Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1920-09-01
OUR WASf1INGTONLETTER

Washington, D. C.-President Com
pers of the American Federation OF
Labor warns the country that the
shutdown in large industries all over
the country are a part Of the polit-
deal plot. 'The purpose" says Mr..
Golnpers, lis obviously to brighten the
laboring men and women You will
continue to see evidence of it from
now until election"
Perhaps it would be nearer correct
to say that it happens that two big
business motives are served by these
shutdowns in iron and steel manufac-
ture, automobile manufacture, wooden
manufacture, etc. While they may
be of considerable value as a club
over labor, which suddenly finds it.
self without bread ticket for the
| family, they also enable the trusts
! to maintain their outrageous pricek
by shutting off normal supply. This
suspension of work, which if prac-
ticed by labor would be called sabo.
tage, enables large business to beat
! down the prices of raw materials,
(which it should now be buying from
the farmers, such as cotton and wool,
while it keeps up it's own profits
Through scarcity prices to the con-
Stunning public
i EXCHANGE DROPS
"a period of financial depression"
says Julius Barnes, formerly govern
ment grain corporation head, lis be-
coming felt throughout the United
States. Business is generally due to
| receive a sharp set back. 1t is al
ready seriously apparent in some of
our large INDUSTRIES
Barnes sees the failure to pick up
foreign trade as a principal factor,
and this undoubtedly has much to do
with adverse farm prices. London
exchange has dropped to 1854 the
lowest in many months. But it is
impossible to tell how much of this
is due to natural causes and how
much to artificial depreciation to en-
able foreign buyers to get our farm
products at low prices.
WHY ROADS FAILED
"Separate operation Of the railroads
lin private hands," says William B
|Colver of the federal trade commits
lsion, utterly broke down when the
strain of war was thrown upon them
Five or six boards of railroad execu
tives attempted one after another, un
successfully, to meet the war load anC
lone by one each board failed dismally
1.-THE roads went back into private
Ihands, and separate operation being
resumed, broke down again in les!
than 80 days.
| 1T is easy to interpose as an ex
PLANTATION that on March / the rail
road administration turned back thu
lroads as mere piles of junk, but thu
Figures do not bear out this state
| 'ment
"The percentage of locomotives fl
| for service at the end of government
operation was greater than it was a
the same time in 1915 and the per
centage of cars in repair and fit TO-
service was likewise in favor OF tn,
railroad administration.
| Under unified operation in 1918
and with substantially the SAM
equipment, the railroad administra
tion freight tonnage was 4O3 billion
las against 277 billion tons in 1915 un
| der separate, private operations
II Il hope that when the United
Estates buys $200,000,0o of new
equipment for the railroads tina
! equipment will not be used that way
I hope cars will be charged to tn
road on whose tracks they go at
fair but stiff rental for each day.
hope that higher demurrage charge
mounting swiftly to severe penalties
will compel the shipper to load AM
unload with all speed. I hope recon
signment will be limited strictly to it
possible.
AS single instance of such abus,
! / hear of 100 cars of coal held on sid
lngs near a coal-hungry city an,
awaiting reconsignment of the highes
bidder. This coal was held so lon,
that on some cars 81 ton of demur
rage had accumulated This demur
rage, to be paid in the end by the con
sumer, represents dead loss and ;
holding out of use of badly needed
coal cars
1T is using coal cars as poker chip
instead of using them for transporta
ton"
i OUR COLONIAL POLICY
Franklin D. Roosevelt, now assist
ant secretary of the navy and candi
date for the vice presidency, has beer
Dragging about writing the ~constitu
ton for Haiti in his campaig1
speeches. A first class politician
would have known better than t,
make such a statement, because tn,
American citizen as rule believes
that the only persons who shoult
make a constitution for a people ar,
these same people, But Roosevelt
does not do more than hint at the &C
tunl truth of our government of small
countries we have recently seized.
II he had told the whole truth. h,
would have told the public that he no
l-only wrote the constitution FIR Holt