The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-30
TIME FOR A SHOWDOWN.

WILL opCCShCo HAOANNJ VA and LaFollette, the attack upon the Re publican stronghold of intrenched privi- lege took on new vigor. MT. Davis chal- lenged true Americans to record their verdict as to corruption in office. The issue of honesty in the administration of our affairs may be ignored by the Re- publican spokesmen, but it cannot be ignored by the voters of this country. Either our government must be run in the interests of all without special favor, or it must be turned over to predatory interests for further pillage.
 Therefore, in ringing words, MT. Davis declares:.
 The time has come when the American
 people must consider in sober earnest
 ness the duty that lies before them.
 We have told them that there was no
 escape this year from a verdict on the
 part of the individual voter of approval
 or disapproval of the record of his pub
 lie servants; that he could not, no mat
 ter how he might save his conscience,
 escape the expression of an opinion
 which would be cast either for or against
 honesty in government and fidelity in
 high places * * Unless we are ready
 to give our time, our strength, energy
 and devotion for the sake of the great
 duties of citizenship which weigh upon
 us. we have no right to hope for better
 things in this country.
 It is high time for the American voter to decide whether he is going into fur ther agreement with the Republican party to endorse the license the party has assumed to give the country's re- sources over to loot and the family purse to plunder. That sort of policy is wrong and sooner or later will lead to economic catastrophe, if not social upheaval far graver than that now represented in the LaFollette revolt. The prosperity of this country is not dependent upon the Re- publican methods of pillage. It is not dependent upon high tariff on articles we do not import, but export. It is not dependent upon tariff which levies its memorable private tribute upon the American sugar bowl and the American kitchen and the American pantry. The prosperity of this country is dependent alone upon our productive enterprise and our commercial sagacity. The tariff is not a political question, except for the fact that the Republicans keepiit in poli- tics for the sake of the spoils-ss The peo- pie must condemn that program.
 MT. Davis properly tells the people that his party has no official privileges to sell and no public emoluments to bar ter for the sake of getting into office. As if a deliberate echo, there come back the words of LaFollette solemnly inform ing the people that among the leaders of the Republican campaign are those who collect the million dollars a week in ex- cess sugar levies, owing to the presidents s benevolent forbearance in the matter of reducing the tariff on sugar in accord ance with the recommendations of the Republican tariff commission. MT. Cool 1 idge may be holding back on sugar, be- cause, as MT. LaFollette says, William " Hodges, treasurer of the Republican na- tional committee, is attorney for the Colorado beet sugar interests; William Wrigley, IT,, the largest individual con- tributor to the Republican campaign fund, is president of the Gunnison Sugar Company; Charles B. Warren, chairman of the Republican committee on platform resolutions at Cleveland, is president of the Michigan Sugar Company and the Toledo Sugar Company; Senator Reed Shoot, whose political influence in Utaf and some adjoining states is unequaled owns stock in the Utah-Idaho Sugar Com pany; MT. McCumber, co-framer of the Fordney-McC Cumber tariff itself, activ) in seeking to deliver North Dakota tC Coolidge, is counsel for the American Cane Sugar League. In other words men who are strongest in the support O! MT. Coolidge are men who wrote th' tariff for their own private profit, ant whose financial interests the presiden Apparently regards as of more impor ltance than the interests of the consumer of sugar, that is to say, the American people.
 There is privilege in it's most ominou aspect. Privilege intrenched in govern ment, writing laws for its own profit hiring lawyers to sit in the national coun cils, subverting the functions of govern ment to the private ambition and tn private greed, asks the American peopl
 to continue to bend their necks to tn yoke and to open their family purse freely to private depreciation in the nam of government. Do the American peopl want that2 Or do the American peopl really want that uprightness and honest in government which they have long hel as their ideal? It is time they were mal ing up their minds.
 MUSCLE SHOALS SPECIAL EDITION r On it's first anniversary, the Muscl l Shoals Sunday News appears with spC