The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 15, 1918, Page 15

Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader HE house has adopted the Baer bill. . Months of waiting, when every day was precious, days of wrangling in committee, when the secretary of agriculture mittee, then reconsideration and redrafting of the bill; a favorable report from committee, a special rule from the. rules committee, which permitted- the house to take up the measure—then, after more delays, a final three-day battle on the floor of the -national house of representatives, and the trium- phant passage of the bill by 250 to 67—that was the history of the Baer seed bill in the congress of the United States up to the end of March. Just when the adverse action of the committee on agriculture had seemed to mark the end of this fight of the orgamzed farmers for the right to-do their full share in the saving of the world for democracy, the tide turned. Thou- - sands of farmers and representatives of the laboring masses of the country wrote letters and telegrams to. their congressmen and senators, demanding that the bill be taken up again. Pres- sure from the grain country and from the industrial centers was increased .. by the virtually unanimous demands from hundreds of farm journals. The protest at inaction in Washington be- came too strong to be safely opposed. The house committee turned about and made its favorable report. The rules committee backed it up with the order of legislative priority. The farmers got their day on the house floor! That day developed into a battle between the massed junker forces. from the standpat-ridden sections of the East and the fanatically sectional South on the one hand, and the mem- bers from the grain country and the- more progressively inclined northern districts on the other. As the struggle developed, members from the West who have bitterly opposed the Nation- al Nonpartisan league and all its prin- - ciples, found it more and more diffi- cult to-keep up their opposition to this bill, put forward by the League, without going on record. Some stayed & away from rollcalls, and some were absent from the chamber during the entire debate. But most-of them; as the fight was waged hotter every hour " by the junker combine and the counter attack was made by Baer, Lever and ‘others, were forced to confine their obstructive efforts to voting for amendments. When the final vote was taken on the bill they voted “aye.” THOSE WHO-VOTED AGAINST THE BILL y The members who stood out at the end and cast the 67 votes against * the measure, even as finally amended, _were:. Geargm-——BelI Brand, Crisp, - Howard, Overstreet, Park, Wright, .-and - Wise, . Texas — Black, Bu- chanan, Connally, Garner, Hardy, Mansfield, Rayburn, Slayden and Young. Alabama—Dent, . Huddleston and Steagall. Florida — Clark, Drane and Sears. South Carolina—Byrnes, - Dominick, Nicholls, Ragsdale and Stevenson. Tennessee—Byrns, Fisher, Garrett, Houston, Hull and Moon. Mississippi—Collier, Hum- phreys ‘and Venable. Vermont — Dale - and Greene. New Jersey—Eagan, Gray and Parker. - Indiana—Elliott. = California—Elston. Massa- chusetts—Fuller, Gillett, Walsh and Winslow. Connecticut—Glynn, Merritt and Tllson. Ohio- -—Gordon, : Virginia—Harrison and Watson. West Vir- g’uu’a’—Woodyard. Illinois — Cannon, Rainey _and Sterling. Pennsylvania—Heaton, Lesher. = and’ Moore. “Kentncky — Helm ' and .- Sherley. North Carolma — Kltchm. Kansas — Shouse, 2 N York—Riordu. S N fought stubbornly against ac- tion, temporary defeat in com- WMMON A/IASW PRESIOENT . over the bill, Chau-ma.n Lever Baer s Bill Is Passed by Lower House Nonpartlsan League Measure for Relief of Drouth-Stricken Farmers Now Up to Senate—Power of Farmers’ Movement Felt at the National Capital These were the last-ditch opponents of the Baer bill who answered rollcall. Seven other members were paired against it. These enemies were Porter and Templeton of Pennsylvania, Tinkham and Paige of Massachusetts, Bacharach and Lehlbach of New Jersey, and Sabath of Illinois. Miss Rankin of Montana, who had spoken and worked for the bill, was paired in .its favor. Blanton of Texas voted against the bill, but changed his vote before_the result was announced. As finally passed by the house, the Baer bill pro-- vides that $7,5600,000 shall be appropriated by con- gress, to be expended under the direction of the department of agriculture in sums not exceeding $450 for any one farmer; as loans with which the farmers may buy seed for the planting, this sprmg, of wheat, oats, corn, barley and rye. The presi- dent must issue a proclamation declaring that these loans are a war necessity, before the money is ex- pended. The department is to report to congress on its disbursements from this fund at the beginning of the next session of congress. ‘The bill*also calls for the appropriation of $2,500,000 to be used by ‘ THE BAER “BILL” - THE ONITED STATES OF7 WEIJa PAY T'O N THE AMBRICRN FARMER MILLION DOLLAR ' - the secretary of agnculture in paying railway fares, for farm labor, where necessary, in order to ex- pedite the movement of seasonal workers to the jobs. LEVER LEADS DEFENSE OF FARMER MEASURE The senate committee on agriculture, which will have the chance to immediately report the measure favorably to the senate, or to strangle it to death, is headed by Gore of Oklahoma and includes Cham- berlain of Oregon; Sheppard of Texas, Thompson of Kansas, Johnson of South Dakota on the Demo- .-cratic side, and Warren ‘of Wyoming, Gronna of North Dakota, Norris of Nebraska, Kenyon of Towa and Wadsworth of New York on the Republican sxde. i In the house, dnrmg the three days of fxg‘htmg the commxttee on Jown Borice U TREASURER. < £ fl/-nmr—-n{ :;%i —Drawn expressly‘for the Leader by W. C. Morris This is the cartoomst's conception of the Baer bill, passed by an overwhelmmg vote in the lower house of congress—it is a $10,000 000 “bill” for the American farmer. It is money to buy seed and get farm labor 40 help win the war hy big crops. It is.a loan to agnculture. agriculture directed the defense. ‘He showéd that unless 900,000,000 bushels of wheat shall be pro- duced by the United States this year, the allies may lose the war. He showed that President Wil- son, Food Adniinistrator Hoover and éWén the secretary of agriculture were convinced that con- gress must enable the farmers suffering from crop failure last year to plant every possible acre to wheat. Secretary Houston indorsed the Baer bill, as reported from committee, even though he had been-the cause of its defeat before it was rewritten. Lever warned the house members who were ob- structing the Baer bill that they were imperiling the lives of our soldiers abroad, since they attacked the reinforcement,of the line of bread supply upon which the army must depend. “You say that this appropriation is a gamble,” he said, in an 1mpas<uoned appeal on the second day. “I admit that it is a gamble; but we are gambling seven and a half million dollars here, taken from all the people of the country, possibly to save the civilization of the world for all time to come, and I am willing to gamble the stake.” There was applause at this declara- tion, and Lever went on: “You ask how can this little amount of wheat help the situation? We have got to send many ‘millions of bushels of. wheat across the ocean. We have got to keep the cities of Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore and other industrial .centers from the reduced loaf or'the increased price on the loaf. We have got to prevent the coming of the bread line in this country if it is possible to do it. I stand here to pre- dict that we are not many months away from the bread card.” Mention of the bread card came like a sound of distant” enemy firing to many members of congress. They quit sneering—for a while. ATTACKS ARE MADE ON LEAGUE’S BILL “Suppose,” continued Lever, “that the vital thing in the bread supply line was an additional 10,000,000 bushels of wheat, and we did not have it, and the line was broken and your boys in France were without wheat bread—the boys of the allies strug- gling for your homes and firesides Y were without it—there is not a mem- N ber here who, feeling that by his vote he was responsible for that situation, would not get down on his knees and pray God for forgiveness for his un- wisdom.” What was the character of the junker attacks? - Why, chiefly that the measure was “paternalistic,” and “socialistic,” and “comes from the so-called Nonparti- san league,” and “represents the fear, on the part of certain members, of this rapidly- growing Nonpartisan league.” As the debate went on the bitterness of the references to the League and its officers increased. Moore of Pennsylvania put into the ° Congressional record a great mass of anti-L.eague campaign material.: He also sought to draw Lever into discus- sion of party politics by jeeringly com- phmentmg Representative Baer “the sole repre- sentative of the Nonpartisan league in this house, on the fact that-the great and powerful committee on agnculture has adopted his argument and his ° “speeches in its report on his bill.” “They swallowed his bait, hook, line and sinker,” said Moore, “and they have brought his bill into the house, some- what modified and sugar-coated for the benefit of ' both parties.” Moore put into the record the Burnquist letter denouncing the League. ; Baer put into the record next day the Minnesota platform of the League, together with the editorial N 7 /é. /I N NN from the New York American in which the indict- " - ment of President Townley of the League has so forcefully been denounced as an act of betrayal - of civil liberty. “Uncle Joe” Ca.nhon, who regularly OPPOGEB everyj 3 A (Contmued on page 23) :