The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1904-11-04
lUMBERMEN OF STATE ARE DE-
TERMlNED TO STAND BY
DEMOCRATIC TICKET.
Will Join Hands With Eastern Wash
inston Farmers Gin Efforts to
Secure Commission.

BELLINGHAM, Wash, Nov. AID
ditionaI proof that the railroad forces
backing Albert E. Mead are marshall
ing their battalions in opposition to
the forty cent lumber rate fight is
contained in an alleged Seattle dis
patch published in the railroad-owned
Bellingham Reveille, accusing Victor
II. Beckman secretary Of the Pacific
Coast Lumber Manufacturers AssOcia-
ton, of Interior motives in his part in
the lumber rate fight. The dispatch
charges that Mr.. Beckman has been
slated for appointment as member of
the railroad commission by Judge Tur-
ner.
The Mead-railroad forces realize
that Mr.. Mead, by his action with ref
erence to the rate fight has aleniated
from him the support of the leading
lumbermen of the state and they are
now trying to discredit the rate fight
a position on the railroad commission.
Originally the forty cent rate fight
was not a fight for railroad commits
sion. But the opposition of the rail-
road forces to both the commission and
the forty cent rate fight, has convinced
many if not all the leading lumbermen
that the two causes go hand in hand,
and that the commission men and the
1umbermen must join hands in order,
to accomplish anything for either
against the powerful aggressive and
not overly scrupulous railroad lobby
Lumbermen here resent the imputa-
tons of personal motives against Mr.
Beckman, who is one of the most in
dustrious workers in the state for the
advancement of any movement which
will benefit the lumber industry. So
great is the confidence of the lumber
men in his ability, integrity, and sin
cerity in the cause that he has been re-
elected secretary of the association so
many times that lumbermen have
come to concede him a life tenure of
the position while he is willing to re-
tain it.
Up to this time the forty cent rate
fight has been conducted as an indie
pendent movement in politics but the
tactics of the railroads will certainly
have the effect of driving the lumber
men to combine with the commission
men against the railroads. The lum-
bermen appreciate as we'll as the COM
mission men that Mr.. Mead is the can
didate of the railroad companies, and
therefore in sympathy with them as
against the lumber interests. or any
other interests seeking railroad regu-
lation by law. Knowing this as they do
it is childish to suppose that they will
Mead's election. On the other hand
they now fully appreciate that a vote
for Judge Turner is a vote for the
forty cent rate. If they had not ap-
preciated it before this attack Of
railrOad-owned newspaper on their
motives would certainly have con-
WINGED them. (! : ~
/ Mr.. Beckrian resents the imputa-
ton of personal motives in the fight lie
has made and is making on behalf OF
the lumbermen for the forty cent rate.
He said this morning:
The fight for the extension of the
forty cent rate is business fight and
not political one. On account of the
actions of the railroad companies we
have been compelled to carry it into
politics i'll order to accomplish our