The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-04
SHOALS IN THE BALANCE

SHOALS IN THE BALANCE
 The fate of Muscle Shoals hangs in the balance. The house has approved the Ford offer, and the senate is pledged to act on the same measure. Meanwhile various substitute devices are put for ward whereby both the Ford offer and the public good may furnish double sac rifice. And yet there is no doubt that every substitute plan, ranging from mere sale of the power to government opera tion of the chemical plants, falls a degree short of the Ford offer. This offer many are now pleased to call dead, because of MT. Ford's informal with drawal of it. It is not dead, however, except for such would-be mortal blows as its self-seeking enemies have tried to deal it. There is still the same plan, which the senate may endorse and ask Ford to accept.
 Those who are sincerely at sea in the midst of all the conflicting views as to the virtue Of the Ford plan should read the trenchant and informing articles Sem ator Ladd has been contributing to the Saturday Evening Post, two of which have already appeared and third is forthcoming. Is there more than blind faith in the popular support of the Ford offer, and is there any genuine concern for the public welfare in the organized opposition to Ford's offer? Senator Ladd's analysis completely. answers those questions.
 Let us take for comparison the indus trial records of MT. Ford and of the chem ical trust, which was so intolerantly and anxiously arrayed against him. Accord- ing to the figures given by MT. Ladd, the price of Ford cars has declined from $950 in 1908 to $295 in 1923, and that, too, while being bettered in many ways. Dur ing this same period the average wage paid at the Ford plants has increased from $2.25 to $6.62 per day. As Sem ator Ladd comments: "The farmer knows that this price reduction was not forced upon MT. Ford by any of his competitors. He knows that the reductions have been made voluntarily, while at the same time MT. Ford has been paying the highest wages paid anywhere in the automobile industry. Any man who can master the science of mass production as MT. Ford has mastered it, and reduce the price of his product 69 per cent. while increasing the average daily wages of his men by 194 per cent, is serving the common peo- pie of this country as few men have served them"
 And what, by way of comparison, has the chemical trust, which together with the water-power trust has done so much to obstruct this great enterprise, done for the farmers of America and the com mon people? According to Senator Ladd, 'the National Aniline and Chemical Com pany, owned by some of the largest in- terests fighting the Ford offer, was cap italized in 1917 with $25, 100000 pre- ferred and $25,000,O00 common stock, and eighteen months later that company had been able to set aside for plant de- preciation, obsolescence, federal taxes, and so on, sum equal to their entire common stock, or about $25, ,000,000." But, not content with this enormous over plus earning, the representatives of this trust declared before congressional com mittees that the tariff of 30 per cent. ad valorem, plus five cents pound, al- ready in effect, was not sufficient, in spite of the then-existent embargo on foreign dyes. So in 1922, this exclusive industry, perhaps the most far-reaching trust in the world, was further protected by a new tariff of 60 per cent. ad val orem, plus seven cents pound!
 The price of dyes and fertilizers has remained exorbitantly high, and huge profits have gone to the exploiters, who, fearful for their inflated prices, have determinedly sought to keep Ford from entering their field and bringing prices down where they belong, while at the same time keeping wages up. And what actual investment has this gigantic trust now at stake? Absolutely none, if we are to accept Senator Ladd's positive statement that: "In one hand we have this dye industry, owned by the powerful  Eastern financial interests, with its war built plants long snce paid for out of wartime profits, securing this remarkable aid at the expense of the American people in the name of national defense; on the other hand we have the Ford offer to establish nitrogen industry for the pro- duction of the nitrogen that is absolutely necessary for every pound of our military explosives, and of the greatest benefit to agriculture as well"
 Why is 1t that the chemical trust is subsidized by tariff and monopolistic right which levies annually upon the American people nobody knows how many unearned millions, while Henry Ford is denied the right to enter this field on a | l. -z1..r