The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 18, 1918, Page 9

- tional capital LOOKED ON BRAND AND HIS DEPARTMENT AS A FRIEND OF THE PACKERS—as an agency that could be used to send out propaganda, in the disguise of farm bulletins, favoring the position of the packers as against the rights of the producers and con- sumers. Their letters, made public by the government, show that the packers believed they had a friend in Brand, and that’s all the Leader has ever said. We have said, and this proves, that Brand is not an official who can look upon things from the point of view of the producer and con- _sumer. He can see only the side of the agencies, like the packers and grain handlers, who stand between the producers and consumers. WHAT SCHWAB SAID (JHARLES M. SCHWAB is a ‘“‘captain of industry.”” He is - a millionaire. He used to be credited with receiving the largest salary that any man anywhere, in any age, ever received. We forget how many million dollars a year it was, but it was only a part of his income. He is one of the steel magnates. ‘When someone wants to write an article on success in business, he writes about Schwab. He is held : ' up as an example to young America —an example of how men can raise themselves to places of power and _ influence. He is success personi- fied in the modern business mean- ing of the term, He controls the lives and destinies of thousands of ‘men—workers and producers in the industrial enterprises of which he is an executive. No ancient feudal baron wielded more power. And yet Schwab holds no public office and does not occupy the position he does through the suffrage of the people. . All this is not to detract any from such fame and glory as Schwab has in the business world. It is merely to tell who he is, so that what he said recently at a $25 a - Elate .ganquet in New York can better be understood. This is what e said: 3 In the very near future we must look to the worker for a solution of the great economic questions now being considered. I am not one to carelessly turn over my belongings for the uplift of the nation, but I am one who has come to a belief that the worker will rule and the sooner we realize this the better it will be for our country and the world at large. You are right, Mr. Schwab! The day of the worker and the pro- ducer is at hand, and it means democracy and equal opportunity. It means stopping the trend toward the concentration of wealth in Amer- .ica—a trend which, if continued, would rot our civilization at the heart and spread_a social disease that in time would turn us into another Rome. Rome was not destroyed by barbarians from the outside; it declined and fell, an easy prey to barbarians, through rottenness with- in, brought about by a condition in which a very few owned all the wealth and all the rest were paupers. : GOVERNMENT CONTROL SHOULD CONTINUE HE writer of this editorial recently was traveling on a Pullman coach. One occupant of the smoking room was the manager of a Kansas City grocery-jobbing house. He was holding forth to the other passengers on a subject on which all seemed te be interestead—the chances of profits during the war. ; x “There won’t be so much chancé now that the food administration is in,’’ he said. ‘‘But wait till after the war, and then we’ll make our clean up. “Why? Well, the food administration will be knocked out after the war. It’s only for war purposes. But there will be a world-wide shortage of food that may continue for years. That’s the time when meney will be made.’’ All of which, to- our way of thinking, is one more reason why government control of the -food gamblers and middlemen generally should continue not only during the war but in times of peace as well. But the group in the Pullman evi- | dently didn’t think so. They began to talk of their different schemes for gouging a war-weary world after the coming of peace. This grocery jobber couldn’t finish his talk without taking occasion to take a rap at the food administration for ‘‘interference with busi- ness.”’” He said the food administration was making the jobbers handle sugar on a margin of only 4 per cent, which was ‘‘less than cost.” Another grievance was that this particular firm had practically cor-. nered the local market on pinto beans, which it bought at nine cents: PAGE NINE ““We started to sell them at 12 cents, which gave us a nice profit, and the food administration came along and made us put the price down to 9 1-2 cents,’’ he complained. The others in the Pullman seem- ed to think he had just reason for a peeve. ‘ It is this kind of complaint against Herbert Hoover from the Pull- man car crowd that makes us think there must be a lot of good in the food administration. SOME SHORT ONES A reader writes that North Dakota ought to add another day to the list of ‘‘less’’ days. He says we have meatless, wheatless and porkless, and that we ought of have ‘‘Baconless’’ day (Jerry brand). Carried unanimously! Baconless days will be as follows: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. % % Speaking of the co-operation of farmers and organized labor, Les- lie’s Weekly, one of our Tory magazines, says: ‘‘Such an alliance is doomed to fail because there are not sufficient points of contact be- tween the two parties.”” Leslie’s Weekly means that it HOPES such an alliance will not be formed. It knows there are plenty of ‘‘points of contact.”” For instance: Farmers and laborers can join to prevent war profiteering and food speculation; to keep the packing trust from trying to corrupt the government, as it recently tried to do; to elimi- nate unnecessary middlemen who oppress producer and consumer alike, to—but why go on? Leslie’s knows there are enough ‘‘points of contact.” It is only afraid that the farmers and organized labor will find out these ‘‘points.”’ 3 LAW AND ORDER HE Minnesota Public Safety commission undoubtedly does not know what its official publicity department at the state capitol is sending out. If it did know, it would prohibit the publication of a letter recently sent to editors on the stationery of the Minnesota Public Safety commission, bearing a date of January 19, 1918. It would not permit matter of this kind to go out of the office, be- cause the Minnesota Public Safety commission is a body which exists to enforce law and order in Minne- sota. In the hope that somebody will call the attention of members of the commission to what some of its employes are doing and will see that it does not happen in the future,.the Leader presents the following: The publicity director of the safety commission, under date of January 19, 1918, asked editors of the state of Minnesota to print an article headed: ‘‘One Cure for Dis- loyalty—A. Cure that is Used in Many Cases with Good Effeet.”’ The cure referred to under 'this heading consisted, according to the publicity director, in a mob in a small town in Minnesota ‘‘beating to a pulp’’ a man who gave evidence of disloyalty. This man, according to the Public Safety commission’s publicity agent, pulled a Red Cross button off a young man’s coat and threw it into a spittoon with a curse. If any such thing happened, the guilty party certainly deserved to feel the rigor of the law for the in- sult to the Red Cross, which is doing a work of mercy that should have the support of every loyal American citizen. The Minnesota Public Safety commission’s publicity agent asserts that this man was put in jail and was fined $100 and costs. However, BEFORE THE LEGALLY CONSTITUTED MACHINERY OF THE STATE acted upon the case, the man, to quote the Public Safety com- mission, was “‘BEATEN TO A PULP BY A CROWD OF LOYAL- ISTS.”’ The Public Safety commission adds the following: This had a very salutary effect on the balance of the disloyal ele- ment and they began to seek information on the war and its causes in a conscientious manner. The time is coming when even a disloyal utterance or lukewarm attitude will be resented by the American people in every section. There is no “half way” citizenship that can live in these times. s We agree with the publicity agent of the Public Safety commis- sion that the American people do and will continue to resent disloyalty. ‘We agree that this is no time for ‘‘half way’’ citizenship. But we say ‘also that this is NO TIME FOR LYNCH LAW AND MOB VIOLENCE. ‘When a body of public officials not only winks at mob violence, but applauds and urges it in articles sent for publication in newspapers, it is an indication that we are fast reaching a state of anarchy. Neither loyalty or anything else will save us from certain disaster as a demo- cratic and law-abiding people if this trend is allowed to go on. The Leader is glad that many of the editors of Minnesota refused to print this item of ‘‘news’’ and advice sent out by the Public Safety commission, and that several country paper editors vigorously denounc- ed this attempt of a legally constituted and law-enforcing body to pro- mote anarchy in the state of Minnesota.