The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 17, 1919, Page 5

Selling Our Birthright Congress Passes Natural Resource Grab Despite Liberals’ Fight Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader. »]ONGRESS has once more done its worst for the American farmer and wage-worker and small business and professional man by adding a huge burden to the cost of fuel and of farm fertilizer in this nation for the next 30" years. That is what the mineral lands leasing bill means—higher cost to the con- sumer of gasoline, kerosene, machine oil, coal, c¢oal .. tar products and phosphate and sodium products. Between $20,000,600,000 and $30,000,000,000 worth of the people’s property in the public lands are turned over to private exploitation—private prof- iteering—by this Smoot-Sinnott bill, which has just passed the house. Senator La Follette in the upper branch of con- gress, and Congressman Baer in the lower branch, led the fight to stop the betrayal of the public interest in this vast property. Yet scarcely a word of La Follette’s 36 hours of actual speaking against the leasing bill was permitted to get out to the country. In the house, al- though- Baer and a few pro- gressive members offered scores of amendments and took up days of debate against the bill, the press virtually ignor- ed the fact. Gifford Pinchot is quoted by Mr. Baer as describing the stakes in this bill as follows: “The people of the United States’ own natural resources of 'enormous value—lands that contain more than 600,000,000 barrels of oil, 450,000,000,000 tons of coal, and 2,000,000 acres of phosphate lands.” "This includes the naval oil - reserves in California, for the fraudulent claimants to loca- tions in these naval oil reserves are, in the Smoot-Sinnott bill, given special preference in se- curing leases to pump away the oil intended for the fuel supply of. our navy. In the gallery of the house, on the afternoon of October 30 when the house refused to permit a rollcall on this gigan- tic deal, sat the lobbyists of the Midwest Oil company, known to be “closely connected with” Standard Oil. Instantly upon the announcement of the vote James G. Gillett, former governor of California and head of the oil lobby for some years, left the gallery to. spread the glad tidings to his employers. __Will the people get any ben- efit from this new develop- ment? Here is the La Follette-Baer amendment, which was over- ® whelmingly rejected by both the senate and house because it would curb the extortionate prices which these oil - opera- ters will take: “Provided, that the gov- ernment reserves the right at all times, under rules and regulations to be pre- ° scribed by the president, " to determine, fix and con- trol the selling price of all products derived = from lands leased hereunder, whether in the crude or natural condition, - or- in . other merchantable form, which’ shall be a reason- able price-both as to the .. producer and the consum- < ° When the industrial conf condemnation of labor. | CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE NATION’S CAPITAL er, and the reservation of such right shall be expressly stated in each -lease.” Will the states have any chance under this bill, to develop these natural resources? ' Not a bit. Exactly four votes—those of Baer and Sinclair of North Dakota, and Keller and Carss of Minnesota—were cast for the Baer amendment to the bill, which read: . “Subject to the provisions, limitations and conditions of this act, the secretary of the in- terior is authorized to issue leases for coal, oil, oil shale or gas deposits, owned by the United States, and the lands containing same, to any state of the United States, the constitu- tion and laws of which authorize it to engage in the business of mining or extracting, treat- ing and disposing of such mineral deposits.” “Grave and disturbing changes are coming over our land,” Mr. Baer warned. “The extraordinary in- equality of wealth, arising from privileges granted and sanctioned by the government, is causing this unrest. Congress, called to reduce the high cost of living, instead of releasing the people from extor- - tion, is giving it a 30-year lease on the people. “If these free people of all those great democra- cies, who now have the supreme power, do not take control and rule the earth—its economic as well as its political life—then they may expect to be driven like slaves to all the corners of the earth to protect the stolen holdings of the plunderers.” l " BLOCKING THE WAY I LEVATOR TO NDUSTRIAL | Wil 10y, il § W', ~ PAGE FIVE —Drawn expressly for th¢ Leader by Congressman John M. Baer. erence broke up at Washington, the old gang press was loud in its But it was the feudal attitude of the employers, who refused to ad- mit that the worker had any rights, that resulted in the breaking up of the meeting. Read both the stories on this_page. One of them tells about the industrial conference. The other | shows how John Baer is fighting the business pirates in every possible way., The cartoon *“ducers of wealth, in order that { here is one of the ways. Read how he went after some specific pirates who want- .ed—and got—some of ,the nation’s greatest natural resources. e L T T e 0 I T wem The Labor Conference Workers Realize Need of Political Action After Industrial Meet ; Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader. RGANIZED labor in the United States, dating from the after- noon of Wednesday, October 22, is willing to learn a lesson from the organized farmers. It is willing to follow the lead of the Nonpartisan league. It is going to go-into political action in dead earnest. For two and a half weeks, leading up to that his- toric afternoon in Washington, the so-called in- dustrial conference summoned by President Wilson had been sparring and arguing fine points of in- dustrial etiquette, between the reading of absolute- ly irreconcilable sets of principles brought forward by the labor group on one side and by the employ- ers’ group on the other. Two and a half weeks were wasted by the trade union delegates, in merely trying to get big busi- ness to agree to arbitration of the steel strike and to concede the wage-workers’ right to bargain with employers through the officials of trade unions. The labor delegates failed to get even these small concessions from the employ- ers. So they quit the confer- ence. these trade union officials held a private conference in which every man was called upon to express his views. The ad- mission was-made that the old method of dealing with the or- ganized employers had failed. A new method must be agreed upon. When the decisive vote was taken in the industrial confer- ence, Samuel Gompers, head power words: “It is the labor group which presents the human side to this conference. bor group which submits the ter agreement between em- ployers and workers. And that has been rejected upon grounds that our friends in the employ- ing group will find difficult to explain. “You have defeated us in our proposition, but you have not broken one line of this movement of ours, nor have you crushed the spirit of that movement nor its men. p “I have sung my swan song in this conference. by your action, the action of the employers’ group, legis- lated us out-of this conference. We have nothing further to submit.” Leaders of the at last discerned that they North Dakota had done. They . the industrial power. They must strike at the polls as well as at the shop gates. an old, old lesson, but they learned it on that afternoon. of October 23. They must get political power for the pro- mocracy. & ; 7 But before they went ! It is the la- : proposition to bring about not ! only greater production, but | the instrumentalities by which there shall be further and bet- # You have,; railroad. brotherhoods and the Ameri-: can Federation of Labor have’ must.do as the farmers of. T AR AT N I ST S SO T 13 ML Y must turn to the capture of. - the political power along with: It was. America may. be safe for de- SR AT AN S BRBF of the American Federation of Labor, voiced the defiance | of the Gary and the Wheeler | forces—the masters of feudal in industry—in these R AR SRR T T R B N R S TN A R A S S S 24