The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 15, 1917, Page 11

»y R —— R R R S e RS NS S b i LA e o S—— | Wheeler and William Wheeler of San Francisco, both-of them very expensive lawyers, with headquarters for social entertainment of prominent members of congress at the Willard hotel. There were half a dozen lesser men in its organization, each picked be- cause of his supposef ability to in- crease the number of votes for the oil bill, at that time known as the Phelan bill, since it had been first proposed by the Democratic senator from Cali- fornia. It was against this Phelan *grab,” and against the oil lobby, that Secretary of the Navy Daniels and At- torney General ‘Gregory made their long fight, which ‘thus far has kept the hands of the oil crowd off the rich oil @eposits known as Naval Reserve No. 2, in southern California. The TUnited States government has been fighting in the courts for posses- sion of a vast area of oil lands in Cali- fornia, claimed by the Southern Paci- fic, the Santa Fe, Standard Oil and other “poor prospectors,”. since the first year of the Taft administration; when naval oil reserves were created by withdrawing public lands from en- try. An investigation by the National Conservation association last spring showed that from January 1, 1910, until this year, 71,500,000 barrels of oil had been produced in California on wun- Ppatented lands—the lands to which the oil producers had no legal title. At that time 23 suits by the federal gov- ernment were pending against -these oil-grabbers. Standard Oil was the real defendant in most of these cases. NAVY MUST HAVE SUPPLY OF OIL The two naval petroleum reserves in California include 87,286 acres, and un- der the so-called “adjustments” pro- vided in the oil section of this Walsh : bill the government would have to sur- render about 8000 acres to claimants who are chiefly dummies. There -are thirteen companies claiming lands Senator Phelan 4within these naval petroleum ‘reserves, that will be beneficiaries of this legis- lation, and many of them are large cor- porations having a capital stock of $40,000,000 or more. None of the claimants are poor .men who have by their courage and work developed or Increased the wvalue of the public do- $main, It is estimated that 200,000,000 bar- frels of oil should be :available from the mnaval reserves alone. Secretary Paniels told the senate committee that o part of the program -of prepared- ness is of more importance than the providing of an adeguate reserve sup- Pply of fuel oil for the navy. A naval wessel built to burn oil can not be con- werted to burn coal without practically rebuilding her. The navy relied upon this reserve of ail when the policy of oil-burning battleships was adopted. If the navy is forced to depend en- tirely upon a commercial supply of ofl, the. fuel cost of the fleet is certain to be very great, and it is possible that in time of great danger the efficiency of the navy may be *mpaired by an in- gdequate supply of fuel oil ‘Secretary of the Interior Lane, who comes from California and is closely connected with Senator Phelan in politics, has ‘been friend- 1y to the Phelan-Walsh plan df stdeveopiment” of oil for the bene- fit of the “poor prospector,” and - ‘has fought Secretary ‘of the Navy . ‘Daniels and Attorney General Gregory on ‘this question, just as the opposed Secretary of War ' Baker on the wquestion of These reports from the Leader’s news bureau at Washington, D. C., are going to be a regular feature every week. Watch for them. The subsidized press of the country, which dominates the news field, dare not publish the real facts from the national capital. The few independent daily papers can not afford to maintain a Washington bureau. So you will have to depend on the Leader. The council of national defense buildings at the national capital. 7 —Photo by Harris & Ewing, Washington. F. S. Peabody of Chicago, member of this council, is one of those urging the Walsh bill, one of the measures that is intended to help the public in disposing of seven billions of natural resources to private individuals and corporations. prices. Lane has done his bit for the Walsh bill, in and out of con- "~ gress. In support of the ‘Walsh bill before the senate committee there appeared F. S. Peabody of Chicago, chairman of the committee on coal production of the council of national defense. It was the high prices set by Peabody and his committee, in conference with the rest of the operators, that drew from Sec- retary Baker ‘the scorching letter in which Baker spoke of these prices as “unreasonable, unjust and oppressive.” ‘COAL LANDS WORTH BILLIONS OF DOLLARS Peabody admitted in his testimony that “we hawve the cheapest production of coal oil in the world . . . . and have for years used it like drunken men.” He also confessed that “we_kill three men in this country for every ene man ikilled on ‘the .other side, with more. dangerous mining conditions on the other side. . . . . There is mo indus- #ry that meeds so much general nation- 2l laws as the -coal industry.” Amnd he begged the .committee, after this de- sseription -of the incompetence of him- self .and his feilow operators, to give them the rest of the coal lands in the United States! Just what these coal lands are worth, no man can say. The oil and gas lands still owned by the people through the government are 6,000,000 acres in ex- tent, The coal lands are equal, or greater in extent than all of the coal lands now privately owned and devel- oped in the entire country. Their value, like that of the oil lands, runs into billions of dollars. ~ The private development of coal and oil lands has been an economic and social failure. It does not give steady employment, nor fair prices, nor does it anywhere assure the proper saving of the nation’s fuel . supply. Peabody testified that in- stead of getting at least 90 per cent of the coal out of a given property, 7L 2 A % i V/ll///////)/W//Il///”/////////////f//////‘ LLLIAIRI A RLEIILEIIIL LI IS S 1 114 1 DL VI LS 71 IS R S S Senator Walsh as was easily possible, the Ameri- can average is below 60 per cent. Forty per cent of our coal is wast- ed in the ground, because of get- rich-quick methods of taking it out. And the operators are as careless of human life as of coal. Coai Administartor Garfield is just now trying to force the coal operators of the country to orgamize their work on something approaching a scientific basis, in order that the consumer may get coal at a reasonable cost, and in order that a lot of the waste of coal and of human life may be checked. The president has had to fix prices, and to establish a general control of all of the work for which the operators are supposed to be paid in the form of profits, The more Dr. Garfield and his staff investigate, the more they are compelled to wonder how they ever supposed that private operation of the fuel monopoly was to the public inter=- est. But the power crowd in congress is back of the give-away bill fathered by Senator Walsh of Montana. Standard 0il wants complete control of mechan- ical power. "Western politicians want Big Business to “develop” their states. ‘Waterpower and oil and coal interests, grouped naturally together against the public, are wrapping the flag about themselves and shouting against pub- lic operation of oil wells, coal mines and power plants. | They stand a good chance of getting these billions of dollars’ worth of pube- lic property into private hands. Rural Schools Are Improving Under North Dakota Farmer Administration They Leap Forward in Efficiency and Get Unstinted Praise From National Educator BY RALPH HARMON OU can't talk 10 minutes to N. C. Macdonald, -elected state superintendent of public in- struction of North Dakota .on ‘the Nonpartisan league ticket, without realizing that he believes the schools are a part of the economic and everyday life of the people. To him “education” does not mean a something to be extracted from ‘books and to be This is the eighth article in a series telling what the farmer ad- ministration of North Dakota has accomplished since it went into office January 2, 1917. 'The series ‘was prompted by the question ¢“What have they d0ne?" flung at the farmers by disgruntled politicians, as soon as the farmers, through the Nonpartisan league, had taken over their state government. Other articles dealt with overdue corporation taxes collected, laws enforced, the rights of the peopls officially guarded, efficiency replacing inefficiency, and responsiveness to the people’s will. This deals with the services done for the schools under the farmer adminis- tration. It is a good start for 10.months and the farmers willing- ly place it alongside the records of previous complete ‘ administrations. used only on jparade. Education means getting trained to take part in neigh- borhood and state affairs, learning to be a practical person and a good citi- zen. For that reason he does not think of the public schools, over which he was chosen to preside by the awakened vote of the people of his state, as being detatched and governed by a set of theories that are no good anywhers ex- cept in school. The operation of the schools are in his mind, as much a vital part of everyday affairs as the opera- tion of the railroads, elevators, farms and -other business concerns, For the past six years he has ‘been engaged in improving the rural schools of North Dakota, the schools in ‘which” the vast majority of the citizens of the state are educated. He tackled a job that had mever been tried in the state, when he was first appointed as in- spector of rural schools, and it was what he did there that won him the confidence and esteem of the voters of North Dakota, and clected him su- perintendent of public instruction last November. ‘With the added prestige and power of being superintendent, he : has expanded and continued his work, and a direct result .of his elevation to that that office, was the passage of several public school bills by the legis- lature last winter, that have put North Dakota on the map in a school way. FAMOUS EDUCATOR PRAISES MACDONALD Read what A. E. Winship of Boston says about Macdonald's work for rural schools. Dr. Winship is editor of the Journal of ‘Education, and he knows more educators and knows more about