The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, October 21, 1918, Page 4

from it on a train at night the lights of the city streets and of the great _ mines and smelters shine over a broad expanse. As the train climbs higher and higher up the slopes of the . Rockies, keeping the city in view, the twinkling points of light spread out into another broad firmament below, a thing of beauty and romance. -But down in the hot workings of the copper mines and in the dingy hovels which make up most of Butte there is little romance, but mainly tragedy. For Butte is a city of blood and dynamite, a place of struggle and hatred, an embodiment of Prussian autocracy here at home—bred, like the kaiser’s autocracy, by the greed for gold and power. It is in this atmosphere that such things can happen as the murder of Little by hired assassins—the assas- sination of a helpless cripple, drugged into the bargain—by thugs who rode - comfortably to the bloody deed in luxurious automobiles. It is here that men bought by gold incite others to violence. It is here that hundreds of men are caught in a great mine disaster and burned to death because doors that would have let them. out to life are—let us hope only by some blunder—Ilocked in their faces. They say that war brings out the noblest and the basest qualities. Here in bloody Butte something of the same thing goes on. Men become apostles of hate and violence, yet = U. S. Attorney Exposes Company : Butte, Mont., September 28, 1918. Mr. Dan M. Kelly, S : Anaconda Copper Mining Company. Dear Sir: The I. W. W. organization did herald or call the present strike in Butte. They were encouraged to do so by the paid agents of your company. These paid agents are high in the counsel of the I. W. W. local union. .These paid agents of the Anaconda Copper Mining company serve and are serving upon the propaganda committee of this I. W. W. lo¢al union. These paid agents also assisted in making up the demands of the striking miners which were served upon the department: of justice. Mining eompany addressed the miners in open meeting on Sep- tember 22, 1918, at Hebgen park and he made the most vio- lent speech at the meeting ; this paid agent urged at this mass- meeting that the men stand by the I. W. W. and not go back to work and to pay no attention to the unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor or others. This same man during last summer and continuously ever since has encour- aged the men of this city in his various speeches to pay no heed to the labor commission appointed by his excellency, President Wilson. This same paid agent of the Anaconda Copper Mining company has at various times encouraged men to commit acts of sabotage, sedition and other crimes. If these facts are not known to you, may I suggest you consult the detective reports of your company ? : Yours very truly, , B. K. WHEELER, United States Attorney. One of these paid agents of the Anaconda Copper - - to spurn. fortunes offered in bribes," to struggle year after year in the most . desperate danger for what they con- ceive to be right. & 3 Montana is truly a tredsure state. Its treasure was discovered and made available by hardy pioneers. Now it is being exploited by men who ereated nothing of the-riches nature has put there and who had no share in mak- ing them available to mankind. They have created about this pile of na- ture’s wealth a state ruled by greed and hate. Their power is too great a pewer and too dangerous. SAID 50 YEARS AGO AND STILL WORTH REMEMBERING “My advice to workingmen is this: If you want power in this country; if you want to make yourselves felt; :f you do not want your children te wait long years before they have the bread on the table they ought to have, the opportunities in life they ought to have; if you don’t want to wait your- selves, write your banner so that every political trimmer can read it, ‘We never forget!” If you launch the arrow of sarcasm at labor,:we @mever forget;.if there is a. division:in con- gress, and . yqu throw:your: vote in the wrong scale, we never’ forget. “You’ .may go down on your knees and say, ‘I am sorry 4 did the act,” and we will say, ‘It will avail you in heaven, but others are willing to brave death and on this side of the grave, neveri’ ”— WENDELL PHILLIPS. 3 What Should the 1919 Wheat Price Be? President’s Commission to Pass on Question—Need for a Price to Conform . With New High Level of Prices Generally Recognized . HE president has announced that the 1918 price for wheat shall continue as the minimum price for the 1919 season. This means, of course, that no mat- ter what the future has in store, the faith of the nation is pledg- ed to giving the farmer at least this minimum price at the terminal markets in the coming year. As a guar- antee to the farmer against an improbable depres- - ,sion of prices, it is worth a good deal. The winter wheat farmers have already put in a big acreage and the spring wheat farmers will do the same. The guaranteed minimum takes out some of the possible speculation and the farmers have faith that later on a fair price above the minimum will be paid. In his proclamation continuing the minimum price, the president specifically provided. for such an adjustment. A commission is to be appointed to study the whole situation carefully and to report what, under the probable circumstarnces, will be a ‘fair price.. This commission will hear testimony in the principal grain centers of the Union, and - if farmers have followed the lesson of 1917 in keeping track of wheat costs, to some extent, at least, a fair price all around can probably be de- termined. y IS A HIGHER PRICE NECESSARY? The 1917 wheat price was considered everywhere " in farming circles as being relatively too low. In whole sections where wheat is ‘the principal crop it did not cover the full cost of production. It was 80 cents lower than the price existing at the time the fixed price was set. Yet the organized farmers of the Northwest accepted it as a part of their’ patriotic sacrifice and also in the faith that ‘the prices of the things they had to buy would be set in equally rigorous fashion. In his speech to con- gress on December 4, 1917, the president urged that congress. make good: its implied promise to the farmers by extending his price-fixing power, but as - _every one knows that extension was not given. Profiteering in other commodities was allowed to ' “runzimpudently rampant,” as the president said, with the result that we are on a generally higher level of prices now. It is now impossible to go fix i other prices as to make the price of wheat fixed in 1937 fair. We can not, for instance, bring down the prices of agricu!tqral impl‘ements_ to such a [ 4 e ‘the iron-and steel have already collected enormous “wheat reasonable, the only way out for the wheat fixing.. We would then have avoided those serious maladjustments - arising/ from rapidly changing price levels, which ‘the president wisely wamed against in his first war speech on April 2, 1917. The advisory committee of 24 appointed to confer with the secretary of agriculture on farm food mat- ters has suggested unanimously that the 1919 wheat price should not be less than $2.46." Judged from its personnel, this committee would be inclined to err on the conservative side. Again the National basis because the implement makers are stocked up with iron and steel on which those- who ' make profits. We can not bring down the price of shoes, because the packers and other manipulators of the leather market have already levied their profits. We can not bring down the prices of clothing to this level, because the profiteers in the raw ma- terial here also have collected their profits. There- fore, since other prices can not be brought down to™ the level that would make the first price fixed for ington on August 27, 28 and 29, adopted a resolu- tion urging congress to fix the 1919 wheat price at $2.50 a bushel. Readers of the Leader will recall that Doctor Ladd of the Agricultural Collége of North Dakota, stood out for this price when he was on the price-fixing committee in 1917. 'What- ~ -ever the price set it should be based upon the cost of production rather than what the country thinks it can get wheat from the farmer for with pa- triotic appeals and pressure by innumerable com- raiser is to-get:a higher price for his product. In other words, the' time when congress: could make good by fixing the prices of what the farmer must buy has passed. If it had acted when the Nonpartisan league farmers first advised general price-fixing, the method would have worked well. We could have prevented the basic material monop- olies from taking their war profits—the thing which threw the whole plan off. If along with this congress had followed the farmers’ advice to levy mittees. high taxes, paying for the war so far gs possible B directly as we went along, it would have prevented - WHY NOT the inflation of our currency with huge bond issues, SECTIONAL PRICES? and so added to possibilities of successful . price- : B > :J- set to cover the highest cost found. The setting of The Cost of an Acre of - ' Wheat 1n 1917 (Study 'm.lde hu John n.\n-su. Commissioner sof _Irx:t:mt on land or rental.... .. ship on consumers and give considerable profit to © farmers in low-cost sections.- This would make necessary several different set prices, but the Gov- ‘ernment Grain corporation, by buying’ widely and ‘pooling”the purchases, could put the wheat in the millers’ hands at an average fair .price.. This plan esereans$ 3.20 e ................... 3 3 .| 4 has slready been suggested by government agents """""""" e in regard to agricultural machinery. The difficulty. Y by AT it overcomes can easily be illustrated in the espper _____________ 95 - production” field. Most of our copper is produced at a cost of from 10 to 15 cents a pound. .A little of it costs as much as 25 cents a pound, and ¥ we were to work some small mines -the cost would be as much as 30 cents. - If we set a price of 38 cents on copper, however, we will give enormous profits to most of the copper companies. If we set it lower the few high-cost mines can not be ran, but at the same time we need every possible ounce of copper. Obviously the fair thing for all concerned would haye been a price on copper 2 little beyond the costs of the big mines, and special ‘aid or a ........ Co8t Per BCTre ...cevuieressosessssnansas 200+$19.26 Cost per bushel (seven bushels to the acre).. 2.76 -3 \ These figures, prepared by Commissioner Hagam of North Dakota for North Dakota conditions, gre a little - One cost item not mentioned, the loss of - one erop in four or five at the best, would add atleast- $4.76 to the cost of an acre of ]vvbu!: and would give $3.45 as the real cost per bushel ‘ ‘the copper price at 23% cents, however (since Board of Farm Organizations, which met in Wash- ... 'There is strong reason for thinixing also that it should be based.upon sectional costs rather than ‘a_price to cover this highest cost would work hard-: higher price to the few high-cost mines. We set : | - raised to 26 cents), and allowed the big companiesto’ Y ¥y i q oy ¥