Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-10-06
WALSH FLAYS RIDDICK'S RECORD:

! serve that railroadsofficials have never
but one remedy for the situation-cut
wages. They never seem to reflect
on whether expenses could be reduced
by better business management, by the
institution of economies, by a modera-
ton in the price of what they have to
buy-coal, steel rolling stock and
other equipment-or by getting the
great bankers to ease off on the in
terest exacted by them on money the
roads must borrow. Wages are re-
duced, q strike ensues. and then the
: government is importuned to step in
and suppress it through the army and
the courts.
Recent events have evidenced how
influential these interests, allied with
the railroads, are with the administra-
tion- which demanded and secured a
sweeping injunction, justly denounced
in the lengths to which it goes by even
the conservative metropolitan press as
multiplying the Clayton act, labor's Mag
ma Charta. and setting at naught the
constitutional guarantees of liberty,
freedom of speech and the press and
the right of peaceable assembly.
Puts Question to Riddick
1T is not related that the president
has disapproved in n respect the
zeal of his attorney general shown in
the proceedings, which are in keeping
with the spirit of the address made
by him to the congress on the strike on
the 18th of August last. Representa-
tive Riddick conceives that he may as
pire to a seat in the United States
senate as the spokesman of the people
of Montana, than whom no state IN
the Union can boast a more intelligent
and discriminating electorate. lie
hopes to get there by repeated assur-
ances that he will Loyalty support Pres
ident Harding. 1t will be interesting
to learn from him when he comes TO
Great Falls whether he indorses the
Wilkerson Injunction and whether he
will support the administration in case
of an attack upon its policy in refer
ence thereto. OF course, he will. lie
is simply to be a cog in the republican
machine.
ITO return: If freights are to come
down only when wages are reduced,
they must remain where they are until
the cost of living is proportionately
reduced. SO with the other expenses
incident to farming and life on the
farm. Agriculture must go without its
due reward until prices generally fall
to the level of the price of the products
of the farm Congress has just been
legislating to make sure that prices
will not come down That is the end
to be attained by the tariff bill which
has just become the law Its tendency
will be to maintain the present high
level generally and in innumerable in
stances increase the cost of commod-
tiles. the burden imposed upon the
American people being estimated by
oxparfc nf tbn francrrU and tho tariff
commissions at not less than $1,000
600 600 annually
No Item Escanes
CAS- said by the Locomotive Engi-
neer's Journal. There is not q labor
er's pocketbook, there is not a family
| cupboard that the bill does not penal
ize." Not an article of household use
or of necessity upon the farm escapes.
There is scarcely a plundering trust
that is not protected against foreign
competition that might scale down its
profits. The aluminium trust, for in
stance. at the head of which is Mr..
Mellon, secretary of the treasury, pro-
ducing an article extensively used in
the manufacture of household utensils,
automobiles and innumerable other
things of common use. is shielded
against competition from abroad by a
duty of 8 cents a pound on its prod
uct. though it has a monopoly of the
domestic market, no competitor what
ever. and the tariff commission re
ports that it can produce as cheaply as
anyone, anywhere.
Steel Trust Levies Tribute
The steel trust gets an opportunity
to levy tribute on the American people
on all its infinite variety of prod
-,+c SnnIrlinn fnr ipCtonco Hvipo for
fencing. nails. etc. on which a duty of
% per cent is imposed-an increase
of 40 per cent over the present rate
though the production is enormous
and the importations are negligible,
showing that they can undersel he
foreigner now. The advance will give
them an opportunity to shove up their
prices, which they will doubtless pro-
coed to do. Wire for baling hay is
burdened a half cent a pound. Nails,
now on the free list. were made duti-
able at 30 per cent ad valorem by the
bill as it came from the house, but
the farm bloc scared the old guard
plotting the bill in the senate, SO that
the rate was reduced to 10. Chains
are taxed a. per cent. though the tariff
commission reports that we can hold
our own against the world in their
manufacture.
The law banishes all hopes of a re-
ductiOn in the prices Of most commodi-
ties of consumption or use in the
household or on the farm.
but that is only a part. and not
the worst part, of the deal it gives
the farmer.
The price of most of what he has
to sell depends upon the demand made
by the foreign market. When Europe
stopped buying in the summer of 1920,
the crash came. Our exports of meat
products for 1921 were 400, 900, 900
pounds less than in 1920.
One of the leading agricultural pa
pers of the country is Farm and Home,
published in Chicago under the anne
management as the Northwest Farm
stead of Minneapolis and the Dakota
Farmer of Aberdeen, S. D., the three
having a circulation of approximately
100000 In its issue of August Z, 1922.
in an article entitled international
Scandal in Low Prices of Wheat
that goes TO the bottom of the prob
lem, namely. the inability of Europe to
pay for our surplus foOdstuffs in con
sequence Of which $50, 000, 900 bushels
of American wheat that normally GO
abroad are backed up, for the larger
part, upon the American market.
Congress Is Blind to Situation
"And then it adds. Congress is blind
IN the situation. The higher il builds