The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 15, 1917, Page 10

Sl Lo One of the strong points concerning the Nonpartisan league is its enemies—the opposition to better Without knowing anything about the League, you could pictured here one kind of opposition the League has—th their heads up aganist a stone wall and merely furnishi NN \:\ \\\\\\\\ 0 tell it was a good thing if you only knew who its enemies were, e fanatical, unreasoning opposition of newspapers and politicians, ng amusement for the farmers. —Drawn expressly for the Leader by W. C. Morri political and economic conditions for farmers and wdrking peoplt and what methods they used. Morris ha who do not know they are merely butting \\\\ . D N M\ Z \ \ ,,/4;/, = Ziy o= < A Slick Plot of the Big Interests They Would Give Away Public Oil Lands to —Standard Oil Is One of These Washington Bureau Nonpartisan Leader ¥ N a previous letter there was @B described the general plan of X the Standard Oil group and its associated special interests to drive through congress, at the coming session, the Shields dam bill and the Walsh public-domain waterpower bill, which would turn over to private control all of the $7,400,000,000 worth of undeveloped waterpower now owned by the nation’ as a whole. Today the Walsh bill, proposing to take out of the possession of the pub- lic all of its oil and gas lands, its coal lands, its potash and sodium deposits, deserves some brief attention. This Walsh bill, under which the railroads, the oil trust and the mining magnates hope to relieve the American people of four or five billions of dollars’ worth of prop- erty was introduced on behalf of Senator Walsh of Montana by Senator Myers of Montana on August 20 last, and was favorahly reported from the senate public lands committee on September 8— a period of 19 days from the date of its introduction., It was report- ed without amendment—which in- dicates that the majority of that committee knew exactly what was expected of them. The report was made by Senator Pittman of Ne- vada. The bill is senate bill No. 2812, calendar No. 118, and the ma- jority report is No. 116 first ses- sion, Sixty-fifth congress. Any- You must have got interested, through the story in last week’s Leader, in the plot to turn over to private interests seven billion dollars worth of natural resources in the United States now owned by the public. Whether or not you read the story, printed ex- clusively in the Leader, you will be interested in this second article on the same subject. You won’t find any of this inside informa- tion in the press of the country controlled by Big Business and the politicians. It seems that, among other things, it is proposed to turn over vast public oil lands to private interests, on the plea that it is to help ‘“poor prospectors,’’ who discovered the oil and ‘‘ought to be rewarded for their industry and foresight.”” But it develops that the Standard Oil company is one of these ‘“poor prospectors.’”’ My, what a pitiful case! Pass the hat, - boys, for John D. & Co! PAGE TEN Help “Poor Prospectors” “Poor Prospectors”—See the Point? body may get the bill and report ° by writing to a senator for them. This bill, which formerly was pre< sented as a scheme for giving the Western prospector one more chance to discover valuable mineral deposits on the public lands, is now claimed to . be the one possible plan for imme- diately making the oil and coal and potash resources of the country availe able for the use of the government during the war, LOBBYISTS PICKED WITH GREAT CARE Curiously enough, none of its anxious promoters thought of that excuse until after the California oil operators’ big and lavishly expensive lobby had hung around the national capital for two or tl.n‘ee years, trying in vain to get the oil for the poor prospector. A certain oil operators’ association maintained in Washington a set of offices com- prising one entire floor in a big office building. Ex-Governor James Gillett of California was one of its leading lobbyists. It had also Charles R,