The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1938-09-08
Observations
from Washington
WHY The Silence
By CONGRESSMAN Knutson

Why The Silence
have been waiting for President
Roosevelt to issue a statement re-
proving his son James for turning
one-half Of his property over to his
wife in order to reduce his income
tax to the government. We well re-
call the bitter statement President
Roosevelt issued against those who
had organized dummy" corpora
lions in order to accomplish the
same thing. Personally, I cannot
see any difference between deciding
one-haf of ones property to anoth
err in order to reduce the income
tax, and setting up a dummy cor
pcration in order to accomplish the
same purpose. Uncle Sam loses
either way. OF course, realize that
it would be hard for a father to
take his son to task for adopting
such evasive measures but it would
seem that as President of the
United States he should treat all
tax evaders alike.
Chiseling On The Needy
President Roosevelt and WPA
Director Hopkins are to be COM
mended for their denunciation of
those who seek to collect money
from people en- relief to be used to
promote political candidates. or de-
feat certain candidates. Those who
engage in this line Of activity de-
serve to be condemned in the
strongest possible terms because 1t
is nothing more or less than play
ing politics with human misery. Ac-
cording to information promoters
of these ticket selling ''rackets" Of
ten divert the money so collected
to their own personal use. The De
partment of Justice should take
cognizance of these d espic a Bile
activities and place the promoters
behind the bars where they belong.
Will Amend Wagner Act
According to Washington news
reports the President has finally
been brought around to the view
that the law creating the National
Labor Relations Board should be
amended so as to make it operate
for peace in industry rather than
promote strife as is now the case.
All who have been unbiased obser-
vers of the actions of the Labor
Board have long since reached the
conclusion that the Board is ex-
tremely partisan, having on every
possible occasion decided in favor
of the c. I. o. as against the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor. Natural
ly, this has not been to the liking
of the latter, nor to employers in
general. To date the CLIO. has had
a free hand in it's activities, no re-
straints having been placed upon
them by the Department of Labor.
This is no doubt due to the fact
that the c. I. o. contributed $780,
900 toward the election of Mr..
Roosevelt in 1886.
This Looks Fishy
The Department of Agriculture
announces that the referendum
conducted among the potato grow
ers CT the nation on the Federal
Potato Marketing Agreement has
failed by 1 % per cent. The law
provides that two-thirds of the
growers in Is states must approve
of the plan before it can be put in
to effect as only IS per cent voted
affirmatively the proposal is at
least dead for the next crop year.
1t is well-known secret that
Secretary Wallace is not so keen
for controlled production, as he was
a while back. I do not know but it
may be that he is nursing presiden-
tial aspirations for 1910.
1 am net keen for reducing pro-
duction and this the potato market
ing agreement did not propose. On
the other hand, as I understand the
proposal, it was to do away with
marketing of inferior grades of po-
tatoes which would just about
solve the surplus potato problem
and result in much better prices for
the grower.
If the marketing agreement Is
put into effect the gov m
should sponsor a movement to erect
alcohol distilling plants at central
points in the potato area to- provide
a market for the rejected potatoes.
This brings me to the bill that I in
troduced last winter to compel the
blending of all gasoline with 10 per
cent commercial alcohol, which
would absolutely solve the farm
problem in so far as the surplus of
potatoes and corn is concerned. 1t
seems to me that this is a m h
more practical way of settling the
surplus problem than the cumber-
some, expensive, and ineffective
Wallace plan to reduce acreage.
There is no valid reason for reduc-
ing production of food and clothing
sc long as millions of our people are
ill-fed and ill-clothed. AS a matter
of fact We will not have reached the
saturation point until everyone has
a sufficiency of all necessities.
Shoe On Other Foot
During the war the legislature
created the Safety Commission, the
memory Of which still fingers with
us like bad odor In the brief
period that the Safety Commission
was in existence 1t acted arbitrarily
ovI &c xx,;<h yooJloe. .n,,o,;A.,