Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 190, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1920 — BLAME FOR SUGAR COST ON WILSON [ARTICLE]

BLAME FOR SUGAR COST ON WILSON

Failure of President to Act When Urged by Hoover Resulted in Excessive Prices. HISTORY’S WORST SCANDAL What is called a “billion-dollar blunder” on the part of Woodrow Wilson is brought out in Harvey’s Weekly, which declares that Representative Tinkham of Massachusetts went not “a whit beyond the fact when he said, in the closing days of the last session of Congress, that “In American history never has there been such a scandal and incompetence as has been displayed by the present administration in relation to the sugar problem of the United States for IMO.” ■ Continuing, the journal edited by Col. George Harvey, once the sponsor of Wilson, says: “The responsibility for this scandal, the responsibility for loading upon the American people a wholly unnecessary additional burden of from 11,000,000,000 to $1,500,000,000 In living expenses, rests solely on the shoulders of President Wilson.”

Wilson Ignored Advice. The weekly goes on to say that as early as July, 1919, Hoover was so impressed with the prospect of extravagant sugar costs that he cabled from Paris to the President urging him to buy the entire Cuban crop, but the President ignored the advice. In September, 1919, the United States Manufacturers’ Association, at a meeting held tn Chicago, passed resolutions outlining the threat of chaotic sugar conditions, forecasting high prices and urging the President to avail himself of the opportunity to buy the Cuban crop. But Wilson, the journal says, declined. The sugar equalization board also called the President’s attention to the impending sugar shortage but there was no response at the white house, and the Cuban crop was subsequently sold after an answer from the United States had been awaited for three months. The President, according to conservative estimates, had deliberately passed up an opportunity to save the people of the United States from sl.000,000,000 to $1,500,000,000 In their living expenses.