New-York tribune., 1917-07-28
Politics and Food
Senate Would Pay Wheat Farmer tor
Voting Right
To III. Editor of The Tribune.

To the Editor of The Tribune
Sir: Are all of the newspapers in the coun-
try now afraid to criticse the Senate 1000
bill? We are flooded day by day with cries
70 cut down the high cost of living, to save
TO conserve. to grow crops and so on, sd nau-
seam, and the Senate then passes bill rais-
ine the cost of -four to $3.50 a barrel at the
minimum, and the farmers may get as much
over 81 bushel for their wheat as they
want to charge, and the government is to ala
them.
Inasmuch as the government fathered TINS
bill and has repeatedly urged its passage
one can only come TO the conclusion that TINS
clause Of the bill is a repayment to the west
ern farmers for the vote cast last election
and the same is made direct charge upon
the Eastern part of the country, which voted
directly opposite. Certainly politics is at
the bottom of such legislation, and excep-
tionslly dirty politics at that. -,
The Administration tried twenty-nine DIFF
ferent measures in order to establish gag
law by which it's conduct OF the war should
not be criticised, and this morning we are
greeted with a proposition that the House
and Senate must not appoint committee 10
oversee the conduct of the war, but the same
must be left entirely in the hands OF the one
man who under the law as it stands may not
be criticised by any one. This is the thir-
tieth attempt at a gag law, and, as every
newspaper and every one else IN the coun-
try seems frightened to death over any criti-
cism of anything the Administration wants,
we are evidently finally to be blessed with
Just what the Administration wants, gag
Law, which will obliterate every right OF free
speech in the country.
Our sons may sicken and die in unsanitary
camps south of Mason and DiXon's line, as
they did in the Spanish War; they may be
fed with embalmed beef or starved at the op-
ton of the government, and II we crlticlse'
away with us to a dungeon-we are unpa-
triotic, we are traitors, and only the admit
tedly inefficient, incompetent officials of the
government are to be protected, while star
vation, insufficiency of food and equipment
and graft are TO be upheld. Outside the
farmer. the business interests of the coun-
try will be at the mercy of any claim Dam
iels or a Baker may make, and any criticism
will be treachery.
Is il not time the business interests OF this
land awoke to the drifting Of conditions at
Washington? Are we to sit down and su-
pinely allow our liberty and free speech TO
be taken from us?
The people must look to their usual chan
nels of expression, the newspapers, and II
they too, are tainted with that wonderful
dread and the same dirty politic1, then the
country is gone, indeed, and it would be bet
ter for all to follow the government mouth
piece James Hamilton Lewis, in his despair
ing cry for peace at yesterdays session.
Otherwise our sons will be murdered
through incompetence, inefficiency and graft,
and our billions frittered away to deserving
Democrats, while we, a great country, are
borrowing rifles from England and cannon
from France, and at the same time are rob-
bing our allies in the price Of wheat to en-
rich the Western farmer who voted the right
way. II is a fine outlook. j. Q. W.
Brooklyn, July "a, 1917.