The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-10-16
What Congress VIII Do for Us
(F 1T GETS A CHANCE)
BY BERTRAM D. WOLFE

sessions Just ended and from Mr.. Coo
lidge's repeated statements Of his
program for what he calls farm re-
lief" But Mr.. Smell IS taking no
chances ON being misunderstood SO
he hastsns to add, ain my survey Of
the farm situation l find that the con
dition in the west is now as good as
desired and the republican party VIII
do everything possible consistent with
sound procedure emphasis mine, B.
D. WI to alleviate the condition of
the western agriculturist." What MT.
Smell means by sound procedure his
vote and the vote Of the majority of
the last congress on even such a pitt
fully inadequate measure as the Hau-
gen-McNary Bill clearly indicate.
But let Us return to the order of
business. Next in the ambitious pro-
gram comes the Consolidation of the
Railroads" This means a single
super-railway trust, Of course, under
system Of private ownership, the
disappearance Of the last vestiges of
competition between roads and the
creation Of one powerful railway
suter-trust means that the old railway
motto Of getting from the farmer as
freight rates "all that the traffic will
bear" will be amended 80 as to read
read Just a little more than that"
Next come the annual appropria-
ton bills" Last year they amounted
to about $4,5Oo,OOO at the same time
that Coolidge was blabbing about his
economy. BY economy he means
economy at the expense of the work
ers and poor farmers but a liberal and
free hand when it comes to big busi-
ness and the pork barrel"
The next point in Mr.. SHELLS modest
little program is "a measure to reor-
ganize the prohibition enforcement
unit and strengthen the laws as to
search and border control" This
means another few thousand addition
al shoppers on the already enormous
government payroll When Coolidge
took office, there were 100000 persons
on the payroll Of the national govern
ment and he has since added 20 or
30 thousand more. Taken together,
the national, state and city bureau
cracies, we find that for every ten
men gainfully employed in other In
dustries there is one on the payroll
Of the goYernment-national, state
and local. We have thus the largest
and costliest bureaucracy in the world
and all Coohdge's economy blabb does
not prevent the high cost of govern
ment from being one Of the great bur-
dens upon the farmer and worker in
the United States.
Finally, Mr.. Smell admits that this
Is a short session of congress that is
coming and that time will not permit
him to do everything that big business
requires of him, so his official state
ment, as reported in the press adds
that "the session would be too short
to consider much more than the above
measures. This leaves out the pro-
posal to regulate wage disputes in the
hard coal field and to distribute coal
in case Of strike" In other words, he
promises that measure forbidding
strikes in the coal industries similar
to the Watson-Parker Bill in the rail-
road industry will soon be put across
but big business cannot expect every
thing in one short session of congress.
Moreover this reveals thai congress
is not only planning to outlaw strikes
in the coal fields, but also to break
strikes by distributing coal in case
one should occur. To distribute coal
in order to lessen a coal famine, to
distribute coal at cost in order to
limit the sufferings OF the poor in our
big cities in mid-winter, to distribute
coal In order to break the monopoly
Of the coal trust over this most neces-
sary of products-all this would be,
in the language of Mr.. Smell mater