The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 11, 1918, Page 4

Looting the TSR A em State and Its People . Trust Control, Gained Through Division of the People, Means Rotten - Government—The Farmers’ Remedy der N The lumber interests which rule in north Idaho are amon Milwaukee Land company at St. Joe, Idaho. BY E. B. FUSSELL HREE years ago Idaho was advertised throughout the nation as a “queer” state politically—*“queer” because, while the Mor- mons were supposed to be in control of poli- tics, a Jewish citizen, Moses Alexander by name, had been elected governor. y . Well, Idaho is a “queer” state, but not because it elected “Mose” Alexander governor. One queer thing about it is the way the state is divided, like a patchwork quilt. Look at Idaho on the map— You see a long slender “panhandle” stretching north, squeezed in between Washington and Mon- tana. 'The residents of the panhandle might as well be living in another hemisphere as far as con- nection with southern Idaho goes. There is not a line of railroad, not even a good wagon road, running from north to south. The man who wants to go from the panhandle to Boise, the capital and prin- cipal city, either has to go through ‘Washington and Oregon, or else over to Butte and down through Montana. Southern Idaho has its own divisions. a district around Boise pretty well knit together— there is another section that depends for all its news, politics and trade upor. Butte, Montana. And there is “the Southeast,” populated almost entirely by Mormons, tributary to Salt Lake City, and really a part of Utah in every thing but name. . Anybody in Idaho will tell you that the Mormons, mostly farmers, are hard working, law abiding and honest. They have the same problems that other farmers have. They are good citizens and good neighbors, THE POLITICIANS KEEP THE PEOPLE DIVIDED “Once the Mormon church - officially recognized polygamy, but that was long ago. more polygamists among the Mormons in Idaho to-. day than among any other sects. You may find men and women in Idaho whose fathers or grand- fathers were polygamists, just as in the South you will find men and women whose fathers and grand- fathers were slave owners, but by any rule the standards of the Mormon farmers of Idaho today There is ; There are no - are as high as any other group of farmers in the United States. N Yet the Mormons of southeastern Idaho have been forced into a group, a separate division inside the state. Many years ago the Mormons were threatened with having their votes taken away from them. They were forced to organize and vote as a unit for their own self protection. The need of self protection has passed long ago, but design- ’ This is the eighth article in the histori- cal series of the states. If you have not been reading the other stories in this big series start with this one. Read how the trusts of Idaho, with the aid of corrupt politicians, have kept the peo- ple divided, with the result that while the trusts have been robbing the state of millions of dollars in natural re- sources, their partners, the crooked poli- ticians, have been stealing hundreds -of thousands direct from -the state treasury. Read what the farmers of Idaho propose to.do to get the govern- .ment back in the hands of the people. And be sure to read the interesting stories of the fights of the farmers in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and other states which will follow in succeeding’ issues of the Leader. e —————————————————————————————————————————— ing politicians, for their own benefit, have kept the Deople of Idaho divided ever since, Democrat against Republican, North against South, Mormon against Gentile. And the result of all this division—what makes Idaho really a “queer” state—is that Idaho is Wworse preyed upon by the great special interests than any other state in the West, if not worse than any other state in the country. ! : Idaho is in even worse bondage thaf Montana— the slave of the Anaconda Copper Mining company. - There were a couple of times when: the'Copper mag- g the most important of the big interests which control the politics of the state. The Milwaukee Land company belongs to the Chicago, feller money. Idaho is only one of the states where” John D. Rockefeller has a big hand in politics. soon, and learn about Rockefeller’s treatment of the men who work for him. This is the plant of the St. Paul & Milwaukee railroad which is controllied by Rocke- Read the Colorado article in the series, to appear in the Leader nates of Montana got to fighting among themselves and the people got a look-in. There never has been such a situation in Idahe. The big interests that are busily engaged in exploiting the state may have had quarrels among themselves, but if they have these have been settled behind closed doors; the public has never been called in to assist. And the interests, on the whole, seem to have gotten along together in pretty clubby fashion. What are these big interests, and what are. the benefits they have gained from controlling the politics of the state? Well, take the mining inter- ests. -In northern Idaho are some of the greatest lead and zinc mines in the world. The mines in Idaho get about the same gentle treatment, in the way of taxation, that they do in Montana. . While the state constitution and laws provide that all property shali be taxed on the basis of its ‘value, provision is made that the “value” of a mine for any year shall be the value of the ore it produces, after the expenses of operation have been deducted. That is the same as saying to a farmer, “That cow of yours probably is worth $100. But we will only tax you on the value of her milk, which is $50 and you can deduct from that the cost of feed and milking, $45, so you will oniy have to pay taxes on $5.” Only they don’t say this to the farmer, just to the mine owner. "THE OTHER TRUSTS THAT RUN THE GEM STATE _But the mining interests are not the only masters of Idaho. In the north are millions of acres of timber, much of it—how much, fiobody knows— stolen from the state and national government by “dummy” entrymen, hired .and corrupted by the Weyerhaeuser and .other timber ‘interests: There is the Oregon Short Line, with three-fourths of its mileage and property within the state of Idaho. There are the milling and creamery trusts, There is the little, well-organized coterie of bankers, well represented in both houses of the Idaho leglslature, which has been fighting far years to keep the rate- ~of interest which the banks have to pay on state . deposits down as low as possible, and at the same time has been fighting to keep, as high as possible, ‘the rate of interest which the state demands on o ¥