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M«(MPP<MIHIP PSP MeansFarm Ruin Write Congress Demanding Bill Be Killed, Wood Committee Urges. i; r.'" •'£ ---- * v farmers more than any other class in America will suffer if the war dictatorship bill now before j; Congress is enacted into law, befo cause the measure will lead us into war and that will inevitably bring Inflation, the America First Com- ^ mittee warned today, urging all citizens to write both to their Senators and their Congressmen demanding c that the bill be killed. '* Experience from our part in Europe's last war has taught agricultural America, including those who deal in farm produce or who sell to the farmer, that while wars are fought on battlefields their last- "7;_ ing effects are Wrought on barren farms. With war comes inflation of all prices, including those for produce, farms and labor. The last war taught us that conclusively, as anyone will remember who bought a i" farm in 1917 or 1918 and later ever tried to realize on his investment i and labor. Another will bring the ' same inflation of all values and the farmers again will be left bankrupt, the America First Committee predicted. But not only will the fanner suffer from an inevitable post-inflation depression, the America First Committee pointed out, while he has been riding the wave of wartime inflation prosperity he will be confronted with a new high cost of labor. Under the dictatorial powers granted in the proposal introduced for the administration by Sen. Barkley and Rep. McCormack, the President could rule farm youths no longer are exempt from being drafted into the Army and Navy. Sons could be taken from their farm homes, put in the armed forces and again shipped overseas to fight on foreign soil in a war which in no way threatens or affects America. Farmers will turn to hiring farm hands to replace the sons who helped on the farm. But with the highly competitive labor market in defense industry in the cities, which • will be able to afford much higher wages, farmers will have to pay salaries far beyond their normal means to attract labor to the country. That this country already has been started down the road to war by the incessant barrage of inter- I ventionist propaganda was vividly demonstrated by the President's belated announcement that he had traded 50 destroyers of our battle fleet to Great Britain in exchange for 99-year leases on Naval bases off our eastern coast. Then, after an intensive campaign ? of propaganda trying to frighten the ^ American people into the war by using such bogies as the possibility of an invasion attempt, these same forces had the war dictatorship v? measure introduced. Well-remembered is the Presiv dent's "flight schedule" address with which he tried to frighten the nation' v into thinking it was on the verge of being invaded by an air armada that, supposedly would fly over 3,000 ^ miles of ocean and meet no resistance from our own army, navy and air forces. • Certainly we want to aid Britain, the Committee statement continued, but not at the price of our own defense. Not by shipping to the English isles all our sorely needed ari mament production. Let's aid to the limits of the Johnson and Neutrality Acts, which have been ample in the 'past and which may be extended even further and remain within the laws, not give away all that we make, nor strip our under-equipped •army and navy of their arms and ahips. With the scare campaign of interventionists, movements were inaugurated to repeal the Johnson Act, 'which prohibits bankers from making loans to any country in default on a debt to the United States; and the Neutrality Act, which requires that ammunition purchases be made on a cash and carry basis and which ptohibits American ships from entering war zones and combatant countries from financing their war through bond issues floated in this" country. ~ Then, at the peak of the campaign, the war dictatorship bill was introduced into a startled congress. The bill is the last step to war. To defeat it is to keep this nation from the conflicts of Europe. Its passage not only will embroil us and make this nation a battlefield susceptible to attack but at once will establish • dictatorship in this country. General Robert E. Wood, acting national chairman of the America first Committee, said that the .tragic irony of this bill is that it • seeks to protect democracy in Great Britain by abandoning democracy in the United States. General Wood teas Chief Quartermaster at the construction of the Panama Canal and , Acting Quartermaster General of the U. S. Army during the World War. y "We would lose the fight before |t began," General Wood said. "The President is not asking for a blank Check; he wants a blank check book with the power to write away our ' resources, bur man power, our iaws and our liberties." Dictatorship 8ilf Urge A11 Citizens to Write Their Congressmen Asking Measure's Defeat. Farm state senators, church publications and the daily press all have joined voices to chbrus their indignation at the w-ar propagandists' bill introduced into Congress, which seeks to drive this country into waj after establishing a dictatorship here. Sen. Arthur Capper, Kansas, led a group of other farm senators in proclaiming opposition to the war bill, and, with the America First Committee, urged citizens to write their representatives and senators asking the measure be killed. "I am against the Jt>ill as I think it gives the President dangerous powers and it will lead to war," Capper said tersely. "The congress should not be asked to surrender the powers given to it by the constitution." Both of the Senators Clark, Bennett Champ of Missouri and D. Worth of Idaho, similarly called for defeat of the proposal. "The measure indicates war abroad and dictatorship at home," Clark of Missouri said. "If the United States goes to war the farmers and laborers will pay the bill. The bill will be something the like of which the world has never seen." Clark of Idaho said that the proposed legislation "is wrapped up in the dictatorship issue, to sneh an extent that the risk of America's entry into the war is part and parcel •of the bill. I am against the United States entering the war. If we should become involved the war would last for years and the only sure thing to come out of it would be economic ruin for this conatry. The farmer had a taste of that after the last war--but it was only a taste." Sen. Gerald P. Nye, North Dakota, asserted, "The people of. the United States have permitted their President and his ambassadors to create an international emergency for them. The emergency, however great now, does not compare with the emergency that will be visited upon (them if the President is given what he asks for in the pending bill. "Name it whatever one will, the bill provides for the divorcement by congress, as representative of the people, of all its powers and gives to the President powers including those of making alliances for war greater than ever entertained by a war-time President and this at a time when we are at war with no nation," Nye continued. "I am confident that if only the people can have time to study and know this dictator bill they will kill the proposal with their protests. This they should do, else our democracy is gone and we are compromised to active participation in a long war in which every nation engaging will lose," Nye said. Wisconsin's senior senator, Robert M. LaFollette, whose father fought our entry into the last war, also warned that "Under the terms of the pending measure the President would be empowered to create a state of war. In fact, the bill specifically provides for the use of our ports and facilities as a base for belligerent warships. Here is a proposal to import the European war to our shores. "The bill gives blanket approval of Congress in advance for the President to dispose of part or all of our fleet. Merchant ships, planes, tanks, or other implements and munitions of war now in the possession •The bill, the general said, "wipes out every safeguard we have devised to protect our nation in times like these." The measure has other drastic powers which would give the President complete power and leave Congress and the people with no authority to express themselves. The President could, if he wanted, cancel any federal law on the statutes; give all our armament and ammunition. all our military secrets, to any ration he desired to have theim; it would open our harbors and shipyards to warships of any nations the President named; it would allow him to seize the ships of one country, while in an American harbor, and turn them over to another country. But, fortunately, Americans still live in a democracy, and the power to stop this dictatorship measure, which would transform this country into a totalitarian state faster than Hitler transformed Germany, still lies in the hands of the people. This most serious piece of legislation which ever confronted a free people, this Magna Charta of dictatorship, can be rejected only if an aroused citizenry writes its representatives in Congress and insists the measure be killed. A few short words, either a letter or telegram to both Senators and the Congressman telling them that the bill must be killed and no compromise accepted, is all that a citi zen has to do to assure the continuation of our present form of government and our nonintervention in European Wars. Community Laundxy In India the community laundry !• collected, washed, and delivered bjr professional washermen called dhobies. Like the Scotch lassies they believe in foot power. The clothes and linens are soaped, trod Upon, then twisted into long, bulky ropes, swung lustily about the men's heads, and whacked on the stones frtith terrific force. Bobber Stamps? Order at The OONOinSSIONAL fail; by Congressmen Chauncey W. Reed General Robert E. Wood, Acting National Chairman of the America First Committee, who is demanding that the war bill be killed by Congress. The General, who was Chief Quartermaster at the construction of the Panama Canal and Acting Quartermaster General of the Army during the World War, asked every citizen to write or wire bis two Senators and Congressman insisting that the bill be defeated and no compromise accepted. of or being manufactured for our Army and Navy," LaFollette said. "The terms and conditions under which any foreign government would receive any aid would be solely at the discretion of the President. . "It is a bold attempt to create a dictatorship to govern our future foreign policy. Once this bill becomes law Congress will fraction only as a rubber stamp." Sen. Burton K. Wheeler, Montana, who is leading the fight on the bill in the Senate, assailed the measure as a means to send American boys into foreign wars. "The bill, because of its broad grant of power to a single man, is a dictatorship measure," Wheeler .said. "Because it violates every concept of American neutrality, I have previously called it the New Deal's triple-A foreign policy, it may well mean that every fourth American boy will be plowed under African or European soil/JL The non-denominational "Christian Century," leading weekly Christian magazine, expressed itself as follows ' "It is the most un-American proposal which the American people have ever been asked to consider. . . , The grants of power to the executive which the bill carries make it a blueprint of totalitarianism "Thus, for the moment, Congress holds the power to deliver the nation to a dictatorship or to rescue it from the threat of one. Three courses lie open to it. It can abdicate its power as the German reichstag did, as the Italian chamber of deputies did, as the Polish parliament did, as all democracies which have gone totalitarian have done, and make itself the rubber stamp of a dictator, with all the consequences to the people of the United States which that supine course will entail. "Or it can timidly exercise its powpr by revising the bill here and there, hoping thereby to retain some shTed of its constitutional authority or to recover it at some future date. Or it can reject the bill altogether and write a new one designed to speed up the preparedness program on the basis ef national defense, rather than on> the assumption of American belligerency in'the existing war. "Of these three courses, it is hard-1 ly probable that Congress will adopt the first. It is highly improbable that the President expected his bill to pass without modification. It contains numerous features which lend themselves to traxfing purposes. Congress can take advantage of these openings for revision and thus make a display of its prerogative, hoping to save its face and create a popular impression that it has not abdicated its responsibility. This is the course which; it is to be feared, will be chosen. It will be put forward as a compromise; the public clamor against taking the United States into the waT wil be appeased, and Congress will cherish the illusion that it is still a functioning part of the system of checks and balances of power provided by the Constitution. "Against sub a ceatpramise, those who would keep this country out of war most now bring the fait' weight of their most vigorous protest. The wings of the President's) now fully disclosed purpose to force the nation into war cannot be clipped by merely modifying certain feat tures el Ms kill. He ean be estopped! in his determination only by a Corn gress wMch is equally determined and by an upsurge of public indig nation which will let Congress know! that the President's singlehanded commitment of this country to war means that be will eater it witlt a deeply divided nation behind him ... "Not Great Britain, but this Congress is the front line of America's defense. Will the citizenship of the nation make its will known--unmistakably and overwhelmingly know®- --to those who have the responsibility and the power to save America before it is too late?" Shall liberty Die? On Monday, February 3, the House will begin consideration of H. R. 1776, tho bill termed by the Administration as * Lend-Lease Bill, but whose correct appellation should, in our opinion be "A bill to promote the entry of the United States into a war and to create dictatorship in the U.S.A." The President scored a major victory 'luring the past week when the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, headed by Congressman Sol Bloom of New 1 ork city, approved and reported out the. measure by a vote qf 17 to 8. Despite the efforts made by members of the Committee who are interested in keeping our nation at peace, Administration forces were able to smother all attempts to write safeguards into the legislation. Only four minor changes were written into the measure by the Committee, none of which eliminate the bill's most obnoxious' features. s'the four amendments were: 1. Adoption of a provision whereby the life of the /proposed legislation will expire on June 30, 1943. 2. A declaration that nothing in the bill shall be construed as to empower the President to authorize the United States Naval vessels convoying merchant ships in belligerent zones. (This amendment is really humorous when we consider past actions.) 3. A requirement that the President report to Congress any action taken under the legislative granting of powers at least once every ninety days. (Under this amendment the Congress will learn what has been done three months after it has happened.) 4. A provision requiring the President to consult with the ranking officers of the Army and Navy before releasing any national defense material to another nation. (You can imagine whp will do the talking at such conferences.. The Generals and the Admirals will just be there--that's all). As the House begins the consideration of this measure which will undoubtedly lead us into eventual combat, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will continue to hold its hearings on the bill. , War, What For? During the past week as the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations continued to hold hearings on the bill, few venerable statesmen began sounding: the war tocsin. Senator Glass of Virginia (over 80) and former Ambassador Gerard (well in the 70's), neither of whom, as far as we sires ti^e war iiaiumfiately. It is interesting to note thftt those who &rfe Aiutious to get our country into war are those who won't have to die in it or send sons to die in it. A visit to our vet* eran s hospitals might cool their waf ardor* War isn't just brave words* flying1 banners and music. It means blood, dead men, dying men, lost eyes, lost limbs, lost arms, burned out lungs, and beds of pain for many for years afterward. Before placing too much faith in these talkative patriarchs who are advocating the entry of our nation into the war, we should look back into the past and ascertain whether or not these same gentlemen were "yrith the colors" in 1898 or 1917. While these gentlemen may "talk" a good war, it will be other men's sons who will have to fight it. Talk is cheap. The lives of American manhood are dear to us. Thdtifejr, Felwjliy 6,1941 Jul I rnrr jl Police Help Thief "Hey! Who's got my hay?" Shouted A. L. Atwood of Fort Morgan, near Denver, Colo., as he emerged from a restaurant one night. Someone had taken his truckload of hay and run off with it, Atwood reported to police as he rushed back to the restaurant telephone. Meanwhile, however, police had been helping the culprit escape. As ti»a thief started the truck away from the curb it jerked, throwing several bales of hay into the street. Two police officers stopped him and informed him of the loss. "Thanks, fellas," said the nonchalant thief, "I'll go back and pick it up." He did. BOY/ WHAT A USED CAR// JJS BEEN FEEDING ME fO MUCH FRESH 4>R I'M AS HON6PY /\S A BOV SCOUT. R0SSMAN MOTOR SALES JCoOM WWAT5 rn A NAME? TW F£2 sets ITS MAMt fRow "the cny IN WHICH IT WAS FIRST RN -- 7 MMWRV MOST MAKE. m conmcfv* ARM* ANPftAVy peacetime <5 KIAMEP FDR ITS INVENTOR SEN. HeNRy SHRAPNEL 07*1-18*3) -W J-«3 COMMNy FACTORING PRODUCTS •~°CM CORK owes ABOOT QUARTS5P OF * SAIES TO Discoveries PearECTWo in -rue ve/uts FAUHC K(OVEN ffOM GLASSf& sr/VKM pevetoPMFUT--/5 NOWBF/A 7*w A COVF&fNG FOft Q/QPlAHF WINGS J ONE HAM HBY/ WHATS TH' BtOOeAOF POTTIN6JW hamburger a oKHfinooat OH IT/ k S P E E D Y " HASH. -PACKARD Bee the 1941 RASH AMBASSADOR 6 •'» /^liday at twite;"" V - Ml. HUTHORIZED ^ SERVICE h RDSSMRN MOTOR SALES RIVERSIDE DRIVE and PEARL STREET - PHONE 13 swm® v • t * V*. * J ir §|fs ami Don't km PCP, but \ • iflllif * '1 1111 - JP of, ^source of •ids and *8*inst misery. m'nter ijjsJ "•*** EUa, today! ",r: h jour is *tth nce- Plus •nf t^c.iocoo^^ drying your w 0st'r>gh °ute arfnin Medium Po<' -"•«V An Ingenious Thief A thief in Seattle, with a bit of ingenuity, got Joe Dizard's wallet, containing $32, even though Dizard had taken the extra precaution of sleeping with his trousers on--and the wallet in his hip pocket. Dizardt woke up the other morning to dis-t^ cover an irftruder cutting out hig* pocket to get the wallet. Dizard protested but when the bandit placed the open blade against his (Dizard's)/ throat, there was no further obiec tion. ® *593 ; •J -'•|k>bfleribe for The Plaindetlar .i!-|fiM!iWli^i' -I'lTi 111.!' Other dealers/ too, dre offering ifeese modern electric OppUances. liiii* „ P (Tabl* Mod*,) ®nlfy 3*s G. E. Sun lamp! . and Infra Red|; * Heat lamp for only s --'A YPUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY of Northern Illinois - > j IIP;* list: £• Telept^n#: thjrt*lX»fce 280 m SW -- - -- ~ ,z" ' "