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Show , LAND fEASE BILL AGA1NJEBATE0 I La Follettc Continues Sensational Sen-sational Attack Against ) Several Provisions. :j Amendment to Give Prcsi-dent Prcsi-dent Price-Fixing Power ! ; Defeated Easily. J "! WASHINGTON, Sept. 3. With- I out a record vote, tho senate to-j to-j night, after a twelve-hour session, i passed the bill to make possible tho ' ;' leasing of public lands having dc- , ; posits of oil, coal, gas, phosphate and sodium. In passing the measure, the senate sen-ate approved amendments offered by Senator Harris, Democrat, Georgia, which would provide that under the Clayton anti-trust act ' oil companies may not charge different dif-ferent prices in various parts of ! the country. ( WASHINGTON', Sept. 3. An amend - ; mcnt to the land leasing bill which vould j have authorized tho president to fix and j control the prices of coal, oil and other products derived from government lands leased under tho measure was rejected today by tho Ecnate, 4S to 10. It was 1 offered by Senator I,a Follete, Kepubli-can, Kepubli-can, Wisconsin, and met with strong op-! op-! position f rora western senators. Senator Srnoot, Republican, Utah, said the plan was unworkable, while Senator i-enroot, Republican, Wisconsin, declared the amendment would "further perpetuate ! tho control of the Standard Oil company" j and would result in fixing the price of -; oil refined by its dependents, -while the Standard Oil company would go free." Senator FMttman, Democrat, said that, ! while willing to grant the president power I- to fix prices if necessary, the effect of this amend meut would be to control the j price of only one-tenth of the oil pro-' pro-' duced in this country. j Monopoly Arraigned. 1 Senator La Follette, continuing his at- tack on the oil interests, charged that the 1 "Standard Oil company and its associates ! are exerting or trying to exert influence ; on the senate" to obtain speedy ratifica- :; tion of the peace treaty. He said that unless some steps were taken to control prices the public eventually would demand :; that action be directed "even against the Standard Oil company and the other mon- ! sters that have this counLry by the I throat." "1 don't know," he added, "how largely the Standard Oil company is to be benefitted bene-fitted under this bill, but t do know that company will get large areas ot" the land now about to be disposed of under tiiis leasing bill." Senator La Follette said competitors in the Salt Creek, Wyoming, oil fields had ! been "frozen out" by big oil companies so that the field was controlled now by the Wyoming oil company, which, he alleged, al-leged, "was controlled by France, and the i, Salt Creek Producing company, a subsidiary sub-sidiary of the Standard Oil company. Amendment Adopted. Later, tho senate tentatively adopted i an amendment by Senator La toilette re-! re-! quiring that persons having pipe lines and who hold oil land leases shall be re-l re-l quired t transport at a reasonable charge oil belonging to A he. government or other ! lease holders. "The great interests," the Wisconsin i senator added, "do not care for the future ; of any country, but only for the 'spoils.' " The influence of thee oil interests, he ; continued, could be found everywhere. I In introducing an amendment eliminat- ing from the bill the so-called contro- verted claims in the California naval re-1 re-1 serves and elsewhere, Senator La Follette ! attacked "brazen trespassers" on gov -: eminent owned oil lands, and said the supreme court decision in the case of the Honolulu confiscated oil company "ought to have closed the doors of congress to them." Settlement of these claims, he ;. said, should be made in the courts and not by congressional legislation. Senator La Follette bitterly denounced the decision in the Honolulu case try which the government was defrauded out of 6000 acres of valuable oil lands, and said except for President Wilson this case would have been allowed to go against the government long ago. "I don't know," he added "how long anybody will be able to hold out against the influences that surround the case.' |