[St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 1, 1941]
TNT Landowners Wait 3
Hours, Go Home Without Seeing Clark
Senator Confined by
Throat Infection—Committee Tells Him Property Holders Are Getting Hostile.
The 146
unpaid landowners who gave up their property to permit the Government to build
a TNT plant near Weldon Spring, returned to town yesterday afternoon with their
families, 250 persons in all, to enlist the aid of United States Senator
Bennett C. Clark in their effort to get the agreed price for their property
soon, but the Senator didn’t show up.
Later,
after three hours of milling about on Missouri Highway 94, the town’s main
street, they returned to their homes.
Senator
Clark remained in his St. Louis hotel room, he said, on the advice of his
physician after he developed a throat infection. A committee of the unpaid
landowners, which was unable in time to call off the meeting scheduled for 3
o’clock at Weldon Spring Evangelical Church, called at the hotel to see if the
Senator could meet with them today. If he could, the landowners, many of whom
had traveled many miles, would have remained overnight at Weldon Spring.
Sees Committee.
But the
Senator had to return to Washington today. Last night he had to go to Columbia
where his son, Champ, a student at the University of Missouri, had been
stricken with appendicitis.
He did give
the committee an hour of his time and heard the story of the plight of the
landowners. When they sold their property, he was told, many of them purchased
other tracts, made down payments and obligated themselves to pay the balance
soon. But after four months they are still unpaid and in danger of losing the
earnest money payments on the new property.
Many of
them have contracted to buy places valued at what the Government agreed to give
them for the old tracts and now the Government has announced that the prices
were excessive and that it would condemn all property on which it had not
exercised its options.
The Senator
repeated the statement he made in the Senate that he thought the War
Department, for whom the land was purchased, was committing an outrage against
the landowners, that he thought the options were binding contracts, and that
the department was hedging on its agreements to correct an “improvident
contract” it made to give R. Newton McDowell, Kansas City contractor, 5 per
cent for procuring the options.
Petition Presented.
He told the
committee he had taken the matter up with Undersecretary of War Robert M.
Patterson and had given Patterson a copy of the petition the landowners drew up
March 12.
“Patterson
was impressed by the facts in the petition and told me he would take it up with
the Secretary of War,” Clark said. “I’ll call him again tomorrow when I return
to Washington.”
While the
Senator spoke, however, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson was filing notice of
taking of the property of five of the unpaid landowners in the United States
District Court at St. Louis. Checks representing what the War Department
believed was “just compensation” for the land were deposited with the Court.
The
deposits were $1875 for the 10 acres of Grover Cleveland Silvey; $7604 for the
170 acres of Dr. and Mrs. Oscar L. Snyder; $3860 for the 94 acres of Merita
Callaway; $9120 for the 161 acres of Tarlton Woodson, and $5100 for the 52
acres of Mr. and Mrs. George C. Willson.
The
Government had options to purchase for $109,768 the five tracts for which it
deposited the $27,559 with the court. Individual option prices were: Silvey,
$5000; Snyder, $30,395; Callaway, $10,888; Woodson $31,485, and Willson,
$32,000.
“People Getting Hostile.”
Members of
the committee stressed the need for speed. “People out there are getting riled
up and downright hostile,” Morris Muschany, formerly an undertaker at Howell,
told the Senator. “They’ve all been law-abiding citizens, but things are
getting serious. They’ve lost their homes once and may lose them again if they
don’t get paid soon.”
“When
McDowell came out there,” he explained, “the people were afraid to deal with
him and they wired the War Department which informed them they had to deal with
him. Many of them signed options under threats of condemnation. Now, after
taking their homes, the Government won’t pay the agreed price. They’re getting
worked up, I tell you.”
Eltin
Pitman, a well driller, said to the Senator, that “it all has me puzzled.”
“It just
doesn’t look like our Government at all to come in, put our people out, take
away our schools and our churches and then refuse to pay us the agreed price
for them,” he said. “We’re in bad shape. We can’t borrow money on the land and
the banks won’t recognize the options as collateral.”
Clark promised
to do all he could and the committee left. Members were frankly displeased with
the outcome, but said “it was about what we expected.”
The
committee has no immediate plans and would await further developments, Dr. O.
L. Snyder, chairman, said. In the meantime he said he would communicate again
with Congressman Clarence Cannon, who “seems to be working hard in our behalf.”
==========
[no source, no date]
Clark Halts Meeting,
Goes to Son’s Bedside
An
emergency appendix operation performed on his 17-year-old son, Champ Clark,
forced United States Senator Bennett C. Clark to discontinue a conference with
members of the Weldon Springs Landowners’ Protective Committee yesterday and to
hurry to Columbia where the youth is a freshman at the University of Missouri.
The youth’s condition is reported good.
The senator
conferred with the committee on the government’s action in canceling options on
land to be used for the big TNT plant at Weldon Springs. Clark has criticized
the government’s action.
