The Omaha morning bee. [volume] (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927, 1923-01-27
Norris Attacks
Henry FordOffer
in Hot Statement
Charges Gray Silver, Lobbyist
for Farm Federation, Aid.
ing Flivver King in Mus.
Gle Shoals Project.
BY GEORGE +. AUTHIER.
II gsshiprtOu Corrcspopdent The Omaha Rec

Washington Correspondent The Omaha Bee.
Washington, Jan. 26.-tSpeciaL)-
Muscle Shoals and the Henry Ford
offer burst into the limelieht at the
capital today when Bernard M. Ba.
ruch urged conditional acceptance of
the Ford offer, and Senator Norris
of Nebraska issued a red hot state
ment attacking Gray Silver of the
American Farm Bureau federation
for saying the Ford offer should be
accepted because it assured reduc.
tion in the price of nitrogen for fer
tilizer.
Mr.. Baruch told the committee that
Mr.. Ford should make guarantees on
the subject of fertilizer and that if
he agreed to produce 10000 tons OF
nitrogen fertilizer annually. the offer
should be accepted. He acknowledged
no such agreement was contained in
the present Ford offer. Failing the
offer. the former. chairman. Of the
war industries board said the project
should be completed and operated by
the government. provided M better
private. offer was forthcoming.
Norris Pans Silver.
Relative to the Gray Silver state
ment issued yesterday, Senator Nor.
ris said:
II have read the statement of Mr..
Gray Silver, the legislative represen-
tative in Washington of the American
Farm Bureau federation, in which
he says that by authorization Of con-
gress the price of nitrogen used as
fertilizer in this country can be re-
duced three -fourths,' and then he ar.
CUES that all congress would have to
do to bring about this wonderful re-
duction in fertilizer would be to ac-
cept the offer of Mr.. Ford to take over
the government property at Muscle
Shoals, Ala.
Mr.. Silver is trying to deceive the
American farmer by injecting into the
Ford offer something that Is not the
truth. Mr.. Fords offer makes no
such guaranty and offers no such
promise and Mr.. Silver knows that
the implication he is trying to draw
from Mr.. Fords offer is absolutely
untrue. Then he holsters up his mis-
representation by quoting from the
report Of an engineer employed by
Mr.. Bernard Baruch to investigate
the Muscle Shoals proposition.
Stresses Ford Guaranty.
'In prior representations that Mr..
Silver has circulated among the farm
ers of America he has laid stress
on what he claims to be a personal
guaranty of Mr. Ford, binding the
Ford estate and his heirs to carry out
the provisions of his offer in refer
ence to the manufacture of nitrogen
from the air, and yet, in his very
statement of today where he attempts
to back up his own testimony by the
report Of Mr.. Baruch's engineer. 1t
will be noted that this engineer says.
YOU will note in Mr.. Fords offer. that
the liability behind his proposition is
probably limited to his s10,00O,O 600
company.
His personal guarantee does not
seem to extend further fhan this, nor
does he commit his heirs and assigns
beyond this. There is protection in
case the contract is violated, but this
protection will evidently be limited to
the assets of the corporation.
"Those of us who have opposed the
acceptance of Mr.. Ford's offer in the
past have often been severely criti.
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