The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, December 1, 1919, Page 11

to a ceftain extent, against the organized x _ farmer. Heretofore the consuming public. has never. been played to - as a factor. At election time one party or the other, or sometimes both parties, have made bids for the labor vote, the German vote, the Ital- ian vote—but never for the unorganized public vote. - But this year Republican and Democratic leaders apparently were seized with the same idea at the same time—with the tremendous idea of us- ing public dissatisfaction with the cost of living and the presence of unpopular strikes to turn the mass of public opinion in the country against organized labor by charging labor with the responsibility for increased living costs. And so, while Governor Coolidge, Republican, was running for re-election in Massachusetts on a campaign of opposition to the strike of Boston police, Attorney General Palmer, Democrat, was going into the ecourts against the organized coal miners. The politicians of both parties believe the moves of Coolidge and Palmer have been good ones politi- Congress Orders Sale of Surplus Cars | cally.. Today Coolidge, having been re-elected in Massachusetts with an increased plurality, is be- ing boosted for president or vice president on.the Republican ticket, and Palmer is the man. most prominently mentioned for ome of the two places on the Democratic ticket. g Neither of the men named is certain of the nomi- nation yet. A poll taken in congress among Re- publicans the other day showed General Leonard Wood the leading candidate. Outside of congress, especially among the old-line' politicians of the Middle West, Governor Lowden of Illinois seems to hold the lead. The candidacy of Poindexter, first to be announced, has not aroused much inter- est. Senator Johnson is strong on the Pacific coast and is the man feared most by the standpatters. On the Democratic side McAdoo and Baker are most prominently mentioned, next to Palmer. If the Democratic party should decide to throw the Wilson administration completely overboard in se- . lection of a~1920 ticket, and should decide to take up the military training plank, as the Republicans have, Senator Chamberlain ‘of Oregon will be among those considered. The one certainty on. the Democratic side is that President Wilson will not be a candidate for re-election. Harking back to the subject of setting class against class brings it to mind that both Re- publicans and Democrats, at about the time the war broke out, upbraided each other for organizing voters by nationalities. In the 1919 elections in eastern states both of the old par- ties were at it again as bad as ever—with Democratic Irish-American clubs and Repub- lican Scandinavian-American clubs and the like. The worst offense of all along these lines was the organization in New Jersey of a string of “Republican Italian D’Annunzio clubs,” while Gabriele d’Annunzio, after whom the clubs were named, was holding Fiume, against the authority of the United States and of the ehtente allies, as a sort of international rebel. Incidentally, to go back to the American Legion (Continued on page 22) ‘House Measure Demands That War Department Automobiles, ‘ ' Rusting in Open Field, Be Disposed of to People Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader. 2]Y A vote of 266 to 0, the house of representatives has adopted a resolution calling upon the war department -to proceed to dis- tribute all surplus motor trucks and passenger automobiles to the states up to the limit of al- lotment advised by the depart- ment of agriculture, and to im- mediately sell the remainder of these motor vehicles to the people at public auction. _ As this is the same method employed with bril- liant success a few months ago to compel the war department to sell its surplus food supplies to the people, there is no doubt that the motor vehicles will now be saved from further destruction by ex- posure to the elements in the army camps where more than $163,000,000 worth of machines have been held or delivered since the armistice. The road is clear for this action because the attorney general has overruled a decision by the judge advo- cate general of the army that the distribution of the machines could not proceéd without a special act of congress. The attorney general held that the war department has full authority to go ahead and save the property by putting it into the hands of state highway commissioners, or by selling it. Here is the text of the resolution passed Novem- ber 6: “That the secretary of war be, and is hereby, re- quested to immediately deliver'to the secretary of agriculture, for distribution among the highway de- partments of the several states, for use on roads constructed in whole or in part by federal aid, the 22,195 motor vehicles for which requisition has heretofore been made by the secretary of agriculture, to- - gether with the equipment and spare parts which can properly be used with said motor vehi- cles, and that all other army motor vehicles now or hereafter declared surplus be immediately offered for ‘sale at public auec-" tion to the American people.” MANY STATES FAILED TO RECEIVE CARS ¢ Before the "judge advocate general stopped the distribution of army trucks to the highway departments of the states, some two months ago, about 8,400 .machines had actually been turn- ed over for use, but many of -the states most in need of this assistance in their road-building work had failed to get any. State Engineer Robinson of North ‘Dakota took the matter up with Congressman Sinclair, both as to- the delivery of 400 " trucks to North Dakota and as to a supply of extra parts and - tires for these machines. In- . _quiry at the war department re-: " vealed the fact that the men in Here, in crates and boxes, are some of the automobiles which - the war department, following the action of congress. Millions of dollars’ worth ‘. of machines have been left in -open fields. or inadequate shelters. AR direct control of the motor vehicles and supplies did not want to see the regular automobile and truck market injured. Ingenious reasons were given, also, why the extra tires and parts should not be distributed beyond a possible one year’s supply. Congress had been compelled to order the war department to sell its surplus meat sup- ply to the people, in order to smash the scheme for selling this food abroad, and thereby hold- ing up the market for the Chicago packers. - Now it -appeared that automobiles were to be kept out of use, and off the auction block, in order that automobile manufactyrers might not have their market hurt. The committee which reported the resolution de- - clared that “to prevent further deterioration” of the surplus machines that are not given to the states, these should be sold at once by public auc- tion, because that method: has proved to bring bet- ter returns to the government than any other meth- od of sale. ¢ - According to Representative MacGregor of New York, who led the debate on the resolution, 70,000 machines were delivered to the war department after the signing of the armistice. -The last state- ment secured by -the committee investigating war expenditures was that 108,000 machines of various kinds were on hand. “It is the intention,” he said, “to keep for the use of the army approximately 52,000 motor vehi- cles of various kinds, and also to retain 10 per cent for replacement, based on an army of 500,000-men. The balance is to be distributed under various acts or resolutions that have been passed by congress or the house, to the department of agriculture and 7 _PAGE ELEVEN - e~ g —Copyrizht‘by Harris & Ewing. are to be placed on sale by other departments of the government. The post- office department and the public health service have received a large number. 3 “All of us are unfortunately familiar with the matter of responsibility in any department, and this chasing responsibility around is, I imagine, considerably like the boys chasing the cooties across the seas; you think you have them and then’ you have not. And so with this testimony as to the disposition of automobiles. We have not fixed . the responsibility on any particular person, but the’ secretary of war certainly should be boss of his department and ought to be in a position to say: ‘Go and do it now.’ NE2 THOUSANDS OF CARS - IDLE IN OPEN FIELD “A surplus was declared by General March, on April 15, 1919, of 36,352 motor vehicles, and ac- cording to the statements of General Drake these various departments down here have been holding debates among themselves since that time to de- termine how it was going to be done, and they have not reached any conclusion.” , General Drake declared to the committee that the automobiles should have been sold, immediately after the armistice, in order that the cash might go into the federal treasury to cut down the bur- den of the war debt. An expert who visited Camp Holabird, near Baltimore, on October 30, notified _the committee that— “What surprised me most was to see thousands and thousands of fine new trucks of the very best make standing all over the field or boxed for shipment lying idle, and nothing ap- parently being done to make them useful to any one. It is nothing less than a crime to have mil- lions of dollars’ worth of good . material like this simply rust- ing away. : Representative MacGreg- or hinted at one of the rea- sons for inaction by the de- partment when he said that 25,000 civilian employes in the motor corps are taking care of these rusting vehi- cles—an item of something like $100,000 a day for their wages alone. - war department will begin ship- ping the motor trucks and extra parts to the highway depart- ments of all the states. At the .same time, the director of sales will schedule a series of auctions of surplus machines, to be held at army camps and cantonments: from coast to coast, wherever ated. time and place of such auctions D. C,, asking that he be notified The house acted, and now the the surplus machines are situ- . Any farmer or other citizen desiring information as ‘to ‘the: in his region should write di~ & rectly to the director of sales, (& war department, Washington, i T e S e S o e i ety