The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, December 17, 1917, Page 8

’///////fi Yoo llonpartisan Tea Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Week Entered as second-class matter September 3, 1915, at the postoffice at Fargo, North Dakota, under the Act of March 3, 1879, OLIVER S. MORRIS, EDITOR i WS e Advertising rates on application. Subscription, one year, in advance, $2.50: six months, $1.50. Communications should be addressed to the Nonpartisan Leader, Box 941, Fargo, North Dakota. MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OFA CIRCULATIONS THE S. C. BECKWITH SPECIAL AGI_EI\'CY. Advertising Representatives, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. Quack, fradulent and irresponsible firms are not knowingly advertised, and we will take it as a favor if any readers will advise us promptly should they have occasion to doubt or question the reliability of any firm which patronizes our advertising columns. THE PRESIDENT’'S MESSAGE N what it has to say regarding domestic conditions, President Wil- I son’s message to congress has at least one very strong point. -In its failure to mention another equally important domestic matter the message is disappointing. The president recognizes the fact that all that should be done in price regulation has not been done. He recognizes that, in fixing the price of wheat, the gevernment has regulated and cut down the price on what the farmer has to SELL, while the farmer is held up for exorbitant prices and profits on what he has to BUY. This is the strong part of his message in regard to domestic conditions. But the president fails to recommend a revision of the plan of eongress for financing the war. Ile does not ask for heavier war profits taxes, or insist that a larger proportion of the revenue be raised by taxation of wealth and swollen incomes. The war profits tax of 3 per ecent, made by congress, is inadequate. It leaves in the hands of the war profiteers 70 per cent of the five billion dollars a year they are making out of the distress of humanity. Great Britain takes 80 per cent of the excess war profits. We should take at least that. The president, however, leaves the way open to make such a recommenda- tion. IHe says he will deliver other messages to congress, as the session proceeds. - It is safe to say that the great majority of the people sincerely hope that he will use his further opportunities to speak to congress to take up this matter. 5 The president’s recognition of the fact that all is not well in regard to price-fixing should cheer League members. His language on that point is almost in the exaet words of the resolutions adopted by League delegates at their great conference at St. Paul last September. He says: Recent experience has convinced me that the congress must go further in authorizing the government to set limits to prices, The law of supply and demand, I am sorry to say, has been replaced by the law og unrestrained selfishness. While we have eliminated profiteering in sev- eral branches of industry it still runs impudently rampant in others. The farmers, for example, complain with a great deal of justice that, while the regulation of food prices restricts their incomes, no restrictions are placed upon the prices of most of the things they must themselves pur- chase; and similar inequities obtain on all sides. The newspapers that called the farmers traitors for using almost this identical language at the big St. Paul conference, will get little satisfaction from this part of the president’s message. WHO PROMOTED THE P. S. COMMISSION? RIENDS of the street car employes at St. Paul and Minneapolis F who are attempting to get justice in wages and working condi- tions, are pointing out some very interesting thihgs in regard to the Minnesota Public Safety commission. The Safety commission recently ordered employes of the street car company not to wear but- tons signifying their membership in their union. In other words, the eommission objected to workmen identifying themselves as organized workmen while on duty. % The same situation would exist among farmers if the Public Safety eommission should order persons to refuse to do business with farmers who wore buttons signifying théy belonged to the Nonpartisan league, the Equity, the Grange, Farmers’ union or other farmers’ organiza- tions. Farmers, who, during last year’s campaign, wore buttons signifying they were members of the League, and farmers and people generally will see nothing to approve in the silly order of the Safety commission. The National Counsel of Defense has asked the Minne- sota Safety commission to withdraw its foolish requirement about the union buttons, but the commission has refused to comply with the 1e- quest. It may seem to some a silly thing to fight over, but no one can blame the erganized workmen who refuse to permit this insult to their organization. 3 The friends of the union workmen charge that the law creating the Publie Safety commission was obtained by the street car magnates for the very purpose of helping the company in case of trouble with its employes, and in addition to ‘‘get’’ Mayor Van Leer of Minneapolis, who has the united support of the union men and ecommon people gen- - erally and who is against a new franchise for the company on the present terms. They point out that it is of publie record that Ambrose Tighe wrote the bill which was passed by the legislature ereating the commission. Tighe is general counsel for the street car corporation. They also point out that it is of publie record that Senator J. D. Sulli- van of Stillwater, Minn., introduced into the legislature the bill written by Tighe. Sullivan is an attorney of the street car magnates and represents their interests at Stillwater, being on the payroll of the corporation. A The law creating the Minnesota Public Safety commission is a re- markable one, giving almost unlimited authority to the hembers of the commission, on which is no farmer or working man. No other state has delegated such sweeping powers to a body of men, even under the necessity of concentrated authority in war times. The union men point out that the street car corporation has stead- fastly refused to” agree to arbitration of the labor troubles by the St. Paul city commission, by the federal government or by any other neutral body—the company wants the safety commission, apparently created by the activity of its agents, to do the arbitrating. And the result is that union men are insulted by a nonsensical order forbidding them to exhibit the emblem of their organization. MR. DANIELS’ 1917 REPORT VERY report that ’Jéscphus Daniels, secretary of the navy, has E made since he assumed-that office has contained a recommenda- tion that the various nations of the world unite to ereate an in- ternational navy for international police duty, and that all navy- building nations agree to limit naval armaments. Sceretary Daniels has pointed out that this is the solution for the menace to world peace contained in mad, competitive navy-building programs among the powers. Mr. Daniels continued to make this recommendation in every annual report, in spite of the jeers of the jingo editors, who professed to see a humorous:spectacle in the head of a great navy advocating measures that would eliminate powerful navies and the need for them. The secretary last week issued his annual report for the fiscal year ending December 1, 1917, his first annual report since we have been at war. Probably many persons who have followed Mr. Daniels’ views on an international navy and limited naval armaments did not expect to find his recommendations repeated in the 1917 report, just released for publication by the government Committee on Public In- formation.” If so, they are fooled. For it is there, on page 82, in sub- stantially the same language as he has made it from year to year, with this exception: He says that of course the recommendation ean not be considered while the war lasts. But he adds that an international navy and an agreement to limit naval armaments should be part of the terms of peace, when peace comes. This will be new material on which the ““navy leagues’’ and other militaristic organizations can base new attacks on ‘‘Grandmother’’ Daniels as they call him. : “‘Think of it,”’ they will say. ‘‘A secretary of the navy mention- ing an international navy and limited armament in an official report during WAR TIMES. Of course he doesn’t RECOMMEND it during war times. But he MENTIONS it! It shows he is a pacifist, and a pacifist as secretary of the navy is a joke. Ha, Hal” ' But the world is coming to Mr. Daniels’ views, and we should not be surprised, after all, if the peace econference, when it comes, formu- lates a plan for an international naval poliece.and to limit mad, war- provoking, navy-building eompetition among the nations. PAGE EIGHT e