The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 19, 1920, Page 6

TNonpartisan Teader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Week OLIVER S. MORRIS, Editor. Entered as second-class matter at the postoffice at Minneapolis, Minq., under the act of March 3, 1879. Publication address, 427 Sixth avenue S., Minneapolis, Minn. Subseription, one year, in advance, $2.50; six months, $1.50. rates on classified page; other advertising rates on application. S t s make all remittances to the Nonpartisan P, . Box 20756, Minneapolis, Minn. Member Audit Bureau of Circulation. The S. S. Beckwith Special Agency, advertising representatives, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. (e 70, SIS Classifled advertising Address all letters and MAKING DEMOCRACY WORKABLE HE Newberry conviction and the efforts of certain candi- I dates to buy the presidential nomination have led not a few citizens to do some serious thinking on our methods of nom- inating for public office. Under the old caucus and convention sys- tem the candidate had to make his peace first with the political machine. Under the primary system a candidate still has some need of the machine, but the prime requisite is that he be well advertised. And to be well advertised he must enjoy the favor of the controlled press and either be a man of great wealth or have the backing of wealth that is looking for special privileges from the government. The common people have about as much chance of securing a real servant among men who meet these qualifica- tions as the proverbial camel has of getting through the needle’s eye. But this does not mean that the American people have to sell their public offices to the high- est bidders. The primary system can be made workable. Minnesota farmers and city workers have just shown the public in general how to do it. They organized for political action and sent delegates to state conventions to choose a state tick- et for them. Not one of the can- didates chosen could have received notice in the controlled press. None of them had to spend a cent for the nomination. None of them could have afforded an independent cam- paign for election. They will not have to afford it. They will enter office when elected without obliga- tion to any form of special privi- lege. This Minnesota method, first applied by the farmers of North Dakota, takes more time and more effort than sitting back and watch- ing what the politicians and the press have to say about their two lists of special privilege candidates, but to.doubt whether it is worth while is to doubt whether democ- racy is worth while. To refuse to fight for democracy is to surrender body, soul and business to a grasp- ing money power. AT I;\\ 4 “'.l:y., EXCESS PROFITS TAXES VERY paper or news agency in the country which speaks for Wall street is agitating for the abolition of the excess profits tax. The chief argument they offer is that the excess profits tax retards production and they supplement this with a popular appeal to the effect that this tax is simply added to the price of the goods and is thus paid by the consumer. The excess profits tax is certainly badly constructed in sev- eral respects. earngd incomes. It allows loopholes for the crafty accountant. But it dges tax excess profits beyond a comfortable minimum. A corporation can make 10 per cent before it pays any of this tax at all and on what it makes over the minimum it pays from 30 to 80 per cent. If our corporations need more than 10 per cent net, if they need 50 to 100 per cent to stimulate their production, isn’t it high time that we feund some other reasonable means of getting our work done? The farmers are asked to carry on their business for less than cost of production. Labor is asked to work for wages under living costs to keep down the cost of living. Their conditions get worse instead of better. Why then should we THE GHOST OF NOVEMBER, 1920 2 g P —Drawn expressly for the Leader by W. C. Morris. It makes no distinction between earned and un- . tolerate sabotage by Wall street to get more than 10 per cent net? The argument that the taxes are shifted is likewise far from the truth. Monopolistic corporations have forced their prices just as high as they could and they would have been just as high had there been no excess profits tax. The steel trust doubled its - prices in 1916 before we had this tax. Does anybody really be- lieve that a monopolist waits for higher taxes to put up the prices of his products? If Wall street were not paying out its own money for the excess profits tax there would be no agitation for its removal. AMATEUR AMERICANIZATION WORK HE “100 per centers” who are carrying on a campaign of “Americanization” among foreigners, accompanied with black newspaper headlines and heated speeches about the menace of “radical” propaganda among immigrants, will soon calm down, forget their “mission” and be forgotten. Meanwhile the real workers who are helping us to assimilate our foreign popula- tion will continue without brass bands to “carry on” and to get results, just as they did long before our recent converts to Amer- icanization plans took the stump. It is interesting to learn what the real social and community workers, trained for the work to which they are devoting their lives, living in foreign colonies and proceeding with infinite pains and kindness, think of the politicians and other patriotic amateurs who have so suddenly decided to take up social and community work among foreigners. ~ Answers to a questionnaire on the subject of the present un- rest sent social workers in a number of industrial centers throw light on the subject. These thorough and patient workers are finding their efforts hampered and nullified by the loud talk and rough-shod methods of the “100 per centers.” Not a few com- plain specifically of the effect in foreign colonies of the “red raids” against foreigners, of the newspa- per exaggeration of alleged ‘“for- eign radical plots,” and many ex- plain the bad effect in their com- munities of the interference by the police and government with the rights of free speech and peaceful assemblage. The following expressions are not from Socialists, Bolsheviki or “radicals,” but are typical of what the real social workers think of the present amateur bungling: The last irritation that has been perpetrated upon our community is “Raid for Reds.” No matter what you may think of the law that was being enforced in this crude and raw manner, the enforcement was so outrageous and so unjust that it will take years to overcome the im- pression. “It is like Russia,” “It is like Prussia,” they are saying and thinking in such neighborhoods as ours.—MARY E. McDOWELL, Uni- versity of Chicago Settlement, Chi- cago. My neighborhood is largely in- habited by a foreign population. For- eign populations are in disrepute with department of justice agents, who have arrested hundreds of them and held a few; one of whom, a girl in one of my clubs told me, was a “poor schlemiel with a wife and chil- dren;” another, so a union official told me, was a harmless, half-witted tailor who had failed to secure his naturalization papers because he could not understand the judge’s questions.—JESS PERLMAN, Jewish Educational Alliance, Baltimore. Worthy of special mention is the suppression of the right of assembly and free speech; another use of force, another relic of war necessity, pro- ductive of profound unrest. There is an undercurrent of feeling that our democracy hds failed —G. A. BELLAMY, Hiram House, Cleveland. HE growth of municipal responsibilities illustrates the irresistible drift of public affairs. The democratic ideal is being worked out through municipalities. We need some stimulus to quicken our sense of the value of mutual helpfulness. Some day men will awake to the immense pos- 31b1_11t1es of corporate action and the community will find sal- vation, not in the patronage and gifts of the wealthy, but in the combined and intelligent efforts of the people themselves. —THE LORD MAYOR OF MANCHESTER. PAGE SIX | ad. > L A T = ,é.._- = ¥ + Rl S oY, L S he, A4 008 ; 3 v v . » t 4 4 4 r - L & = 4