EDITORIALS
THE DEMOTION OF FOWLER CANNON'S revenge in demoting the insurgent Republicans of the House from their committee positions is of double aspect. It looks both to the past and the future. The case of...
...In this connection the American Press Association was mentioned in a letter signed by a Mr...
...The Farmers' Yearbook ONCE a year the Department of Agriculture at Washington publishes a book containing matter of very great importance to farmers...
...But it has some work to be done which is in the regular jurisdiction of this Committee...
...Quite naturally, too, he was appointed Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency, of which he had not even been a member...
...The destruction of our great forests...
...It works this way: If a corporation, entrenched in special privileges, finds its hold upon these privileges threatened seriously by an association of people who have banded together the better to protect their own rights, and open fighting proves ineffective, it does not lose heart...
...Some of the adventures in the Fairyland of Science therein set forth are quite as entertaining and thrilling as the travels of Marco Polo...
...We have seen how one corporation got what it wanted by corrupting a judge...
...Grant, and the question was asked, "Is this Mr...
...Notwithstanding this indisputable fact and the many recommendations made by the several Comptrollers, there has been practically no amendment of the law since the passage of the original bank act of February 25, 1863, which can be said to have had for its object the particular welfare of the depositor...
...Disease bacteria in milk, and how to get rid of them...
...We have found proof in another great city that public indignation against corruption may be diverted by the subtle use of four small words: "It is hurting business...
...How to prevent roads from getting dusty...
...What happens to chicken meat if it is kept long in cold storage...
...These men had the support of the rank and file of the association, when once they had made the issue plain...
...The new Yearbook for 1908 has just appeared...
...Read a Wall Street paper, or the circulars sent out over the country every day by Wall Street institutions, and you will be advised that the time is at hand, now that the tariff is out of the way, for a re-organization of our banking and currency system...
...They concern all of us...
...It was so taken up and passed, Fowler and some other Progressive Republicans voting against it, and it became the innocuous appendage of the Aldrich-Vreeland bill of the last Congress...
...Big Business Methods MANY things have transpired recently to give us an insight into the methods of Big Business...
...The "System" is very anxious to have this work put through in the regular way and without a hitch, because the next House may be Democratic...
...There are those who are not yet familiar with the Yearbook, but would like to be...
...The Department announces that it "is similar in plan and scope to its predecessors...
...It simply changes its tactics...
...Here are a few of the topics written about and profusely illustrated in the last Yearbook: Does it pay the farmer to protect the birds...
...Grant the John H. Grant who is treasurer of the American Press Association...
...To others it is a veritable wonderbook, unfolding many of Nature's life-secrets that have never before been revealed to the human mind...
...Webb outlined in his presidential address before the Social and Educational League, and which he laid before Liberals and Conservatives, Democrats and Aristocrats, Trade Unionists and Capitalists, Socialists and Individualists as a task upon which, in spite of their differences of opinion, they might all unite...
...It is hoped by the System that this program will be ready and can be put through during this Congress...
...With these things in mind it is somewhat startling to read in Lynn Haines' article, printed on another page of this magazine, about another method employed by Big Business to maintain its hold upon the public...
...This method is secret and insidious...
...The Fowler bill was never allowed to come to a vote in the House...
...We see almost every day fresh evidence of the cleverness with which seekers after special privilege shape public sentiment to their own ends...
...They were successful...
...But your Senator and your Member of Congress are given some for distribution among their constituents...
...We may or may not agree with the credit currency plan of the Fowler currency bill, but we must admit that its provisions for strengthening bank reserves and requiring that they be kept in real money and providing a depositors guarantee fund for national banks were surely aimed in the direction of needed legislation of the kind Mr...
...It is officially named the Yearbook, though it is familiarly referred to around the Capitol and the Government Printing Office as "The Ag...
...The kind of legislation wanted by the "System" was some more of the kind which Kane said Congress had been passing all along in the "interest of greater latitude or privileges to the banks...
...Diseases of ornamental trees and how to cure them...
...Playground Associations, in showing the social importance of play, are laying the foundation for a National Minimum of Recreation, while Public School Art Associations in demonstrating that beauty is a necessary element in the sane and normal life are paving the way for a National Minimum of Beauty of Environment...
...Here is the secret of the unusual popularity of the Yearbook...
...Introduction of delicious new fruits in the United States...
...They had Vreeland of New York,—not a member of Fowler's Committee,—introduce it, and the next day, by arrangement with Cannon, he introduced a resolution discharging the Committee on Banking and Currency from consideration of the bill and providing that it should be immediately taken up in the House and, after debate limited to two hours and a half on a side, put upon passage...
...He had some scruples, too, which would not permit him to run his committee as a mere legislative agency of the "plunder-bund...
...The Wall Street panic of the fall of 1907 started every statesman and near-statesman discussing money and banking...
...They are George S. Loftus and James Manahan, both of Minneapolis...
...It failed because there happened to be among the members a few men who understood what was the trouble, and who set about determinedly to remove the cause...
...Upon investigation we find that John H. Grant has not been treasurer of the American Press Association since February, 1907, and there is no ground for confusing the identity of this Mr...
...But their success was dependent in large measure upon the loyal co-operation of these men: Joseph Timmons, Kenton, O., C. S. Bash, Fort Wayne, Ind., E. D. Rundell, Towanda, Pa., George C. Warren, Saginaw, Mich., Jesse Gregg, Atlanta, Ga., Charles S. Springer, Marovia, N. Y., R. E. Priest, Pittsburgh, Pa., E. Wilkensen, Birmingham, Ala., j. A. jennings, Lynchburg, Va., and F. D. Vories, Neogia, Ill...
...It would not matter much who was Chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee if the "System" did not have work for it to do...
...If so, it is worth having...
...No one has had better opportunities to observe from an impartial and disinterested standpoint the practical operation of the banking laws and to note their weak features in regard to the security of creditors than the respective Comptrollers of the Currency...
...Deputy Comptroller Kane, who has been the real works of that office during the comings and goings of any number of Comptrollers and who knows the fiscal situation without looking it up in a book, handed an interview to the Washington Post in which he diagnosed the real trouble with brevity and directness...
...Kane shamed Congress for its failure to enact...
...Obviously Fowler could not be Chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee at such a time...
...It shows that the devious methods of Big Business can be set at naught if people once get into action...
...And it was an interesting program that of the "formulation and enforcement of a National Minimum" which Mr...
...Government reports are, for the most part, dry-as-dust and uninspiring...
...To such we gladly extend the information that it is free to all citizens...
...It is a practical farm manual, a text-book, a picture portfolio, a natural history, a guide to popular science, and an almanac of facts—all included within the same covers...
...Although published primarily (as the requirements state) for the farmers, still it is not denied to others...
...Two men bore the brunt of this contest to rid the association of railroad control...
...Fowler did not believe in any more of this kind of legislation and naturally his committee did not initiate it...
...Burton of Ohio, then Congressman, now Senator, deplored in the House that it was not possible to put through the House currency legislation on the initiative of the Banking and Currency Committee...
...Grant with that of Arthur H. Grant who is connected with the Municipal Ownership Publicity Bureau, and furthermore, that the American Press Association has no connection whatever with the Municipal Ownership Publicity Bureau or the matter it sends to newspapers, except that it manufactures and ships the plates which the Municipal Ownership Publicity Bureau sends to newspapers...
...The Secretary is required to get out this book in such form as to be "specially suited to interest and instruct the farmers of the country...
...He did, however, interest himself in legislation which "had for its object the particular welfare of the depositor...
...We may, in fact, put all our civic and social activities to this test: Are they tending to establish values which may in time be embodied in the National Minimum, the necessary basis for any stable form of society...
...These are subjects that come near to everyday life...
...We were given a few revelations during the special session of Congress called to revise the tariff...
...To the practical farmer it is a guide, counselor and friend, opening up to him long vistas of knowledge about his own calling...
...Food and diet in the United States...
...It is as universally interesting and as readable as many of the ten-cent magazines...
...We have observed how skillfully the people of a great city were befuddled by public utility sophistry into turning down an official who was fighting their own fight...
...Relations between Fowler and the Cannon regime, for a long time strained, came to an open breach during the days of the hatching of the so-called "emergency currency legislation" in the spring of 1908...
...The American Press Association IN LA FOLLETTE'S WEEKLY of July 10th, Mr...
...The chief cause of this was that Fowler was chairman of the Committee...
...Then suddenly the members wake up to the fact that the fighting has stopped...
...Instead the leaders got together and concocted a bill that was in accord with financial legislation of the past...
...But in this case, for once, the method proved ineffective, in the end...
...William Kittle, in his second article on "The Making of Public Opinion," referred to the Municipal Ownership Publicity Bureau and the manner in which that bureau supplied matter to newspapers...
...Such organizations as the Public Health Association and the Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, which are seeking to determine the amount of space, air, sunlight, and cleanliness necessary for health, are determining the values upon which a National Minimum of Sanitation could be based...
...Consumers' Leagues which are investigating the effect of long hours of labor upon physical vigor are determining values which may finally find expression in a National Minimum of Leisure...
...To many people the yearly coming-out of this book is an event...
...It has an appeal for every person—city or country bred—who finds a fascination in the processes by which Man assists Mother Earth in feeding and making strong the race...
...It does not abandon the fight...
...Their success is of far greater import than it may at first appear...
...Let's see if this is not so...
...But the policy of a National Minimum will serve to guide and to direct the work of others than statesmen and politicians, for the Minimum must be determined by experience, must be a composite of values that have been tested and proved, and there are many agencies at work testing and proving social values...
...How the pure food law is enforced...
...How the adulteration of foods is detected by use of the microscope...
...and with a new Speaker, the House Committee would not be organized to "work with Aldrich...
...It reaches a much wider circle of readers than those who are on the farms...
...Fowler was Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency...
...As a matter of course, Vreeland was appointed by Cannon to head the House contingent of the Aldrich monetary commission...
...The National Minimum THAT is a good term of Sidney Webb's, "The National Minimum," coined for the purpose of conveying the idea that there is level below which a Nation cannot afford to allow any of its citizens to sink, that there is a minimum of sanitation, for example, of education, of recreation, and of leisure, which, in the interest of all, must be assured to every individual citizen...
...Teaching weather forecasting in the public schools...
...The men who led the movement within the hay association to oust the undesirable officials arid put in new ones pledged to a continuance of the fight, are deserving of great credit...
...Webb says, "inspire, and guide and explain the statesmanship and politics of the Twentieth Century...
...He was appointed to "work with Aldrich" to "frame up" a currency program that will suit the high-finance needs of Wall Street banking...
...The case of Fowler of New Jersey is a good illustration...
...Not so the Yearbook...
...The fact that he was one of the Progressives who voted against the re-adoption of the old Cannon rules at the beginning of the present Congress is only incidental...
...therefore doubly effective...
...A letter to one of them will undoubtedly bring back to your hands a well-bound, attractive volume, rich in wholesome and interesting farm lore— an excellent companion for the long evenings of next winter...
...But even these circum-staces would not warrant Cannon in stirring up a storm of criticism just to "get even...
...This is what he said: "While numerous have been the recommendations of the eleven Comptrollers who have presided over the affairs of the Currency Bureau since its establishment, which, in the judgment of each, would have increased the security of the depositors and creditors of the banks, practically none has been enacted into law or has received the serious consideration of the legislative branch of the government...
...It is not a new idea, of course, for even in its unformulated condition, the policy of a National Minimum has been responsible for compulsory education laws, laws limiting the hours of labor, sanitary codes, and other legislation by which men and women are prevented from falling or, perhaps it would be better to say, from being forced into conditions in which they would be menace to their fellow-beings...
...The English will content themselves by reflecting that if a man can fly from Calais to Dover he also can fly from Dover to Calais.—Chicago Post...
...And the book loses nothing of attractiveness because it contains a record of scientific achievements instead of a chronicle of the imagination...
...These are the real facts behind the demotion of Fowler...
...Secretly and mysteriously it gets a hold on the organization of the association...
...Of the fifty-four acts amendatory of the original enactment which have been adopted since that date, practically all have been in the interest of greater latitude or privileges to the banks...
...Of course the "System" would have none of it...
...This is what happened in the National Hay Association...
...Only 500,000 copies are printed, which of course is not enough to go around...
...He was a student and a recognized authority on banking and currency...
...But if formulated and frankly recognized and accepted by society the policy would be still more effective in promoting beneficient legislation and would, as Mr...
...Some of those in Washington recklessly charged banking evils to inefficiency in the administration of the office of Comptroller of the Currency...
...We are indebted to the sugar trust for a very illuminating object lesson in a sure way to create and maintain a monopoly...
...It does this—and more...
Vol. 1 • August 1909 • No. 34
