The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 24, 1919, Page 5

& Wall Street’s “Black Hundred” Exposed National Security League Organized to Fight All Men and Organizations Upholding American Ideals—Revolutionary Forefathers Slandered Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader 7| HEN the National Security y league, now under —-investiga- tion by a special committee of congress, sent broadcast over the country last fall its chart indicating that all but 47 mem- bers of the house had cast “dis- loyal” votes, one of the members thus blackballed was Henry. A. Barnhart of Indiana. Batnhart has been in office a good many years, is conservative, and wants to hold his job. He exchanged a number of compli- ments with the Security league bunch. TFor example, he wrote on October 19 to Chair- man Qrth of the Security league congressional committee: “You say my inquiry as to your league being interested in militarism for the benefit of a- class, is wicked and dishonest; not at all, but your false inference that I am disloyal to our adminis- tration and to our country, when I have given my all for . the prosecution of this war, and that I dodged votes when I was at the bedside of my dying wife, are damnable and characteristic of sneaking curs. * * * [ hope soon to meet you personally and convince you'that I am as honest, loyal, patriotic and brave as you or any of the Wall street war-profiteering hyenas and character - assassins in your organization. The code of gen- tlemanly ethics does not permxt me to speak frank- ly and fully.” Congressman Reavis of Nebraska, one of the in- vestigating committee, questioned Barnhart when he appeared as a witness. WHY THE 47 WERE “PATRIOTS” “How did you vote on the revenue bill to increase the income tax?” he asked. “I voted for it,” was the answer. “I wonder whether or not you know,” observed Representative Reavis, “that the 47 men who are declared by this league to be loyal and patriotic men are the only men who voted for these pre- war measures that would have gone to a certam section of the country necessarily ?” “Yes,” said Barnhart. “And that likewise 40 per cent of these men voted against the increase of the income tax that would have taken the money out of the same sec- tion—do you know that?” : “Yes,” responded the witness. “I charged it in speeches, and I have charged, furthermore, that those big - interests there interested in manufac- turing implements of death in war were all speculating in war bonds, etc., had been preaching the doctrine of preparedness, etc., and had a tre- mendous appeal, yet when the war broke out, New York, in the per- centage of its volunteers, was below most 'states in the Union.” “If the income tax had been de- feated,” asked Reavis, “it would have saved a great deal of money to the Carnegie corporation, that is incor- porated for $125,000,000, would it not ?” “Undoubtedly.” “Do you know that one-fourth of the contributions made to this league were made by the Carnegie corpora- tion?” “In glancing over the report I.saw that Carnegie gave $100,000 and sub- scribed $50,000 more.” “The total subscriptions to the league,” said Reavis, “were approxi- mately $600,000. Did you know that the next largest contributor was John D. Rockefeller?” “I know that by glancing over the record—the second largest contribu- tor, $35,000.” “And that J. P. Morgan & Co. were contributors, and that Henry Frick, formerly of Pittsburg, was a_ con- tributor ?” “Yes.” ! “I wonder,” said Reavis, “if you _ common people goes merrily on. e e . Very rapidly the - special-privilege in- terests are building up in our country duplications of some of the worst agen- cies of old-world despotisms. Under the cover of protecting law and order in our several states they are building up Cossack forces whose prime func- tion is to harass and assault organi- zations of farmers and wage-workers. They have elaborate private spy sys- tems, members of which pose as fire- -eating labor men to get labor into trouble and to destroy public sym- "~ pathy for labor. . In many parts they . are able to make private use of our legal machinery to kill off leaders of the common people. They have or- ganizations such as the one described on this page, the primary object of ~ which is to fight the battle of privilege with any weapons available. The or- derly processes of democracy -have not yet been able to bring them to justice and they are becoming strong- er in the use of the tools of autocracy all the time. “can deduct anything from the following facts: That the 47 men declared loyal by this league are the men who voted for measures of preparedness that would have created large expenditures on the part of the government with the steel companies, in which are interested Morgan, Rockefeller, Frick and Carnegie, and that 40 per cent of those men voted agamst an increase of the income tax that would have taken money out of the pockets of Rockefeller, Morgan, Frick and Carnegie, and that an organization is formed to support those 47 men, financed by the men who would financially profit? Can you deduct anything from those facts, as to the good faith of this organization?” | ADJUSTING WAR TAXES I A LITTLE AT A TIME _AMD HE WON'T FEEL \T -g \ —Drawn expressly for the Leader by Congressman John AM Baer The game of taking burdens from the back of privilege and putting them on the described in the story on this page. _ PAGE. FIVE The common people have stood so much that the fat boys and their flunky politicians think there are no limits. are. The thousands of unemployed men walking the streets of our cities today shows that a nation can not prosper on special privilege profits of the kind it has been having. The gamblers, however, are not only keeping up the old game " but they are fighting all attempts to limit their power in the interests of pros- perous reconstruction by such vicious methods as those - Congressman Browne of Wisconsin looked into the report of the federal trade commission upon war profiteers, and then into the Directory of Di- rectors, and discovered that virtually every war profiteering concern in the country was either rep- resented on the board of the Security league or upon its list of heavy contributors. J. P. Morgan, for example, gave $2,300; he is director of seven big corporations, including United States Steel, Pullman company, Northern Pacific railway and International Mercantile Marine. Nicholas F. Brady, who gave $4,500, is director of 50 large corporations, such as Umted States Rub- ber, New York Air Brake company, United States Cast Iron Pipe & Foundry company and United Electric Light & Power company. Frick, who gave $3,500, is director in the Santa Fe and other rail- roads, in banks, in the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron company, and in United States Steel. Unit- ed. States Steel, after paying all its taxes, in 1917 had a net profit of $244,738,908. Congressman Browne showed, in brief, that 94 per cent of the money collected in sums of $100 or over for the Security league propaganda to elect a congress that big business would consider loyal, was raised in the stronghold of the war profiteers —the downtown section of New York City. COPPER TRUST A BIG CONTRIBUTOR 2 There was one contribution which was eloquent of the whole miserable hypocrisy. Arthur Curtis James of 99 John street, New York, contributed a total of $29,750 between March 19, 1915, and November 20, 1918. He is director in 42 corpora- tions, chiefly mining and banking. He is the vice president of the Phelps-Dodge corporation, whose representatives in Bisbee, Ariz., were indicted by a federal grand jury for the crime of deporting 1,200 peaceable miners, chiefly members of the Amer- ican Federation of Labor, when a strike took place in Bisbee in the summer of 1917. The wholesale kidnaping of the strikers occurred in the first week in July. On ‘April 17 he had paid $1,000 to the Security league. On July 12, when the crime com- mitted by the Phelps-Dodge interests had caused a dispute between the Associated Press .manage- ment and the Bisbee officials, James “came across” to the Security -league with a payment of $10,000.- And he contributed another $10,000 during the year 1918. The Bisbee kidnapers have since been released from their indictment by a federal judge. The pre-war profits of the Phelps-Dodge concern were $7,444,399; their war profits were $21,974,263, leaving excess prof- its over normal profits of more than $14,500,000 in“a year. Considering these things, need we be surprised that the Security league had such representatives and propa- gandists as Professor Van. Tyne, Pro- fessor Hobbs, or George Haven Put- nam? Van Tyne said of the American Tories: “These men were peaceful, sober-minded citizens, who perhaps had more than half sympathy with the Whig movement thus far, but the thought of civil turmoil and even war had checked their noble rage and brought them to think of things less metaphysical than political prin- ciples. * * * Though posterity has not awarded them the name, it may wisely concede to them the char- acter of the patriot.” Hobbs, speaking in Detroit on Brit- tania Day, is quoted by Congressman Browne as saying that “It is inconceiv- able that the (European) premiers in- vited Wilson there, as they are op- posed to his pro-German program.™- Putnam made a speech in London, July 4 last, in which he said: “Amer- icans of today, looking back on his- « tory with a better sense of judgment and a better knowledge of the facts than was possible for their ancestors, ., dnd are prepared to recognize also that their great-grandfathers had (Continued on page 14’ But there ’