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Show UTAH LABOR NEWS Saturday, Feb . 10, 1917 their reason? for their position before LABORS NEED our To consider one local situation, labors publicity organization of New York called a convention of representatives of four states, which met in New York City January 15. Closer fellow-citizen- OF PUBLICITY s. between labor Subsidized Press Prints Only News Favorable to Interest of Subsidizers. PUBLIC OPINION IS GREAT FORCE . 'Public opinion editors and newswriters of every locality will materially help, but there is necessary a general organization of labor news agencies throughout the whole country. Workers everywhere must learn the value of publicity and learn how to secure it. Labor news is news about the most vital matters of life and work it is the essence of national life. When the workers learn the full power, publicity will cease to be a problem. is like sunshine, . when diffused, wholesome and benefi, cent; when concentrated through a PRIVATELY OWNED prism magnifying glass it bums that PUBLIC PRESS upon which it falls," was the terse re(Continued From Fage 1.) ply Andrew Furuseth made to a member of the Senate committee on interowned by the company in its No. 2 state commerce who asked for his " mine. I might say that there are a number of sections that show from views on the value of public opinion in fifty to seventy feet in thickness of deciding labor disputes. good, clean coal." Gibbs Mr. On direct examination Public opinion is a great force its On a basis of 75 stated in effect: value depends upon its absolute freeper cent extraction I estimate 200,000,-00- 0 dom, its spontaniety, its power of tons mineable from Willow Creek No. 2. mine, and estimate 40,000,000 Not the spurious, manufaccoal available for tured, but the genuine public opinion tons of mineable extraction from Castle Gate mine No. .Is the ultimate reserve of a free peoof 2600 1, which embraces an area ple, the. foundation of free institutions. acrea The testimony was limited strictly It is dependent upon free press, free to the land owned by the company at of freedom in speech, expression Castle Gate. thought and action. II, G. Williams, former general manThe power of public opinion makes ager, now consulting engineer of the .it liable to insidious attacks by those Utah Fuel company, also expressed the expert opinion that 150,000,000 tons of who would use it to further ulterior coal is marketable from the workable or selfish Interests. So we find a Willow Creek mine, and added: "I wealth-owne- d or a subsidized press, it think I am very conservative, might be two or three hundred milseeking to collect the diverse opinions lions. formed as a result of personal experiences and to concentrate them ENORMOUS VALUES ESCAPE TAXATfON. through Standard Oil or railroad It is a perfectly safe assumption prisms to direct them in accord with that the profit of the Utah Fuel comthe viewpoint of those particular inpany and the Pleasant Valley Coal terests. The invariable purpose is to company added to the profits of the railroad company, which owns the destroy some effort that has the disstock of the coal companies, will aginterest-ownin- g or of the approval gregate more than $2 per ton on all subsidized press. the coal mined by these companies. So marked has been this developThis profit is derived from the genment of the press that there is hardly eral public. If the general public, in for the $2 per ton, which it sura daily paper or a magazine that is return renders as profit on the coal it connot an adjunct of some industrial, sumes, should obtain an assessment of commercial or financial enterprise. but 25 cents per ton on the coal deexpert officers of the Papers are not free to publish all news termined byto the be available, a valuation companies but censor all articles and editorials of approximately $50,000,000 would be to harmonize with the editorial policy placed upon the two mines of that dictated by the owners who are emcompany at Castle Gate. The present milvaluation approximates one-ha- lf ployers or by the subsidizers. Those lion or 1 per cent only of the value who cannot pay the price or who are established and admitted by the comblacklisted by the subsidizers fail to pany itself. The expert geologist, Gibbs, also gain a hearing and the public is genat page 848 of the transtestified erally ignorant even of the existence his of testimony, that the coal cript of their side of questions. was worth about 20 cents a ton in the The remedy situation is not ground in the Castle Gate district. the basis of Mr. Gibbs figures government action for the purpose of theOn actual value of coal, termed in regulating and properly organizing" mining phraseology to be in sight, public opinion such action would inowned by his company at Castle Gate, approximate $40,000,000. If assessed evitably result in building up a danthe basis of 2.0 cents per ton the gerous and powerful machine which on assessment would only represent apcould, and no doubt would, be used proximately 10 per cent of the profit for or against general welfare. Great which the Denver & Rio Grande inobtain from the public. concentrated power controlled by a terests actually seem that in course of would It few human agents who are fallible is time, unless legislative relief Intera menace. venes, the public will have to furIt is an unpleasant fact that the nish in profits to that institution apit before $400,000,000 proximately majority of people do not do mueh completes the purchase of its coal now real Independent thinking. They reclaimed and owned at Castle Gale and ceive ready-to-us- e opinions and rely which is assessed inclusive of plant and community at considerably less upon their accustomed paper for that million. These startthan on$.-haservice. But for those who do think should be of intercomparisons ling and who do form their own judgments est to the owner of a Salt Lake home, there ought to be available all the who is taxed at its actual worth, ard who, in addition to carrying a disfacts presented by all those interested. share of the burdens of proportionate Everyone knows that the needs and government, must steadily contribute desires of the masses of the people to fund the $400,000,000 so ascertained to be the ultimate profit which the rarely find expression for public enGoulds hope to reap from but two of lightenment. There is a human interest attached to every relationship of their mines. COAL SOLD AT THE KATE life yet those who do the work and ONE CENT PER OF who alone know the work as only ONE THOUSAND TONS! workers can, are either inarticulate or This identical state land which emare denied opportunities for free exbraces 3000 acres, contains other diamond coal revealed seams of by of benefit the for the pression public. drill prospecting, which aggregate apOrganized labor has nothing to hide proximately seventy feet all of which nothing of which to be ashamed. It is workable. These , admissions, conhas everyting to gain and nothing to firmed by the same geologist of the Utah Fuel company who has been conlose from publicity. at the head of the Realization of this need is reason nected with, ofandthat concern through department for the labor press of the land. But the medium of which the state was labor's efforts thus far have fallen far divested of its title, reveal approxitons of coal per acre, short of the needs, and everywhere mately 125,000 to extraction from lands subject there is manifest the necessity for getpurchased from the State of Utab at ting the position of the workers and $1.25 per acre. This means that the , self-directio- n. fop-thi- s lf Page Eleven institution for the blind, the institution for the deaf and dumb, the insane asylum, and the other institutions of the state, which the beneficence of Congress sought to foster, have through their trustee, the State of Utah, surrendered these extremely valuable mineral lands to a monopoly at the rate of one cent per one thousand tons of coal! It may be interesting here to observe that since and during the disposition of these lands the price of coal to the Salt Lake consumer who has been fortunate enough to obtain it has in- creased from $4.25 to $6.25 per ton; a condition rendered possible by the fact that the Denver & Rio, Grande Railroad company, which holds a franchise as a common carrier, has bo fixed and regulated the transportation rates from the coal fields to various communities In Utah as to in the mulcting materially of the public. The program of the Utah Fuel company lobbyists, headed by experts Gibbs and Williams, contemplates a constitutional amendment under which the maximum valuation of coal lands for taxation purposes .shall be forever fixed at $20 per acre, and it is probable that a joker will be offered under which the $20 per acre classification will include only such lands as have been purchased from the United States, while the vast areas of coal lands robbed from the Institute for the Blind, the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, and other public institutions, may be fixed near the price paid the State of Utah. MONOPOLIZES COKE ALSO. Before determining upon any action It will be well for someone interested In the welfare of the state and its institutions to ascertain what has happened to the limited area of coal lands adapted to the manufacture of coke discovered within the boundaries of Utah. Such investigation will reveal that practically the entire field Is monopolized by the same Utah Fuel com- pany. Upwards of 8000 acres of the state's lands at Sunnyside were so acquired by minions of the monopoly, in which concern title is now vested, at $1.23 per acre. Mining is now being conducted inv such lands and coal being extracted therefrom at the rate of about 1,000,000 tons per year. Two seams are being worked, aggregating approximately sixteen feet of clean merchantable coal, while other seams which are known to exist have not as yet been opened. Boasts have been made and expensive booklets have been privately circulated by officers of the Utah Fuel company illustrating as a minimum conservative valuation the reserve coal resources of the Utah Fuel company and Fleasant Valley Coal company to be worth in excess of Yet this corporation has the $50,-000,00- 0. temerity to suggest a constitutional amendment under which it will not pay a tithe of the reasonable cash value of such holdings. STORY OF TRUST DEEDS. An examination of the trust deeds of the Octopus will disclose a readiness on the part of bond buyers to advance millions of dollars on such lands which are covered by mortgages. Strange is it not, that the bond buyer of Boston, New York City and London, could be convinced of the value of the mineral content of these areas, while the state land board, in the breast of which was reposed by Congress and our Legislature a sacred trust, has been unable to discover value in excess of $1.25 per acre? It occurs to me that the State of Utah, through its present legislature, should inaugurate a searching investigation into the affairs of its land boards connected with the disposition of the mineral resources of the state; and that the constitution should not provide any guaranty of limited taxation until such investigation suggests a fair means of determining reasonable valuations. Fortunately, irf the case of the Utah Fuel company, the fair value of Its holdings is susceptible of easy determination. The head of the scientific department of that company, C. H. Gibbs, testified quite fully upon that subject. 4 ACRES COAL SOLD TO TRUST FOR SHOO. It will be noted that the 40,000,000 tons of reserve coal content in the Castle Gate No. 1 mine is independent of the experts estlmbate of the tonnage contained in the Nt 2 mine; and that the acreage in No. 1 mine con-pris- es while in the No. 2 mine it is estimated to cover approximately 3000 acres. A consultation of the map discloses that in the No. 2 mine is embraced an entire school section which was purchased from the State of Utah for $800! Attention was directed a number of years ago to certain fraud actions instituted against these two corporations and several of their officers by the United States; in those actions it was contended that as the government limited the acquisition of coal lands by any one corporation to 640 acres, fraud had been perpetrated against the general government. Such investigations, however, did not seem to excite any 2600, , suspicion oa ilia art of the state land board that the governmental policy, aimed to discourage monopoly, was worthy of being patterned after by the state of Utah. It occurs to the writer that a law under which a poor rancher is required to pay upon the full valuation of hla cow should also provide for a reasonable valuation for taxation purposes of the property owned by a millionaire which the state is com- corporation pelled to police and protect. The assertion that all property within the state is subject to taxation, and should bear its just proportion of the burdens of government is a platitude, yet you are appealed to to ignore the funda- mental principle of right in behalf of a malodorous and grasping corporation, which has shown no regard for the welfare of the state, its institutions or peo- pie. The Legislature might also deter- mine the relations between the Utah Fuel company and the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad company pertaining to the sale of coal. As It is proposed that the state shall obtain a tax based upon the net proceeds, such tax would be imposed upon the value of net proceeds, because un- leas such a provision is made the Utah Fuel company is not likely to disclose any profit on coal sold to the railroad company, which is the exclusive owner of its stock. Such tax should be predl cated upon the value of net proceeds In all cases for the additional reason that unless it is so provided the pro- ducing coal company will be enabled to sell its product to a sales company, whose stock it may exclusively own and thereby entirely escape the tax provided on net proceeds only. 'An investigation of the tax records of Carbon county will show that about 30 per cent of the lands actually ac- quired by the Utah Fuel company as Coal lands are not taxed as coal lands at all, this generous discount having been made upon the companys theory that allowance should be made for worked out areas and for portions of the area which theoretically do not contain coal, by reason of geological disturbances and other specious theories. The bulk of the lands acquired from the state have not been assessed & 3 coal lands at all, but have been returned as agricultural or grazing lands and a very low valuation placed upon them. The Utah Fuel company has been enabled to escape proper taxation because of its political control In Carbon county. UTAH FUEL POLITICS IN ! , ! j j ; i ; j ) i j , CAIUION COUNTY. During the recent campaign the Democratic and Republican county conventions were held In Price, Delegates sufficient to control both of the conventions were brought to Price by the general superintendent of the Utah Fuel oempany, after which they were herded into a hotel room and given Instructions as to the nominees desired by the company. The expenses of the delegates were paid nothwithstandlng that such expenditures were made in connection with a campaign in which congressmen and a United States senator were to be elected and therefore constituted a monetary contribution, the making of which constitutes a felony under federal law. The Democratic precinct chairman at Clear Creek, having the temerity to suggest a personal choice for Thomas Kelter for the office of sheriff, was severely reprimanded by the general superintendent, and a few days after the convention was discharged from the sen ice of the Utah Fuel company. When the frauds of this institution are fairly uncovered no one will dispute its reasons for having maintained control of the politics of Carbon county. Officers of that county who have not taken the Utah Fuel company view of matters relating to their office, have found it useless to aspire to When strikes have occurred as the outgrowth of wage differences tween the company and its employees, the state has been ever ready with its militia to protect the property of the company and indirectly aid it in prevailing over its employees. REMEDY. Legislative pity may well be felt for institutions of Utah, which have lost millions of dollars through this system of loot, and a future policy of Just taxation would seem to be a fair means whereby a portion of the wrong may be redressed. There are many other aspects of this important matter which should receive the most careful and palntstaking attention if the interests of the general ' taxpayers of Utah are to be conserved. Respectfully yours, TRUMAN ' A. KKTCHUM. 7, 1917. Salt Lake City, February A portable generator. portable generator has been spe- cially designed to provide electric lights to permit farm work to be done at night. .THAWING FROZEN I'lPF.N, Electricity Is the only agent that will thaw froacn water pipes without disturbing the ground In which they are buried. , |