then ordered back home.
We read in the press dispatches
that the president now has Colonel
House, this mysterious Wall Street
friend of his, and Justice Brandeis
as a committee to study peace terms;
and the Colonel need not be sur-
prised, if after we have spent the
twenty-one billion dollars that have
been appropriated and thousands of
the administration's friends have been
given most lucrative public employ-
ment in the army and in other official
positions and have made hundreds of
millions out of the war contracts
that the president should conclude
that peace is better than war and
order the American army to come
back from France as he did when
he sent Funston to Vera Cruz and
Pershing into Mexico.
If the tax bill had taken the war
profits from the men who are mak-
ing billions out of the war we would
now have thousands of these war
profiteers crying for peace instead of
demanding the impeachment of
Gronna, LaFollette and others.
The Colonel should remember that
it has not been the habit of the presi-
dent to stand for any one policy a
great length of time. He was for
peace a year ago. Then he changed
and became very much for war, and
has been in that state of mind since
last March. Does the Colonel expect
the president to stand for that policy
much longer? If so, he may be dis-
appointed.
There are some things, however,
that this administration is certain to
do and do them effectively, viz: to
waste the public money, create thou-
sands and possibly hundreds of thou-
sands of useless offices to take c^re
of its partisan friends, write beauti-
ful notes' and deliver eloquent ad-
dresses.
Under the circumstances has
Colonel Roosevelt any right to ex-
pect a heroic or energetic adminis-
tration of public affairs or the prose-
cution of the war with eflfectiveness
until there is a radical change in the
personnel of our administrative of-
ficers ?
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 19177
DANGEROUS SIGNS OF THE
TIMES.
The special session of Congress
that was called to declare war upon
Germany has adjourned. It seems to
be proud of its record, and that of
which it boasts the most is the un-
precedented appropriations that it has
made.
It has the proud distinction of
having appropriated a larger amount
of money than was ever appro-
priated before by any legislative body
in a like period of time. It has
also passed the largest specific ap-
propriation bills, and probably has
30
levied more onerous taxes upon the
activities of the people than were
ever levied by any congress that
preceded it.
The country will suffer from its •
reckless extravagance for generations
to come. It was a congress without
leadership that simply recorded the
will of a dictator and was as sub-
servient to the executive as was ever
any Mexican congress to Diaz in the
days of his power. Any member of
the body, charged with the responsi-
bility of appropriating money and
levying taxes, who dared to criticize,
or even hesitated to obey the wishes
of the president was at once de-
nounced as a" traitor, and so fearful
were the members of the legislative
branch of the government of such
criticism they hastened to do what-
ever the executive indicated he
wanted done, and in practically every
instance failed to inquire as to its
wisdom or pass judgment upon its
desirability.
If future American congresses are
to be simply the abject tools of the
executive, then we had better change
our form of government from a re-
public with three coordinate branches
to a dictatorship with one supreme
head, which, of course, would mean
the end of representative government.
However, we propose to fight for the
preservation of the republic and the
independence of the representatives
of the people.
"SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 19177
PRODUCER AND POLITICS.
Our esteemed townsman and co-
laborer, the Honorable Maurice Mc-
Auliffe, has called a meeting of the
wheat growers for Wednesday, Octo-
ber 17, at Kansas City, Kansas, to
consider the situation as to wheat,
and distinctly announced that no
political discussion will be permitted.
We would like to know what is
troubling the wheat producers, today,
if it is not the political situation. If
politics had not interfered with the
price of wheat, the wheat growers
would have had no complaint. Be-
fore Mr. Hoover reduced the price,
they were getting a normal price
measured by the price of other
products.
The administration, so the press
dispatches say, is greatly disap-
pointed at the amount of wheat that
is being brought to market and are
accusing the farmers of treason.
That is, when an Oklahoma or Kan
sas farmer has wheat for which he
can get from $1.80 to $1.90 per
bushel by hauling it to market and
who will have to pay for feed for
his live stock from $1.90 to $2.25 a
bushel for corn, depending upon his
locality, and haul it from the mar-
ket home, he is accused of treason
because he does not haul his wheat
off and sell it and buy corn at a
higher price and haul it home to feed
his stock; and he is threatened with
confiscation of his property for lack
of patriotism.
When Mr. McAuliffe says that he
wants a conference of wheat growers,
but that politics must not be men-
tioned, we suppose his purpose is to
discuss the condition of the soil and
the weather.
The State Journal of October 1
has an article headed "Kansas Farm-
ers to Force Government to Seize all
Wheat. There is little doubt that
they are hoarding. Prices may be set
by grain corporation. Loyalty of
soldiers of the soil being questioned."
Then it goes on and demonstrates
that there is not as much wheat
being marketed now as there was last
year, concludes that the farmers
are hoarding and makes a general at-
tack upon the Kansas farmer.
While riding on a train a few days
ago we overheard a conversation by
some gentlemen seated across the
aisle. One of them appeared to be
a dealer in oil stocks, another one
was a railroad man, another ap-
peared to be a merchant, and the
fourth, as near as could be gathered
from the conversation, was a capi-
talist or speculator.
They were unanimous in condemn-
ing the farmer as being a selfish hog,
unpatriotic and devoid of the fine
impulses that are worthy of an
American citizen, because he was not
satisfied with the price which the
government had fixed for his wheat,
and talked very knowingly of the
great profits being made and the
opulence in which the Kansas
farmer is living. These men, none
of whom probably knew what labor
31
was or had ever endured any hard-
ships or struggled against the ad-
versity of climate in order to make
a living or to acquire what prop-
erty they may have, indulged freely
in unmeasured criticism of the men
who have made the wealth of this
state and transformed it from a
ilesert to a garden spot.
They did not take into considera-
tion the years of failure, the long,
toilsome labor which the farmer has
to go through month after month
and year after year in order to make
liome life bearable upon the farm.
His losses due to storms and stress
of weather and failure they forgot
and only thought of some isolated
case where he turns his crop upon
a fine market and makes a profit for
that particular season. In the food
regulation which Mr. Hoover is now
carrying on the only man who
handles the food products of America
who is not guaranteed a profit is the
man who produces them, and . when
he complains that the prices are not
compensatory, taking into considera-
tion the losses he has incurred in
order to produce his crop, he is
denounced by the men who live by
speculating on his toil as guilty of
treason.
The safest, soundest and most
economical and enduring civilization
that mankind has yet produced has
been that which grows out of the
pursuit of agriculture and its allied
industries; and it is an unfortunate
period for American history when
the farmer who produces the products
of foed and clothing for mankind is
derided by the men who live as toll
takers and produce nothing for the
benefit of the human race. If farm-
ing is such an opulent and profitable
business why won't they go into it.
There are millions of acres of idle
land waiting for them. The reason
they do not go into the business is
that they have to work too hard for
what they get.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1917.
LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S SPEECH.
Lord Northcliffe's speech at Kan-
sas City before the editors on Thurs-
day afternoon was a remarkably
frank expression of his views as to
the general conduct of the war, and
a somewhat blunt but much merited
criticism of American newspapers.
If the editor of the Journal had
delivered the speech and applied the
criticisms made by Northcliflfe on
general war policies directly to
Amercau affairs he would have been
denounced throughout the nation by
the administration press as guilty of
treason. Yet we are pleased to note
that the Baron's criticism has been
received kindly on the whole by
newhpapers that have heretofore de-
clared that any criticism of the ad-
ministration in power in time of war
regardless of the wisdom or folly of
its acts, was treason. In fact the
most useful patriot is he who cour-
ageously and intelligently points out
to the administration its blunders and
mistakes.
It will be remembered by the in-
telligent American reader that Lord
Northcliffe, at the beginning of the
war, was threatened by the English
Government with imprisonment. In-
deed, Premier Asquith went so far
as to declare that unless he stopped
his criticism of the Government his
papers would be suppressed. But
Northcliffe did not stop his criticism.
He pointed out the utter inadequacy
of the English antiquated arms and
munitions. He informed the British
public of the awful disasters and mis-
takes attending the military cam-
paigns. Hfe forced a reorganiation of
both the army and the admiralty, and
ultimately the entire administration
of British affairs. This he did, not
as a traitor, but as the greatest
patriot which England had at that
disastrous period of its experience.
If the United States had a few edi-
tors of great metropolitan papers as
courageous, as bold in expressidn,
and as penetrating in seeing into the
defects of our administration as
Northcliffe was in his discussion of
the mistakes of Great Britain, we
would have avoided the awful waste
that has attended every move that
our Government has made since the
war began. But the American met-
ropolitan papers, instead of demand-
ing economy, honesty and intelli-
gence in the administration of our
national affairs, have denounced and
assailed every man who has seen fit
to criticise administrative acts, which
privately the editors of all these met-
32
ropolitan newspapers admit were in-
efficient, in some cases corrupt, and
in almost every respect inetfective.
We do not agree with a number of
the positions of Lord NorthclifFe, but
we commend his address to the care-
ful consideration of every intelli-
gent American citizen who wants his
country to succeed in the tremendous
undertaking in which it is now en-
gaged.
We especially commend the covert
criticism of .the sensational and
nauseating literature which fills the
American press today. The metro-
politan papers and many of the
smaller dailies exaggerate every
slight victory or success attending
the Allied armies and minimize the
calamities which befall them. North-
cliffe pointed out in his severe criti-
cism of American newspapers that
the victory of the French where they
took 7,500 prisoners had been em-
blazoned in headlines in bold, black
type, while the 100,000 casualties
suffered during the same week by the
Allies found expression in small type
in an obscure place in the paper.
He very rightly said that such a
policy was not honest and would not
command the respect of the Ameri-
can people; that what the public
wanted from the newspapers was
the truth whether it was agreea-
ble or disagreeable to the popular
fancy, and that the papers were in
duty bound to publish if they were
honest, the facts, disagreeable as they
might be.
Another thing greatly to Lord
Northcliffe's credit is that he didn't
indulge in the sickening rot which the
military propagandists in the United
States do in denouncing the German
people as a whole. If you credit the
statements of the hired orators of the
military propagandists you will con-
clude that the German people are
hideous monsters, more brutal in
their cruelty than Comanche Indians
or African savages. Lord North-
cliffe, who has spent much time in
Germany, says they are a peace-
loving, industrious, frugal people, but
dominated by a military autocracy
that seeks to rule the world, and
that Great Britain's war is not
against the German people but
against the autocracy and its poli-
cies which they support, that unfor-
tunately a majority of the people
support the autocracy and because of
their loyalty must inevitably suffer.
On the whole, his address was able,
in good temper, philosophical and
very constructive.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1917. ^
31 AY BE FORTUNATE FOR THE
NATION.
The Journal has opened its columns
unreservedly to the campaign for the
sale of the issue of 4% United States
bonds. It did this not because it ap-
proved all of the methods that were
adopted for the sale of these bonds,
although on the whole we believe
they were much more dignified and
becoming than the first campaign.
The literature in the main was
very much superior to the original
literature that was sent out for the
sale of the 3^/^ per cent bonds, and
by the time the next issue comes,
the probabilities are that our Govern-
ment will have gotten down to a
decent and orderly procedure in the
issue of its securities.
We regret that many poor people
who cannot afford to buy the bonds
were by a system of semi-coercion
induced to purchase them. Our
theory is that the men who have
money should furnish the Govern-
ment with the money to carry on the
war and not ask those who have a
hard time to live during these war
times to skimp themselves of really
the necessities and comforts of life in
order to furnish the Government
funds. The poor people in the United
States independent of Ibond purchases
are making the greatest sacrifice.
They are bearing the greatest bur-
den of taxation and the rich men
should furnish the Government
abundantly of their funds.
But on the whole we are inclined
to believe that it will be good for
the Government for the rank and
file of the people to make the sacri-
fice which they are making in pur-
chasing these bonds. It will give
them a more direct interest in the
expenditure of the fund which they
are making such sacrifice to provide.
If they will only demand that the
money which they provide in this
way shall be honestly and economi-
cally expended, that the waste which
33
IS admitted to exist everywhere shall
cease, that the unnecessary expendi-
ture of vast amounts be stopped, that
intelligence and honesty be supreme
in the administration of our govern-
ment finances, great things will have
been accomplished by the widespread
purchase of bonds that has been made
by the American people. The wel-
fare of this nation demands the peo-
ple fully to realize that when a can-
tonment such as that at Fort Riley
costs two or three times what it
should have cost, that when the Gov-
ernment pays over $50.00 apiece for
rifles which it formerly obtained for
{14.00, it is wasting their money
which they obtained by hard labor
and sacrifice. Then, they will hold
more strictly to account their public
servants, their members of Congress
and United States Senators who ap-
propriate the money and authorize
the expenditure. The widespread
holding of these bonds may ultimate-
ly lead to a much needed reorganiza-
tion of our national finances.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30. 1917.
ARE BEGINNING TO WAKE UP.
The keynote of Lord NorthCliffe's
speech at Kansas City, and indeed of
his speech everywhere on his western
tour, has been the need of ships. He
made the startling statement at Kan-
sas 'City that it would require ten
tons of shipping to supply every
soldier that the United States had
in France. Then he called attention
to the deplorable lack of necessary
I shipping for us to sustain any con-
'■ siderable sized army in Europe. He
illustrated the tremendous burden
which rested upon the American peo-
ple by declaring that if the United
States maintained an army of many
hundred thousand soldiers in France,
it would be necessary to ship at once
for the use of that army 500 locomo-
tives and 40,000 railway cars of dif-
ferent types and kinds, in addition
to other railway equipment.
Our government does not permit
the American people to know how
I many soldiers they have in Europe.
I One rumor states there are one hun-
l dred thousand, and another rumor
that there are three or four hundred
thousand. If there are one hundred
thousand American troops in Europe
and there are at least that number
then it is necessary for us to have a
million tons of shipping devoted ex-
clusively to the service of this army
in order to furnish it with supplies,
munitions, etc. And we haven't now
one-half of that amount, probably
not one-fourth of it available for
that purpose.
To send other soldiers to Europe
before we have the ships to furnish
them with supplies will be an ad-
ministrative blunder more dangerous
than the Dardanelles campaign for
Great Britain. We will have an army
in France without supplies, simply a
burden upon the Allies-
It is probably the full knowledge
of our weakness in shipping that has
led the Allies to suggest to our ad-
ministration that they do not need
men so much as supplies. That,
probably, is an indirect way of sug-
gesting to us the tremendous blunder
that we may make in rushing men
to France in greater numbers than
we are able to maintain.
It has been announced that it is
the policy of the Administration to
have a million men in France by the
first of next July. It is not possible
to have a sufficient amount of ship-
ping available by the first of July
to maintain more than 25 per cent
of that number in active service. In-
deed, bending every energy in the
construction of ships, we probably
will not be able inside of two years
to provide sufficient tonnage to fully
supply an army of a million men.
It must be remembered, as Lord
Northcliffe so clearly pointed out,
that the ocean is infested with Ger-
man submarines, who are seeking to
destroy the military power of the
Allies. They are sinking the ships
bearing cargo that will be most use-
ful to the army and they have dealt
some terrible blows to the Allies dur-
ing the last six months in this re-
spect.
It is the part of wisdom for Ger-
many to sink a transport loaded with
necessary supplies for the army
rather than to sink a transport loaded
with soldiers, for the soldiers in
France without supplies are a burden
upon the Allies and not an asset.
This Germany knows.
While Northcliffe is an Englishman
here in the interest of the English
34
government, devoted ardently to the
English cause, yet his frank and open
.-itatement of the weakness of the
American situation should be of in-
estimable value to the American
people.
We deeply regret that it required
an Englishman, speaking in the cen-
ter of the American continent, to first
notify the people in the heart of this
nation of the great emergency and
demand that is upon our government
and the crises that confront it. In-
stead of pointing out the w^eaknesses
arising from our administration's in-
efficiency, the great American news-
papers have indulged in vituperation
and abuse of the men who have
sought to do so and praised those in
public positions whom they knew to
be inefficient and ineffective, because
of a false notion that their obliga-
tion and duty was to sustain the
administration right or wrong be-
cause we are in war. \
It is the duty of the government
of the United States, regardless of
whose hands it is in, to serve the
American people. To involve theni
in enormous expenditures, to impose
upon them terrible sacrifice and to
conceal from them the truth as to
administrative policies and results of
administrative acts, is criminal and
treasonable and the American public
is beginning to wake up to this fact.
THUR SDAY, NOVEMBER T,~1917."
HE BEARS THE BURDEN.
The State of Kansas is being in-
vaded this week systematically by the
"Willing Workers of Hoover" in his
campaign for economy. Mr. Hoover
has an appropriation at his disposal
of some one hundred and eighty mil-
lions of dollars. He has employed
at lucrative salaries hundreds of
men and women to promote his plans
and has also enlisted thousands of
workers without pay. We are in
sympathy with any movement that
will induce the American people to
economize in their life, and habits
aijd eliminate waste. In this respect
we believe Mr. Hoover has the hearty
support of the American people.
Mr. Hoover expected, so we have
been advised on good authority, to
fix the price of live stock, but the
experience in price fixing of wheat
demonstrates that to fix the price ol
the basing product gives no relief
to the consumer because flour and
bread are selling now for approxi-
mately the same as they did under
$2.75 and $3.00 wheat, so that the
only party that has been effected by
the reduction in the price of wheat is
the producer. The profits of those
who handle wheat and its products
have been stabilized so they know
exactly what they . can expect. The
only man who takes any chance in
the production of bread — the "stall
of life" today — is the farmer who
produces the wheat from which it is
made. He may lose his seed and
labor and all that he has invested;
nobody makes him good, and his loss
is not taken into consideration in
figuring the cost of producing his
crop the following year, but every
other individual who touches grain
and its products from the time it
leaves the farm has a guaranteed
profit.
The National Live Stock Associa-
tion was powerful enough to pre-
vent Mr. Hoover from fixing an arbi-
trary price for cattle, but he has
announced this week that he in-
tends to fix the price which the
packer shall charge for meat, which
means that he intends to fix the
price which the live stock producer
will obtain -for his stock, because
the packer fixes the price of live
stock and when Mr. Hoover reduc^es
the price of meat the packer will
not sacrifice his profits but will take
it out of the farmer. They in the
end, will bear the burden.
It is incomprehensible to us why
this whole price fixing propaganda
should be directed ultimately to the
American farmer. He is the bul-
wark of our civilization; he is pro-
ducing the food of mankind; he
has been from the beginning of this
nation its "bone and sinew"; he
represents the great masses of the
common run of men. Upon the
American farm you find no mil-
lionaires and few paupers, but a hard
working, honest, frugal citizen, in-
terested in the welfare of his country
and of mankind; but the tendency for
the last few years, culminating in
the present food propaganda, has
been to increase his burden by legis-
lative enactment and to discouragp
35
his industry. For 40 years he stood
heroically by the protective tariff
policy because he wanted to develop
a home market for the products of
the soil and this was done, but now
he is to be deprived of the advant-
ages of that home market, and, dur-
ing the stress of war times when
prices of everything which he uses
are "mounting to the sky," the Gov-
ernment refuses to permit the
products of his toil to keep pace in
the upward movement, and he is
abundantly justified in the deep re-
sentment which is growing up in his
heart against the present administra-
rive policy of our government.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER"~127^1917r
WHEN WILL THE CONSUMER
BENEFIT?
Another list of maximum steel
prices has been fixed by the adminis-
trative forces. This time they have
fixed the price on scrap iron and
sheet steel, tin plate, etc., which
will be very gratifying to the manu-
facturer of domestic steel products.
We are patiently waiting for the
time to come when the consuming
public will get an advantage by re-
duced prices on steel products which
it uses. Fixing the price of scrap
iron is not of much interest to the
farmer who has to purchase agricul-
tural machinery, except that it re-
duces the price of the junk which
accumulates on the farm during the
course of years.
Is it to have any effect upon the
prices of the new machinery which
he is compelled to buy? What com-
modities used by the American people
in their household and business af-
fairs are to be reduced in price be-
cause of the fixed price of sheet steel
which the government has agreed
upon with the steel trust?
The consumers of the steel trust
who purchase from it their raw ma-
terial will be benefitted by a stabil-
ity of price. How much of an ad-
vantage are they going to give the
consuming public, and how are the
rank and file of the people upon
whom the burden rests the heaviest
to be benefitted? These are ques-
tions upon which we anxiously wait
for information.
WEDNE SDAY , NOVEMBER JjU 1917
SPEAKING TOO LATE.
We clip the following from last
Saturday's Kansas City Star, and
commend the spirit of the editorial:
"It is a great thing for a country
to have a man like Lord Northcliffe
who has the intelligence to •discern
things that are wrong and the cour-
age to speak out and tell about
them. Doubtless, as the Westminster
Gazette says, other distinguished
Englishmen have felt as Northcliffe
did, but none of them has had the
nerve to express his feelings.
"A country engaged in a life and
death struggle can't afford to let
politeness stand in the way of ef-
ficiency. Failure to criticise where
criticism is due, as has often been
said, may be disastrous. For it puts
a country's vital interests at the
mercy of incompetent men who may
chance through favoritism to be in
office."
The Journal has been contending
for months that what America
needed was a metropolitan press that
would speak the truth in regard to
the incompetency, extravagance, and
in many instances corruption, of the
existing administration.
Not only has the United States be-
come involved in the European war
because of the incompetent manage-
ment of its diplomatic affairs; but
since we entered the war our re-
sources have been wasted in reckless
extravagance, our men have been col-
lected in army camps before there
was provision made to take care of
them. They have been kept in light,
wooden buildings without fire, with
inadequate clothing, and as a result
Spinal meningitis and pneumonia
have taken many of them and per-
manently injured the health of others.
This could have been avoided by
ordinary foresight and the exercise
of ordinary intelligence in the admin-
istrative affairs of the goverpment.
What occasion was there to take
thousands of young men from their
comfortable homes, surrounded in
many cases by the luxuries of mod-
ern life and to put them without heat
and with inadequate clothing, in these
cantonments.
It is true that these young men
3()
must endure hardships, for military
service is full of hardships; but ordi-
nary intellig-ence dictates that they
should be gradually accustomed to the
radical change in life which the army
service requires. But that ordinary
intelligence has not been exercised
by the Secretary of War.
If the Kansas City Star and other
metropolitan papers had spoken out
sooner — six months ago — and de-
manded efficiency, integrity and com-
mon sense on the part of the admin-
istrative officials much of the loss of
life and health and waste of public
funds would have been avoided. But
having failed then, we must be grate-
ful that now they are awaking to
the seriousness of the situation — too
late to save hundreds of millions of
dollars of funds that have been
wasted and the lives of many valua-
ble young men that have been lost—
but fortunately soon enough to lessen
the disaster of the future.
We also desire to commend Con-
gressman P. P. Campbell, who is now
bitterly complaining of the incompe-
tency of the existing administration.
It would have been better, in our
opinion, if Mr. Campbell had spoken
months ago. If one-tenth of the
members of Congress had spoken as
frankly six months ago as Mr. Camp-
bell speaks now, much of the disas-
ter could have been avoided; but un-
fortunately at that time they re-
mained quiet apparently to escape the
hostile criticism of the administration
and its votaries who then were riding
on the very apex of the war propa-
ganda. Speaking plainly then was
denounced as treason but time is
demonstrating that silence was more
treasonable than accusation.
THURSDAY , NOVEM BER 22, IO tT.
A FAIR TAX.
We note that the American News-
paper Association has a lobby at
Washington now demanding the re-
peal of that part of the revenue law
which increases the postage rate on
newspapers and magazines.
By expenditure of money and the
maintenance of a bureau of able
lobbyists at Washington they may
induce Congress to repeal this in-
crease in postage on newspapers.
The Journal will have its postage bill
more than doubled by this measure.
We are not anxious to pay an addi-
tional tax any more than is anybody
else; but we are paying our share of
the war tax in increased letter' post-
age, in a tax on amusements, a per-
centage tax upon freight bills and
railroad fares, etc.
None of these taxes are as just as
the increased postage on the news-
papers we are publishing. It is the
fairest and most deserving of all
of the postage increases that have
been made, and nothing is more con-
temptible or despicable than for the
metropolitan papers and magazines
to keep a lobby in Washington at
work to get out of paying a just and
fair postage rate to the United
States government.
Some members of this Association
went so far last spring as to allege
that because the newspapers were
supporting the government in time of
war that they should be exempted
from the just postal rate proposed.
It is a source of pride to us that
the executive committee of the Kan-
sas State Editorial Association is
backing the Post Office Department
in its effort to put newspaper post-
age upon an equitable and just basis,
so that the newspaper business will
pay its fair share, at least of the
expense which the government incurs
in handling its business. Our asso-
ciation is standing by the zone sys-
tem which is insisted upon by the
Post Office Department.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1917.
LET THEM GO TO WORK.
The Chicago Tribune has made a
vicious attack upon the farmer of
the United States, accusing him of
a lack of appreciation of the nation's
welfare and of being selfish, isolated,
unpatriotic and an all around unde-
sirable citizen.
This criticism is indirectly ap-
proved by some of the metropolitan
papers in Kansas. These people
seem to resent the fact that the
American farmer iS' not a peasant
such as exists in Russia, who, with-
out complaint or resentment, accepts
any imposition placed upon him by
the governing class.
It is fashionable in certain quar-
ters to refer to a farmer who hap-
37
pens to own an automobile as a
"plutocrat" and to speak with de-
rision and sarcasm of the down-
trodden agricultural class, because a
number of them have been able to
by automobiles ranging in value from
$350 to $1500— most of them, how-
ever, being Fords. These people
seem to think that the farmer does
not have ^ right to an automobile
such as the merchant or the profes-
sional men enjoy, when the fact is
that they are about the only ones
who can utilize, in a practical way,
the automobile. The farmer does not
get it for pleasure but as a useful
machine. It takes him to town and
back rapidly and enables him to
spend more time upon his farm,
which he has to do now, because of
the scarcity of labor.
The American farmer provides the
basic food and clothing products of
mankind. If these self-constituted
critics think that farming is so profit-
able, why do not they go into it
themselves? There are millions of
acres of land lying idle waiting for
the touch of their hands; and instead
of abusing the man who toils from
daylight to dark to produce the
food of the world these men ought
to acquire some of this idle land
and go to work and produce some-
thing themselves. Let them do some
real labor instead of living by their
wits and upon the energies of the
producing classes of the world. Then
they can discuss with more intelli-
gence and value the problems that
relate to the soil.
MONDAY, NOVEMB ER 26, 1917.
SUPERFICIAL PRICE FIXING.
The fixing of prices has been en-
tered upon as a policy for a few agri-
cultural products. The motive behind
the fixing of these prices was to
cheapen the cost of food in the large
cities and industrial centers of the
nation; and the reduction in the cost
of food has been the motive that has
determined the action of these price
fixing boards, although it is alleged
that they are seeking to increase pro-
duction of the food by guaranteeing
certain prices. In this, however, they
have utterly failed, because the men
9rhn control these boards do not
understand the industrial conditions
of the United States.
They are taking a very narrow
view of the situation. They want to
reduce the price of the food which
the people of New York City, for
example, have to have, and so they
seek to reduce the price which the
farmer is permitted to obtain for his
crop, as they have in the case of
wheat and hogs.
They lose sight of that great fund-
amental economic principle that sup-
ply is the greatest regulator of price.
It is a lamentable fact that for more
than a quarter of a century the en-
terprising young men of this country
have left the farm and gone to the
town. They did this because it was
more profitable to engage in other
lines of occupation than farming, and
the influx from the farm to the city
has been greater during recent
months than at any other time in the
country's history.
When a young man can come to
town and get employment at some
lucrative occupation and live with
greater comfort and ease than he
can by remaining in the country he
will come to town. The fact is that
the opportunities for enterprising and
aggressive young men are more num-
erous in the towns and cities of the
nation than they are in the rural
districts, which accounts for the
movement from country to city.
The greatest handicap to farming
operations in the United States is
the lack of labor. No farmer can
compete with the corporations in the
employment of men. They can pay
more than he can. They do pay
more and that is why competent "
young men go to them to obtain em-
ployment. Whenever it is more
profitable to remain on the farm and
pursue the vocation of agriculture
then there will be a larger number of
farmers and greater production.
The high cost of food, however, is
not because of the high prices the
farmer receives for his product.
Hogs at 15 to 17 cents a pound on
foot do not justfy a charge of 40 or
50 cents a pound for hams and bacon.
The hog on foot at 17 cents a pound
will not cost to exceed 22 to 24
cents a pound dressed, depending
upon the size and condition. Why
this price should be doubled when the
38
cured meats reach the market has
not been satisfactorily explained, ex-
cept that it adds to the profits of
the packers. The pnly way to in-
crease production is to fix a price
that is profitable to the producer,
and the only way ta keep the con-
sumer from being imposed upon by
high prices is for the government to
take charge of the packing industry.
If we are going into the price-fixing
business that is the first and essential
step, and GifFord Pinchot was right
and time will demonstrate he was
when he insisted that that be done
and refused to longer remain as one
of Mr. Hoover's assistants, because
he felt that the efforts being made
were superficial and ineffective and
more in the interests of the dealer
than of the producer of farm
products.
SATURDAY. DECEMBER 1, 19177
SERVING THE CORPORATIONS
MORE THAN THE PUBLIC.
As an illustration of the develop-
ments of the present war government
in the United States, we call atten-
tion to the recent order of the food
board requiring millers to load all
carloads of flour and grain products
to at least 60,000 pounds before
shipment.
There has been a movement for
some time on the part of the rail-
ways, the Santa Fe being the most
insistent, in behalf of increasing the
minimum carload weight fixed for
grain products in the western states.
The minimum weight for a carload
of flour or grain products in Kansas
is 24,000 pounds.
Two hearings have been held by the
Kansas Commission in the last four
or five years, and in both instances
the Commission /efused to increase
the minimum carload weight, because
of the commercial conditions that
exist. As it is now, in Kansas a
dealer can order a carload of 24,000
pounds from a mill and get the car-
load rate. The Interstate Commerce
Commission has fixed 40,000 pounds
as the minimum weight for inter-
state or long shipments. A heavier
minimum weight should be required
for such shipments than the short
shipments.
President Ripley of the Santa Fe
made a violent attack upon the Kan-
sas Commission, because it refused
to increase its minimum weight for
grain products, and stated that it
was directly against the interests of
the railroads and the big shippers.
It seems that the railroads do not
care to be bothered with the small
dealers. What they want to serve
most is the large shippers and the
great commei'cial centers. The in-
terstate Commerce Commission re-
fused to increase the minimum
weight above 40,000 pounds, after
an exhaustive hearing and then re-
opened the case with a view to re-
ducing it somewhat if it appeared
that 40,000 pounds was too much to
best serve the commercial interests
of the country.
But when Mr. Hoover organized
his food conservation bureau, he se-
lected Mr. Chambers, vice president
in charge of traffic for the Santa Fe.
as one of his assistants and placed
him in charge of transportation. So
Mr. Chambers, now being clothed
with authority by the United States
government orders the mills which
have been licensed to deal in grain
and grain products by the food ad-
ministration to ship not less than
60,000 pounds in carload lots, there-
by taking advantage of this power
which his voluntary service to the
government gives him to over-ride
every state commission in the United
States and the Interstate Commerce
Commission as well, in the interests
of the railroads and big shippers.
This large minimum carload will
be destructive to the commercial in-
terests of many communities. These
corporation magnates who are prais-
ing themselves for patriotism, be-
cause they are working for the gov-
ernment for nothing are serving their
real employers the corporations far
more than the public.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1917.
NEED A GRANT.
In an editorial some two weeks
since the Journal declared what the
allies needed was more generals like
Grant and Sherman and fewer Mc-
Clellans.
We were assailed by the apologists
and votaries 'of the present adminis-
tration as usual for not extrava-
39
gantly ijraisir^g what is being done,
right or wrong, effective or ineffec-
tive, and ridiculed by some for pre-
suming to know anything about the
military situation in Europe, not hav-
ing been there to make a personal
inspection.
We apologize for our ignorance;
but in spite of such lack of in-
formation we have an intense and
earnest desire for the allies to do
something really effective. We can-
not complain of the efforts that are
being made by the English, measur-
ing them by the losses they incur
week after week. They seem to
be losing more men weekly than
either side lost in the battle of Get-
tysburg, but for these enormous sac-
rifices they are obtaining little ad-
vantage. They advance until they
reach a critical point and then stop
while "the Germans intrench again.
American papers have been full of
praise for the recent advance near
Cambrai, but like the other English
movements it has been executed with
courage but with slight success. The
latest report is that they captured
9,000 prisoners and got within a few
miles of Cambrai and are now "con-
solidating their positions and hold-
ing their lines."
They made the same kind of an
advance near Lens four months ago
and have been only holding their
positions. Of course, that is very
much better than losing ground; but
when an advance is made there
ought to be massed behind that at-
tack a sufficient force to achieve
actual effective results. If Cambrai
had been taken and the military
stores captured before they were
moved back; if we had taken a fifth
or even a tenth as many prisoners as
the Germans took in the Italian drive
we would have counted it a substan-
tial victory; but apparently we have
made the enormous sacrifices neces-
sary to achieve this advance and still
get no substantial advantage.
The American newspapers have
made it appear that we had dealt a
irushing blow to the Germans on
■the western front, but, in fact, it
as only a somewhat ineffective dent
n their line.
': We do not think it is advantageous
exaggerate our successes or mini-
ize the achievements of our enemies.
As we have so often said^ what the
American people want is the truth
and they will prepare to meet what-
ever responsibilities rest upon them.
The Journal, as is known to all of
its readers, protested against our
entrance into this war. We believe
now that if there had been anything
like wise statesmanship in the man-
agement of our country's diplomatic
affairs during the last four years
we would not have been engaged in
this war. But this awful mistake is
made.
We are now into the war; we
have appropriated enormous sums of
money to carry it on; our sons have
enlisted and we have to fight it out.
However, we should go about this in
the most intelligent and effective
way. The thing of prime importance
is that the American people shall
understand the tremendous task they
have on hand. To fool them by ex-
aggerated reports of ineffective suc-
cesses or to minimize the strength
and forces of the enemy we have to
meet is dishonest and the crying
need now is a military genius to
lead the allied armies.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1918.
WE TRUST THE PLAN WILL SUC-
CEED.
The tremendous consequences of
the government taking over the rail-
roads, cannot now' properly be esti-
mated. That there is grave conges-
tion in the East in the transportation
of the nation is beyond question. This
congestion, however, has been brought
about largely by the government's
incoherent and unsystematic action in
regard to the movement of the nor-
mal traffic of the country.
There is suffering now in New
England, for fuel, that is very grave.
At least two-thirds of the fuel of
that section of the United States is
carried there during the summer and
fall months by water, most of it com-
ing in barges from Virginia, Mary-
land and Pennsylvania ports.
Last summer the shipping board
and the navy commandeered . prac-
tically all of the tugs and barges for
war purposes. This was done un-
mindful of the fact that it was very
seriously interfering with the norma]
domestic and industrial business of
40
the greatest manufacturing centers
of the United States, and while these
facilities upon which the people de-
pended for the maintenance of their
industrial life were taken no effort
was made to see that other adequate
facilities were supplied.
When winter came and the fuel and
food shortages were apparent then-
a frantic effort was made to fill the
demands by rail transportation, and
an unusual burden was placed upon
the carriers — a heavier burden than
they could bear, and one they had
never expected to be called upon to
bear.
Dr. Garfield, the fuel administra-
tor, being wholly unfamiliar with
traffic affairs, under the war author-
ity of the President of the United
States, ordered the railroads to give
priority to fuel shipments and put an
embargo on many other commodities.
In order that the railroads might
comply, this necessitated the break-
ing up of through trains and the
making up of coal trains, as a vast
majority of the through trains car-
ried not only coal but other necessary
commodities. This greatly delayed
the normal operation of the trans-
portation facilities, increased in many
terminal centers the switching be-
tween 30 and 40 per cent, which re-
sulted in delay and congestion. The
result was that instead of hasten-
ing the shipment of fuel, as Director
Garfield with his theoretical ideas
thought it would do, it lessened the
amount of fuel shipped and con-
gested all other kinds of traffic until
the people in that section were des-
perate and suffering was imminent.
In the mean time, where food was
short, the food administration wa.;
ordering the railroads to give priority
to some important commodity, and
then controversies arose between the
two administrations as to which had
supreme authority. Judge Lovett.
chairman of the executive board of
the Union Pacific, was selected as a
priority arbitrator to determine these
controversies.
This incoherent and incompetent
management in many instances has
unnecessarily interfered with the nor-
mal commerce of the people and been
disastrous to the country. The Pres-
ident, hoping to relieve the situation,
has put Tiis Secretary of the Treasury
in charge of all of the railroads of
the United States — a man already
greatly over-burdened with work.
It is a frantic effort to relieve a dis-
astrous situation, which incompetent
agencies of the administration have
largely brought ajjout. The manner
of carrying out such a program is
supreme importance to the commer-
cial and industrial life of this nation.
The people will watch each move with
deep concern.
"MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1918.
A SCHEME FRAUGHT WITH
GRAVE DANGER.
The speech of the President relat-
ing to the taking over of the rail-
roads under the war provisions of the
law enacted at the last session of
congress and the bill prepared by his
direction and introduced simultane-
ously with the making of his speech,
in some respects, constitute the most
amazing incident in American his-
tory.
This measure, prepared in the of-
fice of the Attorney General of the
United States, turns over the rail-
roads to the President and provides
for appropriating a half billion dol-
lars out of the public funds, to be
used as the president sees fit. It
gives him authority to do almost
anything with the railroads. He can
make any kind of extensions or im-
provements, and not only spend any
amount of public money in so doing
but can use the money received from
the earnings of the roads at will.
He can fix the rates for transporta-
tion as he desires.
He is made a dictator, absolute,
of American commerce, unrestrained.
He asks for power as vast as the
czar of Russia in the days of his
greatest supremacy enjoyed. This,
taken in connection with other war (
legislation that has already been en-
acted, has turned the government of
the United States from a representa-
tive republic to a dictatorship.
The President of the United States
today is just as much of a dictator
as was Mr. Diaz in Mexico, and this
proposed law goes beyond anything
that the Mexican military autocrat
ever assumed. ^
Diaz was able to perpetuate him-
self in authority in Mexico for thirty
41
years by exercising the power which
he possessed as a dictator. He was
nominally re-elected term after term,
but the elections represented no ex-
pression of public opinion. They
were simply forced by the supreme
authority of the president himself.
Whether Mr. Wilson will undertake
to set aside all American traditions
and perpetuate himself, or his son-
in-law, Mr. McAdoo, in the presi-
dency remains to be seen. If he
undertakes it, whether he will have
the power to do so depends upon
American public opinion. Whether
the love of freedom and individual
liberty which characterized the
American patriots who established
our form of government has departed
from the American people and they
are willing to become subservient
to a supreme authority, as did the
Romans, time only can determine.
However, some of the President's
recommendations deserve special con-
sideration, especially that one relat-
ing to the compensation to be given
the railroads for the use of their
property.
He gniarantees them the average
earnings of the last three years, or
approximately a net revenue of a
billion dollars a year; and then gives
any railroad the opportunity to claim
a greater compensation if it can
make a case before the Court of
Claims. This opens the doors for
unlimited litigation for years and
years to come, as anyone familiar
with the litigation before the Court
of Claims knows.
War claims from the Revolutionary
war, the War of 1812, the Mexican
war, and millions of dollars of claims
growing out of the Civil war are
still pending before that court; and
never a session of congress passes
but some appropriations are made to
pay these century-old claims that in
fact have not the slightest merit.
But they are worked through by un-
scrupulous lobbyists who have picl^ed
up these alleged claims for a song in
years gone by; and if they can get
an appropriation to pay them, it
means so much personal gain. The
President in this bill, which he de-
mands be passed, creates the widest
field for such litigation that has yet
been opened in the history of the
United States.
The average net profits of the rail-
roads during the last three years
have been far greater than in any
other similar period in American his-
tory. They will amount to more
than three hundred millions a year
in excess of that for any three years
preceding the breaking out of the
European war. It guarantees many
of the railroads from 10 to 25 per
cent net returns upon the value of
their property; and this is done in
the name of justice. The rank and
file of the American people who de-
pend upon their daily wage for a
living are being urged to buy gov-
ernment bonds drawing 4% as a
patriotic sacrifice, yet in the face of
that campaign the president makes
this astounding recommendation.
Moreover his plan validates every
dollar's worth of watered stock that
has been set afloat in the last fifty
years of disgraceful American rail-
way promotion.
It taxes the American public dur-
ing these perplexing war times the
enormous sum of at least one-half
billion dollars a year to make good
to the owners of these railroads, who
are largely Wall Street speculators,
the most excessive profits that they
have ever obtained, and secures them
against any industrial or financial re-
verses to which the country may be
subjected.
While other business struggles with
war taxes and additional burdens im-
posed to provide funds for the con-
duct of this war, by this bill the
owners of the railroad property are
exempted not only from any further
increase in federal taxes but from
the increased taxes provided by the
last congress. They are set aside as
an excepted class and given privi-
leges that no other property owners
in the nation are permitted to enjoy.
Many crimes have been committed
in the name of patriotism during the
last year. Millions of the public
money have been taken from the
treasury by the most nauseating cor-
ruption, as is being demonstrated by
the investigations in Washington; but
this is the boldest eflfort to take from
the American people billions of dol-
lars, for which no adequate return is
made, that has ever been attempted
in the history of the nation.
The farmer is pursuing his voca-
42
tion struggling against the adverse
conditions of climate. The weather
may prevent him from harvesting
that which he has sown. If he har-
vests it, the vicissitudes of commerce
may prevent him from marketing his
product at a profit.
The merchant contracts for his
goods, but industrial or commercial
depression may prevent him from dis-
posing of them at profitable prices.
The laborer may have employment,
but business stagnation may stop en-
terprises and he is then compelled to
wander the streets and hunt for
work. These are conditions which
every farmer, merchant, laborer and
business man has confronted in the
last generation, and with which he
will be confronted again; but the
President by this law which he de-
mands protects the owners of rail-
road property from any of the vicissi-
tudes of fortune. He gives them a
higher rate of earning than they have
ever received in times of peace and
guarantees that they shall never re-
ceive less regardlss of whatever com-
mercial or industrial condition may
arise. He assumes all the burdens of
operation and maintenance of the
railroads and pledges this fabulous
amount as profits.
It would have been far better for
the President to have demanded that
Congress authorize him to purchase
the railroads at a price fixed on
the market value of the securities
during the last three or five years,
or upon their value as found by the
Interstate Commerce Commission
which is now valuing these prop-
erties under the laws of Congress
and upon which about $20,000,000
have already been expended. Whether
we believe in government ownership
or not any sane man must concede
that such a course would have been
far less dangerous than the proposi-
tion he has made. The whole scheme
is fraught with such possible calam-
ity and permeated with such gross
injustice to the American taxpayer
that it is startling to contemplate
and we are delighted to learn that
Senator Johnson of California, Cum-
mins of Iowa and others do not pro-
pose to sit silent and permit this
abomination to be enacted into law
without a protest.
SATURDAY, FEBRUA RY 9, 1918 .
THE BOLDEST RAID YET
AUTHORIZED.
Press reports state that a majority
of the Senate Committee has reported
the railroad bill to the Senate pro-
viding that the compensation of the
railroads taken over by the govern-
ment shall be the average of the net
revenues for the last three years.
This will provide the highest com-
pensation that the railroads have ever
received from the American people
during a similar period of time. It
is vehemently said by the President
and other responsible administrative
officers that the war should not be
made a pretext for acquiring profit;
that great corporations should not
be permitted to make money out of
the war. Yet this administration bill
guarantees to the railroads a larger
return by far than they have ever
received during a similar period in
times of peace, and agrees that in
the event the revenues of these roads,
because of any industrial condition,
do not meet this guarantee that
there shall be money taken out of the
public treasury to m"^ke it up to
them. That is, it removes the great
railways of this country from any
danger of industrial depression that
may come during the pejiiod of the
war, and singles these corporations
out for special favor. It not only,
guarantees that the property shall
be maintained in first class condition
at the government's expense; that ex-
tensions needed will be made at the
government's expense; but that a de-
preciation fund shall be provided out
of the earnings before the net profits
are determined.
That is, these railway corporations
are protected from any loss of any
kind, pending the war and are guar-
anteed a higher return than they
ever received prior to the war. '
But the most offensive feature of
the bill is that all of the railroads
are not taken over. As a matter of
fact only the railroads in which the
Wall Street speculators are interested
wil receive the benefit of any such •
guaranties. The small roads that
are owned by private investors or
small banks in different sections of
the country, like the Salina Northern.
43
the Anthony & Northern and a hun-
dred similar small railways that have
been constructed in opposition to the
great existing, dominating, monopo-
lizing lines are left out. No guar-
anty is given them.
The investors in these small rail-
ways not only receive no guaranty
from the government, but the testi-
mony before the committee in Wash-
ington demonstrates that many of
them are being gravely injured by
the government operation, and the
revenue which they were able to ob-
tain by traffic arrangements which
they had entered into with compet-
ing lines before the government took
over the big systems is being taken
from them.
It is the boldest raid that has ever
been made on the public treasury by
any organization of Wall Street spec-
ulators, and it guarantees to these
big railroads, after all interest on
bonds, taxes and dividends on pre-
ferred stock is paid, a return of from
6 to 25 per cent net upon their capi-
tal stock, nine-tenths of which repre-
sents not a dollar of invested capital.
Never before in the history of the
United States would the Wall Street
financiers have had the nerve to sug-
gest such a piece of legislation; but
under the stress of war conditions
they think that now is the time for
them to -get their hands into the pub-
lic treasury, and be guaranteed by
the government against any of the in-
dustrial or financial exigencies that
may grow out of the war. Other
business may fail. Other concerns
that produce the necessities of life
or the commodities that the people
must have must take their chances.
They get no guaranty from the public
treasury. But the big railroads re-
eardless of industrial condition may
levy a tribute upon the people to
make good their enormous profits.
~ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15^Ydis.
GIVE US HONEST AND EF-
FICIENT ADMINISTRATION.
A recent issue of the Kansas City
Star had a very creditable editorial
upon the bill which the President has
had introduced in Congress conferring
upon him autocratic and dictatorial
powers, practically authorizing him
to- take charge and run the govern-
ment as he pleases regardless of the
statutes or any of the co-ordinate
branches.
It is the first time in American
history that the president of the
United States has sought to set aside
all constitutional limitations as a war
measure. When the life of this
nation was threatened, with open re-
bellion, with the capital permeated
with treason and surrounded by re-
bellious territory, President Lincoln
took up the administration of affairs,
but never dreamed of asking for any-
thing like the authority which has al-
ready been conferred on President
Wilson.
A week rarely passed that Con-
gress is not asked to confer some
additional power on the president.
Already he has been given too much,
as has forcibly been demonstrated by
the mismanagement of the fuel ad-
ministration as well as the food ad-
ministration.
If no director of fuel had been ap-
pointed, the American people would
have suffereded far less during the
winter than they have. Mr. Garfield's
orders largely precipitated the con-
gestion and increased the difficulties
rather than relieved them.
Doubtless the unfortunate blunders
made some kind of curtailment neces-
sary when the suffering became
acute. However, the orders* for cur-
tailment were ridiculous. Thousands
and thousands of men have had their
business seriously interfered with
when it did not in the slightest de-
gree conserve the coal supply.
Fortunately, nature has relieved
the country from the calamity of
the fuel administration; but not so
with the food administration. The
cattle feeders of the nation have had
their business this year practically
ruined. Millions of dollars have been
lost by them through the unwise and
arbitrary action of Mr. Hoover.
The wheat producer has been in-
jured more than any other of our
agricultural producers, and the con-
sumer has not been benefitted. He
is continually being harassed with im-
practical and useless orders.
The ship-building program has
been a farce. It cannot be said to
have broken down, because it never
was successfully started. It has been
the rendezvous for political grafters
44
from the beginning. Yet the Presi-
dent in the face of these deplorable
failures, is asking for still more
power as corrective legislation.
What the country now demands is
the proper exercise of the power that
he has, the efficient administration of
the great departments of the govern-
ment that are under his charge, and
not the vehement demand for an in-
crease in autocratic power and
further encroachments by the execu-
tive upon our legislative institutions.
Give the people efficient and honest
administration and they will stand
for any amount of sacrifice necessary
for the honor and welfare of the
nation.
•SATURDAY^FEBRUARY 16, 1918.
AN UNFORTUNATE SITUATION.
We are glad to know that Senator
Martin, Democratic leader of the sen-
ate, refused to introduce the bill
which if it passes will make an elec-
tive dictator out of the President of
the United States and which would
Mexicanize this republic. It would
confer upon President Wilson greater
power than Diaz ever exercised in
Mexico and reduce the legislative
branch of our government to still
further impotency.
Complaint is frequently made that
men of commanding strength and
ability no longer seek places in the
House of Representatives. This, un-
fortunately, is true. The reduction
of the House of Representatives to
that of merely a ratifying body, mak-
ing it as impotent as the Mexican
congress or the British House of
Lords, is more than anything else
responsible for the mediocre char-
acter of so many of our members of
Congress.
It is surprising that in the Fifth
C<mgressional district men of intel-
lectual strength and standing do not
now aspire to Congress. When it is
remembered that this district has
been represented by such men as
William A. Phillips, John A. Ander-
son, and W. A. Calderhead, men
who took high rank in the councils
of the nation, it is surprising that a
me<Kocre nonentity like the present
member should have practically an
open field for re-election.
Is it because men of intellect and
spirit no longer see an opportunity
for service in the House? Is it be-
cause that body no longer stands
for achievement, and for the develop-
ment of important governmental pol-
icies that it is no longer a House
filled with able representatives of the
people who formulate the laws of the
nation, as in the days of Clay, Col-
fax, Reed, McKinley and other great
leaders.
If so, it is time that the legisla-
tive branch of the government pro-
tect itself, by asserting some inde-
pendent thought, and formulating
some constructive policies of govern-
ment. It is for Congress to deter-
mine the policies of the government
and for the executive to execute
them. When the legislative branch
abandons its constitutional rights and
prerogatives and turns them over to
the executive as the prices of politi-
cal patronage and plunder, this re-
public then begins the first stage of
decline. It has been the history of
every free government from the be-
ginning of time that when the rep-
resentatives of the people sacrifice
their constitutional rights, the
strength and virility of the republic
is declining, and the usurpation of
authority by the executive begins.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1918.
SHOULD BE LESS RESPECTABLE
AND MORE DANGEROUS.
The Hog Island shipbuilding plant
scandal has at last attracted the
attention of Mr. Wilson. The reck-
less waste of public money, graft,
and plunder that have run rampant
in the affairs of this government for
the last six or eight months has here-
tofore been ignored.
Some distinguished dollar a. year
"patriots" like Vanderlip and other
captains of high finance, such as
Rockefeller of the Standard Oil Com-
pany, Stillman of the City National
Bank, Vail of the American Tele-
graph and Telephone Company, and
a number of others early in the war
organized the International Ship-
building Corporation. They were not
shipbuilders. They were financiers.
There was then organized subsidiary
corporations that were to do the
work. These patriots put no money
in the enterprise. The government
45
furnished all of it, even paying the
salaries of the corporation officers.
It purchased the land upon which the
plaUt was to be erected, paying- an
army officer $2,000 an acre for it,
though a short time before he had
offered it to the government for
$1,000. It has been assessed at $100
per acre. This army officer received
one million dollars for land that was
practically worthless. The govern-
ment provided the men and the me-
chanics to do all the work. The cor-
poration did not invest a dollar nor
assume any risks; yet it was to be
paid between six and seven million
dollars out of the public treasury.
This scheme was denounced and
criticised weeks ago — indeed months
ago — ^but it attracted no attention.
Finally the twenty-one millions of
dollars appropriated for the construc-
tion of this ship building yard ran
out and twenty-one millions more
were demanded. Congress when
called on for the deficiency appro-
priation began to inquire what had
become of the money already ap-
propriated, and a congressional in-
vestigation has developed another of
the nauseating scandals which have
been so numerous in Mr. Wilson's
administration since the war began.
It is so offensive and the names of
80 many of the dollar "patriots"
are connected with it that the Presi-
dent feels that it needs some of his
attention. It is no worse than hun-
dreds of similar instances, except
that it is of greater magnitude. It
is no more criminal than the James-
town loot, the fire arms contract, the
machine gun contract, the woolen
cloth scandal, the shoe contracts, the
aluminum contracts and many others
too numerous to mention.
It is simply a continuation of the
same policy that was pursued in
the construction of cantonments, the
building of wooden ships, the supply-
ing of equipment to the army. Al-
most every article used in our mili-
tary establishment is involved in
some of these scandals.
It is now hoped that the Depart-
ment of Justice will prosecute with
some vigor the thieves who have been
plundering and looting the public
treasury so thoroughly during recent
months. If Mr. Wilson will follow
the example of McKinley and Roose-
velt and make corruption in public
life less respectable and more dan-
gerous he will have our hearty sup-
port in such a righteous fight.
THU^SDAYJEBgUARY 21, **1918.
MUST CONQUER THE SUB-
MARINE.
There is a frantic demand through-
out the nation, for the production of
ships, and they cite the frightful re-
sults of the submarine warfare in
sinking two tons of shipping to every
one built by the Americans and Eng-
lish last year. If we are correctly
informed by the press dispatches, six
million tons of shipping were sent to
the bottom of the seas last year by
German submarines, while the con-
struction in both England and the
United States has been less than
three million tons. If we increase the
production of ships what assurance
have we that the Germans will not
increase their destruction?
Not only were six million tons of
shipping sunk last year but millions
of tons of food products went with
them. Last month, we are advised,
seven million bushels of wheat were
sunk. The American people are
called upon to deny themselves the
comforts of life, to banish from their
homes the meat they have been ac-
customed to live upon, in order that
we may help our allies in Europe,
and this food which we deny our-
selves does not reach the allies, but
does reach the bottom of the sea.
This is a startling demonstration
that what the allies need now is more
effective means of combating the sub-
marine. To build more ships seems
to be a vain effort to gorge this de-
structive monster with more ships
than he can consume instead of de-
stroying the monster; and if the navy
department, or the shipping corpora-
tion, or the army will concentrate
their energies upon and invite the
best thought of the world to solve the
problem as to how the submarine is
to be defeated instead of making a
frantic effort to build more ships
than the Germans can sink, we will
more surely approach the end of the
war and ultimate victory.
46
MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1918.
HAVE WE BEEN RIGHT?
We are engaged in the most terri-
ble military conflict in the history
of the human race. The resources of
the American people are going to be
tested to the limit. It is absolutely
necessary for the welfare of this
country that the masses of the people
who must bear the tremendous bur-
dens of this war, both in the sacri-
fice of earnings and the shedding of
blood, shall feel that they are being
fairly treated by their government.
No free government can live without
the hearty and loyal support of the
great body of the people.
The profits of some of the great
industrial enterprises, chargeable di-
rectly to the war, have been compiled
from their annual reports. The fol-
lowing table shows the average
profits of each of these concerns for
five years before the war, embracing
the years 1911 to 1915 inclusive, and
for the years 1916 and 1917. The
vast increases in their profits directly
traceable to the war are apparent.
It should be remembered that these
are net profits after all excess war
taxes are deducted. What burden
are war taxes to these industries?
The packers after paying their excess
war tax have still increased their
profits from three to five hundred
per cent over those of peaceful times.
All of these concerns could be tax-ed
80 per cent of the excess war p^jpfits
and still make from 50 to 500Tf)er
cent more than during times of peace.
We ask every reader of the Journal
to examine carefully this lable.
These concerns deal in food, cloth-
ing, domestic necessities and war ma-
terials. Their profits are enormous —
made so largely by charging the peo-
ple and the government extortionate
prices.
Mr. Wilson's administration has
been given unlimited power by Con-
gress to correct such abuses as this
table so forcibly illustrates.
Will the people have confidence in
an administration that having been
given the power to stop, not only per-
mits, but apparently justifies such
shameless exploitations of the re-
sources of the nation. Is it not more
criminal, or treasonable, if you
please, to take advantage of the con-
ditions brought about by this terrible
war to charge the people extortionate
prices for the necessities of life and
thereby amass such fabulous fortunes
than to oppose the draft or steal a
pair of shoes?
For months we have been protest-
ing against the neglect, incompetence
and corruption that has resulted not
only in permitting these grave abuses,
but others equally infamous. Have
we been right?
NET EARNINGS OR PROFITS.
Average 5 years
1911 to 1915 1916 1917
Armour & Co. (packers) $ 6,559,960 $ 20,100,000 $ 30,628,156
Morris & Co. (packers) 1,858,697 3,632,213 10,358,489
Swift & Co. (packers) 9,435,000 20,465,000 34,650,000
American Can Co 4,998,079 7,962,982 21,995,042
American Steel Foundries Co.... 220,252 3,418,057 8,718,296
American Sugar Refining Co.... ^ 4,012,966 9,756,379 10,055,291
American Woolen Co 2,428,735 5,863,819 6,844,146
Bethlehem Steel Corporation 6,515,631 43,593,968 52,651,431
Brown Shoe Co 482,225a 1,467,757 2,414,088
Central Leather Co 4,384,446 15,489,201 16,243,062
Cuban-American Sugar Co 1,905,947 8,235,113 10,821,960
Lackawanna Steel Co 920,833 12,218,234 16,106,976
United States Steel Corp'n 58,017,583 271,531,730 331,668,131
United Fruit Co 4,619,912 11,943,151 17,592,391
aAverage for three years.
47
MONDAY, MARCH 18, 1918.
t, "whUt are you for?"
KA few days since a friend said that
BI read our editorials carefully and
thought they were strong and sound.
"But," he added, "while they forcibly
show what you are against, they do
not so clearly state what you are
for."
To satisfy this and other inquiring
friends, we will repeat that first, and
above all else, we favor economy in
public expenditure and honesty and
efficiency in the public service. These
we regard as of the greatest import-
ance to the administration of any gov-
ernment. They are issues of the first
magnitude and are far more essential
in times of war, when tremendous
sacrifices are demanded of the people,
than in times of peace.
In the management of our national
affairs, therefore, we favor the sub-
stitution of honesty for dishonesty,
of competency for incompetency and
of patriotic devotion for intrigue and
graft.
We have been of the opinion that
when the European war began, if the
government of the United States had
> been in the hands of far-sighted
statesmen of courage, sagacity and
determination, we not only would
have kept out of the war ourselves,
but greatly ameliorated its European
horrors. Unfortunately, for us and
mankind such was not the case, and
now we must deal with the things
that are and not those that might
have been.
We, therefore, hold that it is the
^duty of every American citizen to do
his best for the prosecution of the
war to a successful conclusion. Our
diers in camp and field must be
u )vided with every military facility
within the reach of human genius
ai,d every comfort that love and de-
votion can provide. This, we not
only owe them as a profound ooliga-
tion, but is necessary that ultimately
peace based upon justice and right-
eousness shall prevail throughout the
nations of the earth.
When the time for the discussion of
peace comes, the first requirement in
a treaty should be disarmament on
both land and sea. An international
\ compact of the great nations should
be formed; and it should be stipu-
lated, with ample provision for its
enforcement, that no nation shall
maintain a standing army or possess
military equipment or the facilities
for manufacturing of such in excess
of the requirements necessary to pre-
serve domestic order: That the great
naval armaments should be reduced
in size so there would remain only
a sufficient number of armed vessels
properly to police the seas and pre-
vent pira'cy.
For a nation like Germany to
maintain a military establishment
which practically makes the empire
an armed camp with millions of
soldiers ready for battle on. a week's
notice is a menace to the welfare of
the human race.
The freedom of the seas also is as
essential as the freedom of the land.
A navy which overshadows those of
all competing nations is dangerous
to the commerce of the world. Such
armaments are an excessive burden
upon the resources of the human
race and stand as a menace to the
peace and happiness of mankind.
The national boundaries of Euro»
pean countries are matters that affect
the people immediately concerned and
not Us and should be settled by them.
Whether Great Britain, Italy,
France, Belgium, Germany or Rus-
sia shall have a monarchial, republi-
can or socialistic form of govern-
ment is for the people of these
countries to determine and not for
us. What we are interested in is
that whatever form of government
they may choose to live under shall
not have the power or be permitted
to endanger the peace of the world,
or impose unjust burdens upon other
peoples.
The woeful failure of the war de-
partment to meet the tremendous re-
sponsibilities imposed upon it by the
war, and the refusal of the Presi-
dent to appoint a secretary of that
department capable of managing it
efficiently make absolutely necessary
the creation by Congress of a war
council composed of men who shall
devote their entire time to the work
of the administration of the vast
agencies of the war.
The revenue bill should be amended
this year so as to tax excess war
48
profits not less than 80 per cent,
and if need be, later this should be
increased to 90 per cent.
A statute should be enacted mak-
ing it a felony for any public officer
or governmental agent, directly or in-
ilirectly, to profit financially by any
contract over which he has super-
vision.
As part of the military expendi-
tures of the United States reservoirs
should be located and constructed on
the great plain between the foot hills
of the Rocky Mountains and the 98th
meridian so as to impound the run-
off waters and hold them back until
the growing seasons when they can
be used for agricultural purposes.
This would lessen the destruction by
floods and ameliorate the disaster by
drouth.
Unless officers can be appointed to
control the food and fuel administra-
tions in the interests of the public
and protect the producers from ex-
tortion, the laws creating these
agencies should be repealed. To ap-
point men to positions of great power
who are under the control of great
industrial corporations like the sugar
trust, the packers' combination, and
coal barons, is a menace to the wel-
fare of the nation.
The plan by which the present ad-
ministration has taken over the rail-
roads is the worst that could have
been devised. It has resulted in both
insufficient and inefficient service and
in the increasing of rates and charges
that will result in imposing a tre-
mendous financial burden upon the
people.
It guarantees to the Wall Street
owners of the great railway systems
enormous returns upon their holdings
of watered stocks, and taxes millions
of the common people who live
meagerly under the stress of war
times to pay these conscienceless
stock gamblers and speculators fabu-
lous returns on securities that do not
represent the investment of a single
dollar in transportation facilities.
The plan adopted by the President
has practically abolished the Inter-
state Commerce Commission and the
state railway commissions and has
placed in the hands of a political
appointee, the secretary of the treaa
ury, the most tremendous power ov(.
the commerce of a people ever heU
by any individual in the history
civilized government. He may change
rates or the relation of rates without
notice or hearing. He has in hi»
hands four billion dollars of tax
collected for transportation, that
can spend at will. He can increase
decrease the wages of two milli
of employees and pay them any si
he desires without restraint of
or law. No system could have
devised more dangerous.
Instead of this there ought to h;
been^ organized a federal corporate
with a board of directors appoin
by the President, holding office for
long term of years and removab]
only for cause. The stock of t!
corporation should be owned by tl
people. It should have acquired tl
railroads at a fair market value ai
operated them as a unified systei
All the regulatory authority, st*
and national should have been p
served. Such a plan would have al
the advantages of government own^
ship and none of its dangers,
would have all of the flexibility
private ownership and none of i
weaknesses and injustices.
We are strongly in favor of a
publican form of government,
therefore most earnestly prot
against the abdication by Congress
the law-making functions confem
upon it by the federal constituti
We believe the law-making poWj
should be vested in the represen'
tives of the people and not in
elective dictator.
We trust these declarations are sal
factory to our inquiring friend
there are any other questions thai
he or any others desire to ask, we
shall be pleased to further elaborate
our views upon any matters of pub-
lic concern.
We have nothing to conceal. We
do not intend to stand for one plat-
form today and repudiate it tomor-
row. We do not have one platform
to get in on and another to live by
after we are in.
JOSEPH L. BRISTOW.
I
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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iViAY 1 1947
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