The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 17, 1918, Page 5

they have to pay. In other words, war profits taxes " are considered part of the cost of doing business rather than a burden to be borne by the taxed cor- porations. By the simple expedient of raising prices during the last year, most of them avoided nearly all war profits taxes and many of them actually made a great deal more clear than they made in 1916. The war tax burden which the pub- licity agents of big business talk so much about, thus fell principally on the common people. Any profits taxation will similarly fail unless at the same time congress gives the administration power to éarry out its program of general price-fixing. PROFITEERING IS PRIVATE TAXATION In substance the vicious profiteering that is now ram- pantsin the United States is a private levy of consumption taxesi: When the steel inter- ests®jumped the price of pig ironsfrom $14.556 a ton in 1914 to $46.95 in the spring of 1917, they-levied a consumption tax - on the government and the whole people just as surely as the government itself did when it put a tax on: freight shipments. The unwarranted increases in the price of copper from 11.25 cents a pound to 32 cents, of paper from 2.25 cents to 4.5 cents a pound, of coal delivered at Chicago from $3.55 a ton in 1914 to $7 in 1916, and of crude petroleum from $1.45 a barrel in 1914 to $4 in December, 1917, were likewise vicious private taxation. What is more just then than the demand that + this private taxing be eliminated entirely ? If there is to be any taxing of this kind due to inability of the government to keep down prices, let it go (not 80 per cent of it but 100 per cent) to the govern- ment for carrying on the war and not to private agents. PAYING AS WE GO By big bond issues and light taxation we are pil- ing up a tremendous debt the interest on which alone after two years of war will be a great burden, not to mention the paying off of the principal. Also, as the president points out, we are subjecting the common people to serious hardship by reason of the inflation caused by these loans, hardships that in- terfere with their efficiency as producers. Our past method appears even more unwise when we recall that the needs of the people and the needs for the war must be taken ‘care of by us as we go along;- we can not by any mirsdcle draw on future produc- tion. The wheat is produced now. Ouy cannon, rifles, ships now being turned out were ore in the ground and wood in the forest not more than a year ago. The clothing was wool on the back of the sheep or cotton in the boll last summer. We must do all we expect to do with the tools of production and the labor now available and all the necessary sacrifice for the war must be made now. By demanding of capital and capitalists sacrifices equivalent to what the farmers and other producers must make, we could pay as we go and we could’ -the congressmen .to _costs. ' clearly by the following: I invite your immediate \ be more efficient in our production because the everyday burdens of the common people would not be so heavy. The issue of bonds for constructive purposes, on the other hand, such as-nitrate .plants, ships and aeroplane factories is undoubtedly wise in that it creates permanent improvements, valuable long after the war has ended. CONGRESS FEARS THE PEOPLE A large group in congress had been angling for weeks prior to the president’s message to get him to forego any revision of our misplaced and feeble taxation until after the November elections. The press reports state that these congressmen are afraid the people would not approve the right kind of taxation; whereas the very opposite is the truth. What they mean is that they can not vote for big business, placing the bur- dens on consumptioni rather than \ on war profits, incomes and in- e heritances, and then face the f people in the fall with = any prospect of re- ¢ ( counted for or ~ election. By forcing against the people, the issue at this time President Wilson has and that is something a standpat congressman wishes to avoid at all made it necessary for all stand up and be _If this clear-cut issue success- fully shows up those who are serving vested interests and the American war hogs rather than the American people and thus en- ables the people to cleani out that element for the rémainder of the war (or better, for all time), this general result will be even more impor- tant than the immediate se- curing of the proper kind -of taxation. We can then pro- ceed quickly to a more rigorous and efficient prosecution of the war and more rapidly to a just and last- ing peace. That the president believes the plain people are right and will sup- port those congressmen who really represent them and . yWiat support his policy is shown “And this task to which consideration will be per- formed under favorable in- Millions of excess profits of Big Biz soon will be O\Ii the wing to the United States treasury. fluences if we will look to what the country is think- ing and expecting and care nothing at all for what is being said and believed in the lobbies of Washing- ton hotels where the atmosphere seems to make it possible to believe what is believed nowhere else.” Undoubtedly as this and other parts of his tax message indicate, the president was fully aware of the kind of issue he was forcing on congress and he forced it deliberately to give the people a chance * in November-to clear the Washington atmosphere of the false patriotism that waves the flag and at the same time votes special favors for big business. PROFITEERS WITHOUT OPEN DEFENDERS . Largely because of the early stand which the president took against profiteering, there are no —open defenders of those who are taking war profits. Rather the defense consists in denying the exist- ence of profiteering and in covering up the too obvious tracks of the profit hogs with misleading excuses and explanations. Even Otto H. Kahn, the well-known apologist for big business, de-’ nounces war profiteering at the same time that he declares big business is too heavily taxed, and while his whole propaganda is a subtle attempt to sidetrack any serious interference with profi- teering. Judge Gary of the United States Steel corpora- tion excuses the tremendous increase in steel trust profits on the ground that some of the profits are reinvested in plants needed to produce war supplies. - In other words, all a man has to do to escape being a profiteer, in his opihion, is to reinvest his profits in other money-making enterprises. Again there is the type of mind which regards any earnings less than 30 per cent a year as very moderate. > When the government announced that it would let certain contracts on a cost plus 10 per cent basis, The Analist, a promi- nent financial paper, asked who could be iffterested in a ‘mere 10 per cent return 2 in thése days. . \ : But the Washington ] e administration, like the common people, is evi- « ) dently working on the theory that any one who takes advantage of his country’s con- dition and needs to make more than he made in times of peace, is a profiteer. Food Administrator Hoover said recently that ‘No one has a right to make more than one cent profit above his pre- war normal earnings.” To the shame of many of our leaders of Amer- ican business they i are not willing to / submit to such a limit of profits. The fight is now on to bring the profiteers to this standard. D 2 \\\\ ¢ \ The Government Puts Its O. K. on League Papers E United States government has just recognized in a strik- ing way the right of the farm- ers to promote their organiza- tion and to discuss and advc cate the liberal and progress.—e included in the program of the National Nonpartisan league. The postoffice department has granted)admission to the mails to three weekly state newspapers, with a combined circulation of 150,000 among the farmerg. These papers are: = The Minnesota Leader, published at St. Paul, Minn., the official newspaper of the Nonpartisan league in Minnesota. The North Dakota Leader, published at Fargo, N::D., the official newspaper of the Nonpartisan league in North Dakota. ; ‘The South Dakota Leader, published at Mitchell, D., the official newspaper ‘of the Nonpartisan gue in South Dakota. 7 - ; lidations the full privileges enjoyed in the mails By other riewspapers and publications; has of course neither. approved. or disapproved of the political and economic program of the organized farmers, the admission’ of these publications to the mails '/ | “means' 'THAT THE GOVERNMENT ' FINDS measures for reform at ho~- hile the government, in. granting these pub- : N ADVOCACY OF THE LEAGUE PROGRAM AND IN THEIR PROMO- TION OF .THE WORK OF ORGANIZING THE FARMERS WHICH IN ANY WAY INTERFERES WITh 1dE PROSECUTION OF THE WAR IN LJROPE, OR IN THE NEGEfiSARY WAR WORK AT HOME. . In ither woras, by this act the government ha: gTanied the organized farmers the full rign: ~f €red gpeech in promoting their organi- zation and urging their economic and political program during the war. At this time there is a.great hue and cry by monopolists, speculators, réactionaries, profiteers and various other sinister big interests, against all progressive and liberal thinking men and measures of reform advocated by the people. This hue and cry is carried on through the hired press and poli- -ticians which serve the interests mentioned. It is particularly directed against efforts of the farm- ers and of labor to organize. - It is held that the advocacy and discussion of progressive domestic reforms and the promotion of organization work among farmers and labor is “disloyal” at this time —that it is hindering the prosecution of the war. But this heavily, financed and ably directed cam- paign against the people finds no official sympathy in Washington, D. (., as is evidenced by the fact that three powerful farmers’ newspapers, probably _ doing more than any other agencies in the country, " outside the Nonpartisan: Leader, to promote or- ganization of producers, have been granted full - privileges to circulate under the second class mail- ing privilege. The official newspapers of the organized farmers in Minnesota and North and South Dakota are published by the publishers of the Nonpartisan Leader. They were established over four months ago, at which time application for their admission to the mails was made. The postoffice authorities for four months have been investigating and con- sidering the ownership, purposes and work of these publications. Requirements for admission as sec- ond class mail matter are strict in peace times, but in war times publications seeking this right must in addition have NOTHING IN THEIR POLICY OR PURPOSE WHICH IN ANY WAY HINDERS THE PROSECUTION OF THE WAR OR OF " NECESSARY. WAR ACTIVITIES AT HOME. The three official state newspapers of the League men- tioned passed this rigorous examination by federal authorities. . The Nonpartisan Leader has had second class privileges since its establishment three years ago, and this right has never been challenged by any- body, let _alone -the postoffice authorities. The Nonpartisan league established a fourth state paper ~ for Idaho, at Boise, a month ago, application for admission of which to the mails is pending, and the League contemplates the establishiment of other - -state newspapers’ in-the mnear fntnr_e.’ 35 s s TR — - 5 @ e TV A L S 5 T S o i N