Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1919-12-17


taxes farm improvements and put the |
burden of government where it be- |
longs, upon speculative values, to es-
tablish bank and provide credit for |
merchants, farmers and home-bullders |
at the cost of providing the credit
They have discovered that they can |
establish coal mines, transportation !
lines, packing plants, -four mills and
bakeries, and that in all these enter
prises they can at the same time in
crease the income of the workers and
cut the final selling prices, which they
pay for the means by which they live,
in the public markets.
Getting Into the Swim.
The American Federation of Labor
so long voting to stay out of politics,
has at last adopted a program which
can only be carried out by gettings
into politics. The plumb plan" ex-
cludes private ownership from the
railways, and just as the private own
er goes out, introduces into railway
management the voice Of the workers
in the railway service. The miners
have followed suit" have determined
upon a similar pain for operating
mines, It is reasonable to expect that
>
| employees, and all the other workers
will make similar demands, each of
them within their own territory.
| What Of the Future?
| The Nonpartisan league has led the
way The same monopolies which rob
the farmers in the prices paid them
for the products and in the prices
charged them for their supplies, are
the very monopolies which rob the
workers in the wages paid them for
their services and in the prices
charged them for their supplies. Be-
cause the enemies Of each are the
enemies Of both, they belong together.
The fighting program of the labor
parties, as proposed in this country
and as they exist in other countries,
and the fighting program of the Non
partisan league, are so near alike that
who ever could support the one could
not withhold support from the other.
While the spokesman for the old
POLITICAL organizations are wrangling
over the forms of an impossible in
ternati0nal compact, the workers in
all of the countries are supporting pro-
grams within their own countries
| which, if once adopted within the lead.
ing nations Of the earth, will make an
end of the possibility of war between
any of the nations. The world war
, just fought, Mr.. Wilson tells us, and
he tells us very truly. was not polit-
ical war but an industrial war, com
mercial war, a war for trade advan.
tages, war for markets.
There can be produced within the
boundaries of the United States all OF
) the things needed for the fullest life
= of all of the people. If the prices paid
for producing this wealth were high
enough to enable the producers to buy
back their products for their own uses,
there would be no need for foreign
, market. There would be no poverty
at home, there would be no unemploy
t ment, there would be no strikes, there
!! would be no lockouts and no tempta,
1 ton to produce millionaires at home
through the ruin of the industries OF
; other competing countries.
! It has been seen in the previous
l chapter that exactly this result did
r follow in New Zealand while under
? the control of a Labor party during
. the last 10 years of the nineteenth
! century. Let this condition be made
permanent in any one of the great
! countries, and it will become inevi
: table in all of the countries. Then
; foreign trade will mot enrich one
{ country by running the industries OF
. another. It will enrich all countries
J + for then the men who created the ex
/! ports by their labor will be able to buy
J the imports with their wages. Elk
changes viii take place for mutual