Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1919 — PUTS BLAME ON REPUBLICANS [ARTICLE]

PUTS BLAME ON REPUBLICANS

L. Ert Slack Lays Sugar Shortage to Business Hecklers. In an address last Wednesday night before the Jefferson club, a Democratic organization of Irvington, Indianapolis, L. Ert Slack, who as the United States district attorney, has been investigating the sugar shortage situation in Indiana, severely condemned certain business interests which he believed were largely responsible for permitting a shortage to take place on account of their resentment against the action of the administration at Washington in trying to regulate prices, it was Mr. Slack s opinion that such business Interests are trying to “put monkey wrenches in every line of the government's business” for the purpose of trying to discredit the work of the administration.

Mr. Slack said that as a result of his investigation he found that there is no sugar hoarded in Indiana at present and there is a real shortage. He said he had learned that certain persons in Chicago had been quoting sugar to Indiana dealers at a little more than the government price, and that certain Indiana dea’ers were taking advantage of this, holding that the .prices of sugar should be regulated absolutely by the wholesalers and retailers. It was charged by Mr. Slack that after the close of the war and before the recent regulations were put into effect by the government that a Republican politician of Chicago was largely responsible for the increase in sugar prices. It was related by Mr. Slack that an Indianapolis business man had expressed resentment to him because the Wilson administration had exerted an influence in regulating private business, and Mr. Slack believed such resentment was largely responsible tor the sugar shortage here, as after the armistice was signed no effort was made by wholesalers to buy sugar when a plentiful quantity could have been had. One of the wholesalers had said to him, Mr. Slack said, that he had not objected to government control during the war, but now that the war Is over the business men should be permitted to run their business to suit themselves. However, Mr. Slack said that a few days ago a prominent Indiana firm was glad to solicit- the assistance of the government in its private business after jt had contracted for a large amount of Canadian sugar and the delivery of the sugar had been held up. “Then they came and begged the United States district attorney to assist them in having the sugar delivered,” said Mr. Slack, said to them: ‘Since when did you change your mind about the desirability of the government helping you in your business?’ ’’ Mir. Slack said that when the United States government had control last year it had bought up the Cuban sugar crop, but this year it kept “hands off,” and the business men who have been heckling the administration permitted Europe to contract for threefourths of this year’s Cuban crop, and a shortage has resulted.

“Some of these days we are going to talk Plain to these Republicans,” said Mr. Slack in reference to Republicans whom he accused of criticising the business regulation policy of the administration. He said £he trouble with the Democrats is that they give plenty of praise to President Wilson but they sit back and permit President Wilson to do all the fighting against the Republicans.

Mr. Slack warmly commended the peace treaty and the league of nations covenant as presented by President Wilson, and agreed with the latter that the opposing Republican senators are a “bunch of quitters.” “I would like to be in the senate long enough to tell Senator Lodge that he is ia sore-toe quitter,” said Mr. Slack. He said it was an “infernal outrage” that such senators as Lodge, New, Watson and Poindexter should consider the “great document’’ as a sort of political -proposition. In his opinion, President Wilson did not make a mistake when he failed to put Senator Lodge and some other Republicans on the American peace commission. Mr. Slack believed the Republican opposition to the peace treaty and league of nations is due to a deliberate Republican effort to pl<ay for the German and Irish votes of the country. He said the recent speech by Senator Knox was the greatest effort to espouse the German cause that has been made by anybody, and he said that in the coming campaign he believed the Indiana Republican state committee would “surreptitiously” circulate the Knox speech among the Germans of the state. Mr. Slack said that during the

last five imonths the public has witnessed the most disgraceful heckling that has been made agelnst a president.