The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 14, 1919, Page 5

s A - 8 4 § . B ol = 3 . ' -~ § Ny . 400 a year from Stand- and succeeded in choosihg members of congress legislators, administrative officers and sug:emé court judges in six other states. . Reference was made in the Leader last week to the fair account of the League program contained - in Capper’s Weekly, a paper owned by Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas, and to the fact that an- other_Capper paper, the Farmers’ Mail and Breeze, was out fighting the League with an utterly mis- leading and untruthful statement. This account in the Farmers’ Mail and Breeze is published under the heading, “Ruled by a Secret Caucus.” Many of the statements made in the article are absolutely false. The Farmers’ Mail and Breeze says that a bond issue of $5,000,000 has been provided to finance the home building bill. This is a flat falsehood. It says “a large bond jssue” finances the “state-owned and operated lig- nite mines.” This is also false. It adds that the state bank has “resources of $135,000,000 in sight, all of which can be used to finance the impracticable schemes of A. C. Townley and his Socialist cohorts.” Another item in this account speaks of “a bill to create public revenue for a strong Nonpartisan league paper in every county.” As Leaguers well know, the North Dakota printing bill provides for cutting down the number of official papers, from three to one in each county, the official paper to be designated by the vote of the people. Thus this act will reduce the cost of public printing instead of “creating” public revenue for the papers. It is because the printing bill cuts down the graft on public printing that it is being opposed by a few papers which apparently need a pub- lic subsidy of some kind to keep them alive. The attempt of the Capper papers to play both ends and try to satisfy both the farmers and the business interests who are fighting them is further disclosed by the concluding sentence of the Mail and Breeze story, which says: The opponents of the League believe it will take several years to demonstrate the impracticability of the new socialistic League legislation. They are hopeful that the burden of taxation, which has greatly increased since North Dakota has been un- der the control of the League, will cause wide- spread dissatisfaction. In other words, the apponents of the League ad- mit frankly that they hope the state enterprises will be failures and they intend to do everything in their power to make them fail! Shipping Board Would Sell U. S. Ships Influence of Large Interests Evident in Hurley Plan—Endangers Our New Merchant Marine—Close Connection With Railroad Propaganda Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader. HE big interests want Uncle Sam to sell them his ships. Chairman Hurley of the United States shipping board, speech which delighted the as- sembled millionaire shipowners of the National Marine league, at New York, on March 27, de- clared that the 12,000,000 tons of merchant ships which the government now owns or is building and which will be completed next year, should be sold to private owners, at the world market price, to be operated for private profit. Just as in the days when he was president of the Illinois Manufacturers’ association and in the later period when he was chairman of the federal trade commission and was relying upon the advice of “Diamond T” Logan, the secret spy of numerous profiteering interests, Hurley is right at home among the ship-owning profiteers. He under- stands them. ’ His right-hand man, “Diamond T,” is abundantly able to coach him on any points ~ that ‘he’ might otherwise overlook. Lo- gan has not thus far con- fessed to receiving a se- cret. salary from the shipping trust, but he has admitted receiving $14,- ard Oil, which can use a lot of ships, and $6,000 from Swift & Co., and $6,000 from the General- Electric company, and $6,000 from the Freeport Sulphur. company, for “publicity advice,” while spending much of his time gathering data for Hurley on the number and location of Austrian and German merchant ships. That there is a close stockholding connection between these profiteering corporations and the American shipping combine may be readily guessed. Logan’s advice as to Hurley speeches in the past has been admitted under oath. It is a fair assump- tion that Logan’s hand is in this “Sell the Ships” speech that Hurley has just delivered. GOVERNMENT INSURANCE TURNED DOWN TOO But Hurley-is not content with betraying the vast publicly owned merchant fleet which Amer- ican taxpayers have bonded themselves for many hundreds of millions of dollars to create. He goes much farther. He proposes that gov- ernment insurance of merchant shipping shall be abolished, in face of the low rates and the big profits that the war risk insurance bureau has established from the very start. He wants all the marine insurance transferred to private marine insurance concerns. Wall street is wait- ing to provide the companies. “Then he adds another scheme, which is a camou- flaged ship subsidy. He calls it a merchax_xt marine ¥ \ \ I D e b AT Y S R AR R AT in a . development fund, and he would use it to pay not merely the deficit in operation of any line estab- lished under contract with the company purchasing a government vessel, but also to ENABLE THE COMPANY TO PAY DIVIDENDS TO STOCK- HOLDERS! i Says Hurley, in this brazen proposal: “In cases where the government sells a ship upon condition that it be operated in a route which may not prove profitable at once, it will be necessary to provide for the payment of defaulted interest from the merchant marine development fund, in the dis- cretion of the shipping board or other government agency, upon recommendation of the board of gov- ernment directors, until such time as the route may begin to yield a profit. When the ships in the . route earn their annual interest rate and a profit, measured by the relative importance of government finance. for peace and war purposes in recent years are handled. ground of the special interests, and the story of the shipping board pro- posal on this page describes one of the raids now being planned. e S e D R O R one-half the profit earned each year should be paid into the merchant marine development fund until, all moneys drawn from the fund on account of the vessel in question shall have been replaced. The other half should go annually TO THE STEAMSHIP STOCKHOLDERS.” That is pretty generous—to the stockholders. “But,” someone may ask, “isn’t the private owner risking a .lot of money by buying the ship? Shouldn’t the government take care of his dividends on that account?” Well, compare an investment in a western farm, say, with an investment in one of these government ships, if congress permits them to be thus dis- posed of. Here is what Hurley suggests: “The ships should be sold at a price which fairly reflects the current world market for similar tonnage. . : “Twenty-five per cent of the purchase price _ of each ship should be paid down, the remain- der falling due and payable in graded annual installments over a period of not exceeding 10 years. The government should take and hold a mortgage for the unpaid balance, charging interest at the CUSTOMARY COMMERCIAL RATE OF 5 PER CENT.” That’s not so bad—for the stockholders. They 5 PAGE FIVE In this building the vast sums collected It is also the favorite raiding e A L S K St e A S B i invest at the outset only a quarter of the money that is risked when a steamer is put into service on a sea route. Then, if insufficient money is earned in the first few years to pay interest on what they owe to the government, the government digs up the money to pay it! Later on, when the ship has earned a little more than enough in a season to pay the interest charge for that season, the balance is not applied to the unpaid interest for last year. Not at all. It is split, 50-50, between the interest debt and the stockholders! ' A SAFEGUARD OF NO VALUE Did you ever meet a mortgage banker who wanted to give you a lot of money at 5 per cent, and then let you declare a dividend to yourself before the interest was paid? The scheme for sale of the ships is sugar-coated by a recommendation that the government put ONE director on the board of each company that buys a ship. The number of private directors is un- limited. All of these government spokes- men would form among themselves a board of government directors, to ad- vise the shipping board, which in turn would advise congress—presumably on new schemes for giving away pub- lic money to the shipping combine and the insur- ance trust. Hurley is a spokesman of the enemies of public ownership. He is asso- ciated with men who are fighting public owner- ship and democratic op- eration of the railroads. the investigation of the big meat packers’ mo- nopoly, and has oppos- ed public ownership of stockyards and -stock cars. He has urged upon President Wilson the giving away of the pow- _er and fuel resources -of the public lands. With the advice of “Diamond T” Logan, Hurley is able to understand that the quickest way to ham- string the cause of public ownership of railroads is to sell the great merchant marine that the people now own and operate, before the people learn how fine are the profits of normal operation of shipping. Hurley has claimed to be a Democrat, but his friends are all lined up with the Mann organization and the Penrose organization in the new house and senate. At the head of the merchant marine and fisheries committee in the house is Greene of Mas- sachusetts, a bitter opponent of public ownership. At the head of the corresponding committee in the senate will be, probably, Nelson of Minnesota, who is likewise opposed to letting the people own prop- erty that earns a dividend. Both _men are veteran reactionaries, and they will stop at nothing in their campaign to destroy the government’s shipping enterprise. They, too, know that successful gov- ernment shipping may lead quickly to a decision for government railroads. Bolshevism is spreading in Europe. Black reaction is striking at the few constructive measures which the war period has brought to the United States. 4 —Photo by Harris A& Ewing. The United States treasury building at Washington, D. C.—one of the magnificent capitol buildings, planned for pleasing appearance as well as for work. The part it plays in the nation’s welfare is S % He has tried to prevent-