The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1919-08-28
PUSHING
BOLSHEV|K
CAMP PA|GN
Banker Returns from Trip
Through West With Alarm
ing View Of Situa-
tion.
SAYS CRISIS Is AT HAND
Pac!so Coast In Particular, Is Afiame
With Radical Activities and
Revolutionary
Threats.
SAYS CRISIS Is AT HAND

UNITED Press Leased Wire Service.]
NEW YORK, Aug. 28.-Lewis M.
Pierson, head of the Irving National
bank and a director Of the Chamber OF
Commerce Of the United States. fol-
lowing trip throughout the west to
investigate industrial conditions. today
gave an interview to the United Press,
in which his Impressions were as fol-
lows:
Radicals are openly advocating revo-
luton.
Business men seem Indifferent to or
ignorant of the facts
No real effort is being made to
answer bolshevik propaganda.
Apparently shrewdly conducted
and amply financed bolshevik cam
paign aims at the overthrow OF the
government.
A crisis is at hand.
1t calls for national action.
Pierson made the trip in his capa-
| city as director Of the Chamber OF
! Commerce Of the United States. Reply
| ing to questions asked by the United
Press, he said:
"The outstanding feature Of the
| trip was on the one hand the evidence
we found Of an extraordinary amount
of revolutionary propaganda abroad
in the country, and on the other hand
the amazing lack OF effort to combat
the dangerous teachings.
1.-THE Pacific coast, in particular, is
aflame with radical activities. 1t Is
noticeable all the way from Los An
geles to Seattle. This issue Is not
merely over the proper relationship
between labor and capital
"Yet nearly everywhere business
men and sound thinkers appear in
different or else bewildered. Mean
| while the neglect to oppose this des-
tructive campaign has resulted IN
! many small property owners and
farmers being swept into the bolshe-
vik current.
TN one western city we were told
that the only printed arguments
against bolshevism to be found in the
| book stores were the Bible and the
/ constitution OF the United States. Yet
| in one Of these stores at least fifty
books and pamphlets were purchased
all advocating bolshevism and urging,
without mincing of words, resort to
force to overthrow the existing order.
"The fact that conditions are so
acute on the Pacific coast apparently
/ grows out of the extraordinary wages
paid by the government to sh1pyaro
workers and others employed in pro-
ducing war necessities
ut is the same disease that affects
our industries throughout the nation.
Under the spur of producing great
quantities of war materials, 1t was
/ easy for wage adjustment boards to
! find a motive to order increases IN
| wages.
Manufacturers, knowing they could
add the wage increases to their cost
of production, readily paid the ad'
vances. Ordinary domestic business
| in competition with war industries and
war activities paying excessive wage
scales, were forced to follow suit.
"The cumulative effect was the
stepping up of labor costs, production
costs and selling prices In all lines
each successive wage increase result
ing In a corresponding rise in the cost
Of living.
Huge mass meetings are beine
held at which laborers are being toie
that they are entitled as matter o.
right to their abnormal wages-anc
very much more. Ordinary laborers II
many cases are receiving more wages
than firemen, policemen, many clergy
I men and college educators. We wer'
told Of some cases where professional
! men left their ordinary work in orde
to earn the wages of shipyard Ia
borer.
;. "While conditions were most acut'
IN the Pacific coast the infection Ii
srreading. In a few cases, business
i. men aroused by the danger, are tax
/, ing action. Spokane has started
campaign of education In Mime
/ 1Con+;nuad on page 2)