The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1917-07-12
Most of the Food Control
Bill Amendments by
Senators
WHO VOTED AGAINST
WAR DECLARATION
"Willful Twelve" in Evil
dence-Country Ris-
ing in Wrath

Washington, July l2--Herbert
Hoover in his letter TO President Wilson
has rendered the clear service of show
ing that the men who have been assas
sinating the food control bill will
amendments in the alleged interests o.
the farmer are playing directly into this
hands OF the food spectators. This i;
the main point in Mr.. Hoover's remark
would hold his wheat for from SD to So
a bushel is put in the same class with
the steel man and the coal operator
against whom the wrath of the dema-
gogues in Congress has been directed, to
the imminent jeopardy of the legisla.
ton. Mr. Hoover has shown the vital
necessity, at this juncture, OF defending
the farmer from his supposed friends
and OF providing a market for him at a
fair price when in the absence of effec-
tive government regulation he will find
himself eventually without any market
at all
Most of the amendments which have
blocked the progress OF the food control
bill have been proposed by men luke
warm over the governments war policy
or positively opposed to it. Some OF
them were members of the notorious
"willful twelve" who voted against the
war resolution and ever since have
sought to embarrass the administration
by forcing discussion of subjects not
germaine to the war bills in hand.
Norris of Nebraska, for example,
would use the food control bill to impose
permanent prohibition on the country.
Gronna OF North Dakota, whose state
has just elected man supported by the
/. w. W. to Congress, would prohibit
the making of beer and wine.
Kenyon of Iowa, where the depart
ment of agriculture announces, to-day,
that more automobiles are owned in pro-
portion to the population than in any
other state in the union, proposes an
amendment to the food control bill which
will disrupt the advisory council of ma
tional defense.
Cummins of the same state, threat
ened a panic in financial circles with an
amendment to confseate the whiskey in
bonded warehouses without compensa-
tion--a proposal involving such breach
OF good faith on the part of the govern
ment that senators were flooded with
kilograms even from the federal reserve
banks, which had discounted paper which
practically bore the government indorse
ment.
Mr.. Hoover makes no reference to
pseudo patriots and economists who are
trying to curry favor at home while ty
ing the hands of the United States in
its fight against Germany, but he does
point the simple fact that unless the |
government steps in, the food Spectator |
must, and that the former cannot afford |
TO be responsible before the country for |
the depredations of the Spectator, who |
milks the farmer with one hand and the |
consuming public with the other.
The country is showing symptoms of |
restiveness under the contemplate |
methods employed in the Senate to en-
nance political regulations at the ex
pense of national security. Georgia is
rising against Senators Hoke Smith and
Hardwick, who have been trying to play
small local games while the president
has been dealing with continents. In
Missouri the same storm of resentment
is raging. Bill Stone is already as good
Al, Io /
ton four years hence and James A.
Reed, although he has Just been sent
back to the Senate, is sorely testing the
temper of his constituents by his opposi-
ton to the president-for not all the
voters of Missouri are meat packers.
Men who have travelled through the
west and south recently declare that,
although those sections entered the war
they are bent on prosecut-
ing it until the kaiser and his satellites
are in the ditch. A million men, some
drawn from every hamlet in the land,
will be soon facing German shells on the
battle lines of France, and God help the
senator or congressman, a year or two
from now, to whom his constituents can
point back and say: He stood in the
way of sending arms and supplies to our
boys"
That is the temper of the American
people to-day with respect to the war,
and It is this temper which the poll
ticisns at the capitol and the pin-head
u price-ixers in the departments are ,
iefying. Already the Senate has been
to withdraw the food control
bill and rewrite it TO get it by the OBJ
.tructors. Even in its new form it is
,reatly Objectionable from the economic I
,oint OF view, because the administra- I
ion leaders have been forced to make =
owardly concessions upon certain points
where Congress lacked either the fore e
light or the courage n vote sensibly. :
But an agreement to vote on the bill {
i've weeks after il is introduced has been
cached. and probably the end Of one of
he most disgraceful episodes in the his
ory Of the American Congress is visible.