The Elk Mountain pilot., 1918-03-07
EXPENSIVE AT 81. A YEAR
When the Feeding of Their Friends is
Given Consideration.

puDNc capacity as assistant TO the
Secretary of the Treasury at Wash
ington.
! Robert S. Lovett, president of the
Hartman railroads, which have made
immense sums out of war business.
Percy A. Rockefeller, representa-
tive of the first financial family of
America, whose immense and menac-
ing fortune was amassed thru gov
ernmental corruption and public ex-
tortion.
]. Ogden Armour, head of the meat
trust which was responsible for the
'embalmed beef" scandals in the
Spanish-American war, and which
government Investigators are now
showing to be the most unscrupulous
combination that ever coined profits
out of the nations necessities and
perils.
Robert Dollar-another fitting
name-who is the head of the Dollar
shipping interests. and, who has
chiefly distinguished himself by
fighting the Seamen's law and who
is advocating the employment of Ash
attic coolie labor on ships, and num-
ber of other rich fnanciers whose
fiery patriotism has not made them
averse to making excessive and dis
honorable profits out of their country
and their countrymen while better
men hazard their lives in the coun-
try's cause.
Tho contract which these eminent
patriots made with tho government
was sweet simplicity itself.
The government was to provide
thern with all the money needed to
build the Hog Island shipyard and
Che ships, and the government was
to take over the product of the loan
as full payment.
Tho American International Cor
pc-ation then promptly sublet the
building of the shipyard and the
ships to another corporation organ
ized for that purpose. which Is called
tho American international Ship
building Compan-'-the net result of
all this scheming being to put pros
pective profit of six million dollars
into the pockets of these "patr
who had not invested dollar of
their own money and who were not
called upon to use their time or cred
it or take the risk of losing so much
as a copper cent!
Then what happened?
Why, the subsidiary corporation
H. T..
began to pay out the governments
monev and credit to themselves and
to others with such lavish hands
that the s2l,0OO,OO0 the government
estimated it would have to provide
has been more than spent, and it ap-
pears that from 100000 to $780,
OoO.OOO will be needed to complete
this Hog Island yard-which is no
way near ready for extensive work.
though everybodr who has any sense
at all knows the desperate need of
haste in building new ships if the
war is to be won and not lost.
Senator La Toilette at one time do
clared that rich financiers were be-
hind the war propaganda and that
they wanted war so they and their
kind could make huge profits.
Because he said that. Senator La
Toilette was denounced by these plu-
tocratic patriots" and by all their
newspaper organs as a traitor.
But now these rich rogues of Hog
Island have either proved that La
Toilette was absolutely truthful in
describing their secret motives, or
else that they themselves have turned
rogues and profiteers and virtual
traitors since La Toilette declared
them to be.
And, we ask fairly and frankly, if
La Toilette deserved expulsion from
the senate on the ground that he said
that certain rich financiers wanted
war for profiteering's sake-and said
so falsely, as these men claimed
then, in that case, what do these
rich rogues who have made good Sen
ator La Follette's description of
their motives-and who have endang-
cred the nations cause to satisfy
their own base greed-deserve as
fitting and sufficient punishment?
How do these profiteering rogues
endanger the nations cause?
Why, because every time the mass
of the people SEE, u fiei, profiteer pill
ing up his already unreasonabiy
great riches, and doing that at the
expense of common folks sacrifices,
feelings of resentment and of dis
trust and of encouragement swell
in their hearts.