The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 23, 1918, Page 9

T < o o P R e e e <7 - e LSS S (e - PO e - B VR S S few or no, substitute' employments in the slack can these conditions be remedied except by devel- consumption, general community planning to se- periods. Many of the hired men of the farm, . oping local industry that can operate when farm- - cure gll-the-year-round work for. gll——such steps many of the workers of the towns, must either ;. ;r other seasonal work is slack? And in turn Will give the workers better conditions and at the - stay about idle and in want or they must leave P : same time will give the farmers such help as they . 3 A A how can we do this without breaking the power of the community. =Thus the community is con- bie busi to Kill off local industries? need on better terms than they now have to offer 5 L oa s tinuously losing its best workers; thus with idle- 12 usmes.s 3 OB10C8 ANGUS .nes. seasonal help imported from the outside. Such : ness about town, with the resulting loss of self- Local mills, warehouses, packing plants, cold steps will stop the export of the most important .. respect and family life, there develops a crop storage plants, creameries, other-new industries = product of the community—its ambitious young of nearly worthless or desperate” laborers How to work over the products of the farm for final men and women. Fl ht to Sa e Packin I'U;St ] V gl it Chamber of Commerce Boldly Demands That the President i . Dlscharge His Federal Trade Commission Which : = Urged Breaking Up the Monopoly -/ § > Washington Burean, OWNERSHIP, and they are fighting every ele- 3 Nonpartisan Leader ment—such as THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE, 1G BUSINESS has ‘thrown down THE BIG TRADE UNIONS, and the liberal ele- sifs its challenge to the country and _ments in the administration—that favor publie to President Wilson. Lashed ©wnership. E WL in the face by-the damning facts Wheeler, his Armour-owned bank and the pack- / set forth by the profiteering re- ers and coal and railroad magnates in Chicago, 5 port and the packing industry stand out in every line of the attaclj: that was }l_\\—r SR report of the federal trade ° launched at the federaI‘ trade commission on Sep- " commission, big business de- tember 2., The Chicago corporation lawyer is a manded of the president, in a Mere errand boy. : A B letter made public by the Chamber of Commerce Alee_ tl}e St. Paul Pioneer Press-Dis- . h ' of the United States on September 2, that the pres- patch in its polecat attacks on the Non- - o ‘# D ent federal trade commission be repudiated, and that partisan league, Wheeler’s Q e A the powers of the commission be placed in the hands ¢rowd” explain that they Lr i = F Y of men loyal to the viewpoint of the profiteers. merely ‘wish ‘to improve et o tal]:‘.veryhnewspapér in the United States that has :-}éceti c;’?;uizfig‘enggs ::1"1' putting it in the o en the money of the packers under guise of ectan, 2 advertising, and every negvspbpel and n%:gazme right path. THEY WANT TO OWN THE s ‘that is under the control of any group of profiteers, COMMISSION. : has been furnished with this attack on the federal Just what are the charges against W. B. PR trade commission. Because the commission has no. = Colver, Victor Murdock and Franklin' Fort, - fund for advertising the people’s side of the case, = the three present members of the commis- - AL and because the big business crowd, today .fully sion, set forth by big business? ; organized in every line of commerce through the First is the claim that “The commission % so-called war service committees of the Chamber has undertaken the exercise of, functions be- of Commerce of the United States, feels strong yond its own jurisdiction to the detriment of B Lo e{;ou%!x tq chal_lez}g:hthe g:vergment itself, &3 its proper usefulness.” situation is one of the most serious ever crea P . by enerniee of the adnfinistmtion in .time of war. mgtngslsl;;;?a;a;}; :?nrsflzm:;egngocggf THE BANKER BEHIND THE #5v: 'sumers to agree to appoint the commission as b ASSAULT ON JUSTICE * the arbiter of their dif- 3 ferences. The reaction- WY\I‘N)M Yy = = / //'/ 7 M\h, e Harry A. Wheeler, president of the Chamber of aries in the senate de- A Mt e QT "” ’/" U ] Commerce of the feated a bill The Big Five packers are jumping rough shod on the world. They are making ¢ United States and -w. giving the enemies abroad for America. Only govemment ownership can curb their brutal vice president of the - = " commission exploitation. The federal trade commission paved the way for this in its report \:.“ Union Trust company express 0 the president. Immediately the. amalgamated profiteers of the chamber of i .of Chicago—an Ar- power to do commerce sprang to the defense. Read the story on this page and see again sttt ‘mour bank —is re- “this work, why the farmers should organize to clean up the evil of sponsible for this let- and that private control of the people’s food. BBE ter to the president. fact is cited - Wheeler controls the by the chamber to prove that the fed-- the chamber. It kept the commission too busy to committees of the eral trade commission was acting with- notice the packers or the rest of the highwaymen chamber. The press out authonty who were then rolling up their European war divi-’ g statement announces - WANT TO dends. War came to the United States, and all the X that the federal trade T HEAD OFF - old, market conditions ‘ changed overnight. = The s committee of the INVESTIGATIONS 2! fac%s gathered prior to 1917 were worth as much sy chamber, headed by ond, i § ‘as last year’s birds’ nests, and the chamber knew % s -.one Rush C. Butler of Inflflcl erow?lni(z\ Igl?ileiglzte\:gztgé :fgef;l;: it. So the chamber howls for the completion of this - Chicago, wrote the re- of the commission in tr;ring to direct the ~ Worthless study. Nothing will -be harmed—in the 45 port - which pretends distribution of- anthracite coal before world of big busmess—by that sort of “important; W zg stlll:: lflgd 211.1:1 rgfim %f fuel a_dininistration watiestablis(}lled.. wor| : ! en, in August, 1917, the president ; : RO~ commission. Butler is fixed the price of bituminous coal on a BADLY FRIGHTENED “ are three chief ele- " ' ‘ments — the packers, _launched the Chamber: ~of Commerce of the a partner in one of the biggest firms of cor- poratlon lawyers in Chicecago. Wheeler formerly was presi- dent of ‘the- Chicago . Association “of Com- merce, in which there’ and Insull power,: utility and coal crowd, and the old- railroad crowd. - It was "Wheel- er ‘and these ‘ three Chicago groups that basis: established by the. report of the ..commission as to the cost of productlon vof the coal. The chamber of commerce * says that the figures were too low, and that as a result the prices set were so “‘low that 40,000,000 tons of coal were would have been mined.. This is another - way of saying that if the federal trade “‘commission’ had kept still: the coal ‘. 'barons would have taken'another thick " layer of war profits off the coal users . of the United States last winter. - " ~Then the chamber charges that a mumber of important Jobs that were un- " dertaken by ‘the commission were left Harry A Wheeler, vice presldent "f‘ ~undone. The lumber industry investi- : ‘left in the vein that at higher prices - United States dnd - made it the-distributor - try through its war "of all orders for war “ ‘materials in this coun- . the Umon ‘Trust company, Chicago. " He has now returned to his former job - as president of the Chamber of Com- merce- of thé United’ States. Mr.. Wheeler is considered by his asseci- “‘ates’ as. the most cool-headed 'and lonx-mghted strategist on ‘the’ whole. battlefléld of Amencan busmess. gatloxl-—almed merely at finding out why the lumber magnates’ were not -makir_gg’ a great profit several years ago —is the chief oné mentioned. ' That lum- "ber study took up almost the whole - staff and the ‘exclusive time of the com= ' PAGE NINE OVER THE PACKERS s And finally the chamber gets down to its more - immediate and determining cause of alarm—the re- port on the packers. That report has undermined the foundations of every big business graft and commercial piracy in America. The chamber knows it. Even at the risk of a sharp rebuke from the its packer element and their friends to demand - that. Commissioners ;Colver, Murdock and Fort be pubhcly repudiated for daring to attack the.pack- ing trust. “To prove its assertion that the ‘commission was_ biased ‘in its recent food investigation,” = says Wheeler’s lawyer, “the committee points out that the commiission proceeded with the apparent pur- pose of creating in advance a public impression that the allegations concerning 'the artificial con- - trol .of important food products were true.” vadently Wheeler and his chamber wanted the commission to proceed on the theory that all evi-: dence that the packers were- skmnmg the farmers . and the general public was false, mission during the first year of ‘its emstence, and was loudly a‘pplaqded by Then ‘the big business complaint goes on to say that ‘the packers were not permxtted to tell theu' v" VSR RS, T S e 5 VTR . .president of the United States, it feels driven by : : i i