The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 30, 1918, Page 11

mittee, setting forth our views as to what this bill “should be,” replied. Hampton, courteously but firm- ly “What I am here to’tell this committee today is the reason why so little' has been heard of the farmers’ deep concern in this issue of war taxa- tion.” persmted Smoot. “How can this commlttee be con- cerned in any of these. events out in the state of Washington, even admitting for the sake of argu- ment that the Grange official was persecuted as you say ?” asked Thomas. Hampton would not be sidetracked. He had -been before these committees before. He knew their membership. He knew how anxious some: of the standpat senators were to prevent the fact of the persecution of the farmers by war profiteering interests from- getting into the prmted hearmgs upon the tax bill. So he refused to talk about the details of the ta.x measure, but recited the story of the mobbing of the state Grange meeting at Walla Walla and the slanderous charge brought by the big business spokesmen in that city against State Master Bouck, because he had advocated the pay-as-you-go pohcy of financing the war. He told how an investigation by the department of justice had completely ex- onerated Bouck, and of how the -enemies of the state Grange then decided to “get” Bouck in order _to discredit -the farmers’ demand for a sound policy of war taxation, 5 At bnef intervals Simmons, or Hoke Smith, or BY A. B. GILBERT ~HAT any serious preparation for taking care of the soldiers and munition workers after the war such moves to the utmost is be- coming " ‘increasingly apparent. = The hopes of the people and the vague promises of big business publicity agents that conditions will be better after the war amount to little. Conditions for the returnmg soldiers can < not be made right without improving condltlons _for all the people. The: moment the soldiers and sailors are mustered “out they become common people struggling for an opportunity for livelihood. There will be about 5,000,000 of them thrown on the wage market and A - to these we can add nearly as many more men and women workers engaged in war. industries. What can we expect from such facts except want, i dlsappomtment and serjous 'social unrest nnless we make serious preparation before the mustering: out day? Yet after a year and a half of war we have ‘done nothing. \ _ FOLLY IN THE BACK TO “4- © THE LAND MOVEMENT RS The one measure that has been generally talked - o * of for taking care of returned soldiers, the pro- i viding of land, will not solve the problem even if - it-is rigorously carried out, nor are state and na- " tional governments ready to do the things needed ‘" to make it even partly. successful.. If farmers are - compelled now to leave the land under the stress 7 : big bnsinees domination in industry.’ _session of rich veins of coal, a natural resource in- herited by the nation, is one of the weapons of the h teer. This picture shows -a prospector beside utufopping in Montana. Special privilege 1in 'tlb'rderto _oontinue to “What criticism of this bill would you offer"”: can be made only through . strong popular demand and” that special privilege will fight. »Thomas on the Democratxc s:de, and Smoot or Lodge on the Republican side, made efforts to stop" - his story. Hampton kept on. BOUCK A VICTIM OF PROFITEER CONSPIRACY Bouck, he said, had been finally indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of disloyal utter- ances on war finance, alleged to have been spoken at a meeting at Bow, Wash., where Hampton him- ‘self was the principal speaker and “where Bouck had not said a word concerning war finance. Hamp- "~ ton said that it was upon one of his own statements —a remark that if the war lasted three more years it would: cost at least $75,000,000,000 and might cost - $100,000,000,000—that all. the charges made against Bouck whxch he denounced as perJunes, were made up. The-senators had been so ‘steadily trying to head off Hampton’s testimony that when he began read- ing the seditious language which Bouck’s accusers swore he used in the speech at Bow, the committee - members supposed that Hampton was rea.dmg' what " Bouck admitted having said. . “Hoke Smith angrily interrupted, saying that he would not consent to having such language go into the proceedings, since it was clearly - seditious. When he was at last made to understand, through questions asked by Nugent, that the lang-uage had never been used by Bouck or by Hampton, and that Hampton was quoting it merely to show how -the patriotic farmers of the country are being perse- cuted when they raise issues of war finance, Smith stopped jingling the bunch of keys which he had used, like a dinner bell, to drown Hampton’s voice. “This conspiracy and perjury,” declared Hamp- ton, “fostered, I believe, by the monopolistic prof- "iteering interests of the state, who are enraged at the intelligence the farmers are showmg in ad- dressing themselves to the great economic problems brought to the front by the war, is merely indica- tive of what the loyal, sacrificing, working farmers of the country are subjected to for backing the president’s program, especially as they affect the financing of the war.” When he was done Thomas of Colorado conceded that if such a conspiracy existed as Hampton be- lieved had been formed, to “get” State Master Bouck by perjured charges, then the severest pun- ishment should be meted out by the courts to the men guilty of that crime. ““And,” added Smith of Georgia, “if this Grange official sald those things that have been.read here, " he is guilty of sedition and ought to be punished .accordingly.” ' But Hampton had had his say. He had testified before the senate committee on finance that the charges made by the witnesses against Bouck were a “frame-up,” that Bouck and the Grange are hated by the profiteers becduse the farmers propose that more of the cost of the war shall be borne by tax- ation of war profits, and that if the senate commit- tee on finance has not heard from many of the farmers on this tax measure, the reason is that those who do discuss war finance are bemg perse- ‘cuted. How Will America Welcome Heroes? ‘We Must Have Government Ownership of the Basic Industries to Give the Veterans a Fair Deal After the War—Preparation Should Begin Now s R‘yh . Soldiers are learning to be mdependent of all outside ald in the camps. - Whenever there is spare’ txme they set-to washing up at the bathhouse. One of the things the boys won’t want to do when they come back is the washing. of bad conditions, farmers who are inured to hard- ships 'and. scanty rewards, what will these new - soldier farmers do? We can expect the prices of . farm produce ®o fall somewhat, and the monopo- lists are striving to remove all the government control and regulation forced by the war conditions. *Obviously the soldier farmer will need free mar- kets just as much as the present farmers do; yet none of the plans advanced by the big press of the nation, not even Secretary Lane’s plan, recognizes this fundamental necessity. This doesn’t mean that the plans for getting soldiers on the land, put forward by those who speak for big busmess, are. _.devised by foolish men, but that these interests are willing to sell the returning soldiers, the men who have made the great sacrifice, a gold brick. Along. with this failure -to recognize - ewl mar- keting conditions and remove them (and they ought_ of ‘¢ourse fo have heen removed as soon as we : entered: the -war), there are the practically absurd proposals for ‘.getting the land for the soldiers.’ Thene are plans for draining swamp lands, for de- fgatlon _projects, for clearing and- domain ]ands of good quahty are practxcally ex- now waste land.- ‘We are told ““«that such steps are neceéssary because the public ~ to fool the people by passing the whole respo . price on' ‘to the soldxer or expend a great am f They can tell their wives how te do it, though. farms of 100 acres each. Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakota and many other good agricultural states also have ‘their millions ‘of slacker acres. Why not use these lands that need "].ittle labor to -be productive first? STATES MUST STOP LAND SPECULATION The reason, of course, is that the speculators who have bought out these tracts in anticipation of future need.will refuse to sell except at extor- tionate prices. 'So' confident are the speculators. that nothing will be done to disturb their -profits in this vicious enterprise that since the war started big and little. capitalists have been buying up land : wherever they could find it, the idle land and the: land of the farmers who have been forced out of ‘farmmg by war conditions. By political pull they get low taxes on the' land and they don’t have to pay income taxes on’ ‘the money invested because there is no present income. Another great thing in their favor is that 'on the states have the power to force idle land i use by taxation, and they can get the _politicians sibility for demobilizing troops and m\mition Worl ers to the federal government. The federal government can do nothing now’ ut: buy Iand at the speculator’s price and pags