The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 19, 1919, Page 4

| e et Burleson’s Record Democrats Demand Resignation—Shown as Public Ownership Foe Washington Bureau, . Nonpartisan Leader. LBERT SIDNEY BURLESON, whose arbitrary attitude to- ward the telephone service em- ployes led to the recent strike of 20,000 men and women in that service in the New Eng- land states, may be the first member of the Wilson cabinet to be asked by the. president Washington is filled with reports of to resign. conferences and informal agreements among lead- ers in the Democratic party as to what shall be dene to rid the administration of Burleson. There are stories that the president is ready to dismiss this most unpopular of all his appointees, as soon as the peace treaty has been signed. There are other stories that a majority of the members of the cabinet have hinted to the president that Bur- leson is imperiling the future chances of the party, and that unless he be removed there will be no use in nominating a ticket next year. At .the height of the telephone strike in Boston, this cablegram was sent to President Wilson over the signatures of the president of the Massachu- setts Democratic club and 11 members of the state legislature: “Burleson wrecking the party. Remove him and settle this strike.” The New York World, an administration organ, remarked editorially: “The language of this petition may be abrupt and the tone peremptory, but the ‘advice itself is eminently sound and sensible.” Two days after printing that editorial, the same newspaper published an account of Burleson’s rec- ord in office. It was carried under big headlines, with two solid columns on the front page. The headlines told the story thus: “Burleson Pictured as Snoop, Trouble-Maker, Disorganizer, Autocrat and Arch-Politician—Postal Employes Call Their Chief ‘Slave-Driver,” Convict Laborers Having Been Whipped on His Texas Farm—Tangle Over Control of Telephone, Tele- graph and Cables Due to Him, and Mismanage- ment of Nation’s Mail System Is Alleged—Advice to Wilson That Lost Control of Congress Credited to Burlesop—This Resulted From Appeal for Elec- tion of Democrats—Government Ownership His Pet Hobby, but Neither Capital Nor Labor Is Satisfied.” Those headlines refleet the bias of the New York World. The World is opposed to public ownership. Burleson has never at any time done anything to make friends for the cause of public ownership; on the contrary, he has done everything which ingenuity could devise to wreck the postal service and destroy the morale and the health of the postal workers in the name of governmental “efficiency and economy.” REFUSES TO DEAL WITH EMPLOYES’ ORGANIZATIONS Reasons for the present agitation for the re- moval of Mr. Burleson from the cabinet began with the first acts of his administration of the postoffice department. the national officers of the various unions among the postal. employes—the rural carriers, the city letter carriers, the postoffice clerks and the rail- way mail clerks. At convenient moments he dis- missed these national officers from the service. After discharging executive officers of the Na- tional Association of Letter Carriers, the Rural Letter Carriers’ association, the Railway Mail association, the National Federation of Postal Em- ployes, Mr. Burleson said he would be delighted to talk with any of these organization officials, pro- vided they were still on the postoffice payroll. From the spring of 1913, when he came in, this attitude has characterized Burleson’s stand toward those in the postal service. From the moment that the telephones and telegraphs came under his con- trol he has extended to the half million workers in that industry similar proofs of his sympathy. ~ Men grown old in the service of the public have been asked to carry heavier .and heavier sacks of mail.. If they were unable to do so, Mr. Burleson was sorry for them; they could secure a demotion S D B R WK Dt e R e s e i S bl He began by refusing to deal with" *in sight. at once, and. receive a smaller salary. Was the cost of living going up? Mr. Burleson was sorry, but they should have thought about that a good many years ago. Were they asking for recog- nition of their unions? Mr. Burleson was busy, and of course it was unthinkable and pro-German to strike against the government. Were the wire workers already organized, and did they merely want to adjust differences that would have been quickly adjusted if the government had not taken over the wires when a strike was about’ to be called? Well, that was too bad—Mr. Burleson simply“could not discuss the question with any one. The labor indictment, however, is but one of a long series which the Democratic politicians lay against the postmaster general. He is blamed for having advised the president to write that fatal letter last fall, demanding support for all Demo- cratic congressional nominees on grounds of loy- alty to the government. He is blamed for the actual demoralization in the delivery of mails, for bad service in the telegraph and telephone indus- try, for rank favoritism between the two chief tele- graph companies, resulting in a big publicity cam- paign against the administration by the smaller company. He is blamed for a stupid and need- lessly irritating enforcement of the press censor- ship clause of the espionage act, in the course of which he made lifelong enemies of hundreds of editors and publishers who had been more or less Copyright by Harris' & Ewing. A. S. BURLESON . sympathetic with the Wilson policies. Finally; he .is blamed for espionage and “snooping” about the corridors of the capitol, where he goes frequently to whisper into the ear of some Democratic mem- ber who is offended by this attention. Will Burleson be removed as the result of all this agitation and discussion of his record? Half of official Washington believes he will, within a month after the president’s return from Paris. The other half believes that Burleson will cling to his office until the administration itself goes out. They count upon the known reluctance of Wilson to discard a political adviser. The rel fusal of Mr, Burleson’s subordinates in charge of the telegraph wires of the country to permit the World article on Mr. Burleson to go over the wires to newspapers, has encouraged the Democrats who believe that his removal or resignation is: They consider that an action so high-- handed as the suppression of criticism of the wire administrator will be certain to bring about im- peachment proceedings if the: postmaster general does not' himself step out quickly; and they think that the administration does not want an impeach- ment trial begun on the eve of the 1920 contest. ‘@ PAGE FOUR Farm Homes Raided Milk Producers About Chicago Threatened With Anti-Trust Proceedings Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader. ILO D. CAMPBELL, president of the National Milk Producers’ federation, has written an open letter to President Wilson call- ing attention to the sensational raids conducted by United States District Attorney Clyne and State’s Attorney Hoyne of Chicago upon the homes of the officials and organizers of the 16,000 organized milk producers who supply that city. The federal and state agents claim that they are breaking up a “milk trust” among the farmers. Campbell points to these raids and threatened prosecutions as being “a proceeding, not against the farmers about Chicago alone, but against every farmer in the United States; a proceeding the.most merci- less and cruel in its methods that the <vorld has known since the dark ages.” As told by the head of the organized milk pro- ducers, an army of sleuths invaded the homes of these farmers at a set hour, and gathered up their books, their letters and their rudely kept accounts, and carted them away to Chicago, there to examine them for traces of a conspiracy which might pos- sibly be found to violate the anti-trust law. It appears that Clyne and Hoyne are aware of the fact that congress has not properly safeguarded the right of farmers to combine to sell their prod- uct, and they ‘hope to win popularity with the in- dustrial population of the city by representing the farmers as engaged in trying to starve the city wage-workers through extortionate prices for milk and other dairy products. WOULD PLACE FARMERS OF AMERICA ON TRIAL “This is a proceeding to place on trial the . farmers of America,” says Campbell to President Wilson, “to intimidate them, to frighten them from organization. Polities, corruption and big business are at the base of the scheme. “The government has tried in the past to exe- cute the Sherman law in the spirit of its purpose. It was enacted to reach the great combinations of - capital. United States Steel was tackled. A few yéars ago I bought a few shares of this stock on the market and paid $30 a share. During 1917 and 1918 I received $32 a share dividends, and the company laid away almost as much surplus besides. 3 “I have owned farms as long, and they have not paid expenses. ; “Were the steel interests contralled by the Sher- man law? - . “Standard Oil was grappled by the Sherman law. The price of oil before was from 8 to 10 cents per gallon. Now it is 27 cents. “Your federal trade commission has quite re- cently made a report of its investigation of the Big Five packers. Never was such Wickedness re-' vealed in the business and industrial world, of such wide expanse, as this report shows. The home of this combination is under the eaves of the office of the United States district attorney at Chicago, the man who is now telling the public through the press that he is herding to prison 16,000 farmers for violation of the Sherman law.” Everx one who has read the report of the fed- eral trade commission knows that the Big Five packers are themselves the only dairy trust in ex- _ istence in America—that the Big Five are gather- ing up rapidly the complete control of the butter, cheese and evaporated and canmed milk business, and that through their control of these dairy prod- ucts and of dairy feeds they control the entire milk industry. Yet the department of justice takes no steps toward prosecution of the Armours, Swifts, Morrises, Wilsons or Cudahys. -It goes into the homes of the farmers and seizes the books of their milk-selling association! Clyne, the federal attorney, declared that-“This two-edged sword will at once prove effective in lowering prices of milk, butter and cheese. And the papers reflect the local political value of the attack in this fashion: “Sixteen Thousand Milk Producers, Members of the Association, and Mil- lions. of Consumers Interested.” ' Campbell shows that there are some 6,000,000 -