The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 6, 1916, Page 15

THE NONPARTISAN LEADER TO OUR “PARTNERS” IN MINNEAPOLIS: - HE next time you want to circulate a handbill attacking the Nonpartisan League, don’t waste your money on express charges and hired distributors. You did that at the State convention and it was crude work. Most of the lying cir- culars you hired men to distribute fownd their way into the gutters and sewers of Fargo unread. This isn’t the way to do it. Send your attack to us and we will print it free of charge, :as we do today. This will not only enable it to reach the League members whose minds you seek to p01son with your fakes, but Jt §ill save you money. To be sure, economy may not seem much of an ob;;ect to you now because you ’33'e getting ,your share of that '$55,000,000 of annual graft from the North Dakota farmers and an expense item like this seems-small t6 you. But a word in your ears. Better be on the save, “partnex s.”” There was the most positive evidence at the Fargo conVefitioh . tha:f ‘the good old graft will not last much longer. Therefore, save your money. Youw are likely to need it. And as for s, there are two reasons why we should be glad to print your attacks on the League. In the first place they afford some amusement that we are unwilling to miss. And in the next place, there’ ma§ bé some few of our members that do not know what an unscrupulouq and dirty gang you-are and if they will read ’/v\. ' your circulars.they will learn that at first hand, which is always the »best_': way. ABOUT THE COURIER-NEWS T has been an ‘occasion for pleasure to the editors of the Leader and the officers of the League that the Courier- Lu!:" News, a morning publication issued in Fargo, recently has definitely aligned itself with the enemies of the League and of the cause of political reform in North Dakota. \ This is pleasing because so long as this publication pretended to be fair and professed to be impartial in its attitude toward the League it contained possibilities for harm in its small way and in its limited field. It is doubly pleasing because in showing its real colors and acknowledging its real masters it has published such gross untruths and displayed such ‘a contemptible spirit that no one longer can doubt its actuating motives. The Courier-New§ of Friday morning, March 81, carried in its news columns in lieu of a news story of the state convention, which had been in session two days, and of a news story on the great gathering of farmers from all over the state for the mass meetings in the Auditorium, an. attack upon the officers of the League, the delegates and the members. It asserted it was surprised to learn that indorsements for state officers already had beén ‘made by the League delegates duly elected in the district ‘conventions for that purpose. = It professed to have believed that the:indorsements were to be made in open mass meeting, presumably with all Fargo citizens who cared to take part having a hand in the proceedings. It went to the length-of asserting that members of the League were “surprised” to learn that the delegates whom they elected for that purpose were-choosing the men to be indorsed. The story didn’t quote any member of the League. It didn’t give any authority but its own. - - Of course it couldn’t-giveany sm:h authority because every member of the League knew well the whole plan of indorsement.” Every member of the League knew it would be ridiculous and un- fair to overthrow the system of equal representation under which the League has been operating-from the start-and call in a mass convention to do the work the delegates had been chosen to do. The fact is, no one but the Courier-News and a few persons so misinformed as to believe what the Courier-News prints could have been surprised that the list of persons to be indorsed was selected by the regular, representative state convention. " The Fargo Forum was not surprised and neither were its read- ers; Its reporters called at the League headquarters and were told the facts. It printed-them several.days before the Courier-News printed its untrue story. If the editor of Courier-News was “sur- - prised” it was because he doesn’t read the only ‘daily newspaper in in Fargo which tries to be fair and to print the news. "As an instance of how the Courier-News cheats its own réad- ers by shutting out the facts in order to print evil-intentioned ru- mors and by total incapacity among its staff to recognize news when they see it, tske the incident of the raising of funds for the further work of the League while the massmeetmgs were in ses- sion here. “We are informed,” said the Couner—News edltorlally Sunday morning, “that at a secret meeting held Friday evening the sum of $20,000 was raised to be used to ‘avert political attacks.’ ” But why trust to rumor? At-the public massmeeting in the Targo auditorium on Saturday night, a meeting which the Courier-: News purports to cover in a news way on its first page of the Sun- day morning issue, in the presence of two or three hundred citizens : of Fargo not members of the Nonpartisan League, ten thousand dollars ($10,000), was openly pledged for the purpose of furthering the program of the League. The Courier-News had nothing » . about it.” _If you want to know what is going on in FarO'o ask the corner poheeman or the- elevater boy in the Galdner hotel but don't ex- FIFTEEN pect to find it in the Courier-News. The “News” may find it out three or four days after the Forum has printed it, but not before, 1t deals.in rumor and malice, not in news. It is a thoroughly mis- named publication. The citizens and the business men of Targo must have felt humiliated and shamed at the attitude of the morning publization during the massmeetings. That is the only feature of the afair that is-painful to the editcrs of the Leader. While the people of Fargo were extending real cordiality and a warm-hearted welcome the Courier-News was exhibiting its shameful degeneracy from de- cent standards of journalism by covert sncars at the gathering and the farmers who composed it. The members of the Fargo Com- mercial club especially, who had gone to expense to entertain the farmers present, were entitled to fecl aggrizved at this effort to spoil their work and stir up hard feeling between the members of the Nonpartisan League and the citizens of TFargo. Members of the League who attended the great and success- ful mass conventions at Fargo may have bec angered and hurt at the attitude taken by the Courier-News in refusing to print the legitimate news of these meetings, but instead printing a mass of attacks upon the members of the League, its afficers and the farm- ers of North Dakota. The object of this editorial is to reassure thém: The Courier-News can do the League no damage, because 1ts*afi‘1hatmns and its methods are well known. It has small influence because it is not a newspaper. It is one of the small number of daily publications which exists by some obscure means other than those which real newspapers take to support themselves. ' The primary lesson of newspaper work is to separate news from opinion, to print facts as facts and opinion as opinion. The Courier-News has not learned it. It prints unsub- stantiated rumors and editorial perversion of facts as news and oc- cupies its editorial columns with the aimless babbling of men un- trained in journalism who enjoy the novelty of seeing their literary efforts in type. It revels in sanctimonious slobber as far removed as possible from the real facts and the real issues of the present day in North Dakota. It makes “paramount issues” of questions long since set- tled in this state so as to give it a high moral tone and bolster up its hypocritical pretensions. - It is like the demagogue who, when his honesty and patriotism is impugned, waves the bloody shirt and proclaims his devotion to the “principles of our forefathers.” It is like the sneaking back door gossip who always has an ill tale to tell but never the courage to own it. Such publications occasionally exist for a time when growing cities are young. Usually they are short lived or pass into more competent hands. Fargo has reached the point where it can sup- port a morning newspaper. It may well be expected that soon it will have one. A Business Manager’s Corner During the past two week: I have had to keep still about adver- tising because the editor wanted to get some news in the Leader, so that the politicians could read about their work of plundering the people; then, he was also anxious that our farmer members read about the antics of some of our (Pubhc officials, and how could he get their eyes_and ears if we crowded our pages too much with advertising. Last week we were forced again to print 24 pages and this week— we have our great convention number—which will be preserved by all members and many others—with 32 pages. Last week we printed 35,000 copies to supply our subscribers and the public demand for the Leader, and this week we print 50,000 copies, so you can see the merry time we have in keeping busy in the Lieader office. But, then, I started to talk to you about advertising, how you are getting each week a larger number of reliable advertisers from which to select your goods and the needs of the farm and to ‘congratulate you on the way you are patronizing the advertisers in the Leader; you are learning that we allow only first-class, reliable advertisements in the Leader and that you can have confidence in the quality of goods, service and prices which they will give. The advertisers are appreciating this patronage and so they write us of the results they get, and this is better tf.r'Vldence of the vulue advertisers receive than a mere general statement om_ us of Leader advertising. Just as we were going to press with last week’s issue, we received the following telegram: “Cut out twine ad, but run the auto ad sent you today; I am “sold out of twine and want to-clean up on autos,”—F. 0. Hellstrom, Bismarck. The ad was run in the Leader twice and the twine already sold, and now he advertlses autos, as he has had demonstrated to his satisfaction that advertising in the Leader sells the goods. Then we have a letter from a subscriber and reader: “Would you please forward my order for three B. R. cockerels to some advertiser before the Leader gets out of press; have replied to two ads the same day I received the pager, but both had sold out. Mr. D. W. Coleman of Ellendale wrote me had 40 cockerels and sold them in two days and I've been returning orders for the past three days.’ If you are successful in placing my order 1 am willing to pay the price for good birds.”—H. Nystrom, New England. faction and big results from Leader advemsmg‘ “] wish you to withdraw my ad of ‘bromus grass seed for sale, as P. R, Bradley “You will do me a favor to stop my ad in’the Leader at once, as my fill.”—M. J. Boland. “Please withdraw my advertisement from the Leader, as I am sold out of stock; the Leader is the paper in which to advertise if you want results.”-—Mrs, J. A. Felver. : If ‘ever there was an opportunity presented for farmers in North Dakota to sell their produce by advertising it is. through the Leader. Every want on the farm cdn be here supplied, ‘even to the employment of help, and 'no medium ean reach so many readers in this state with tl;ngs to sell, such as eggs, chickens, livestock, farm implements, farms, € You tly 1t and ‘see if you do not get like results ‘We print a few examples that have recently come to us of the value o Then there are some others which tell the tale of complete satis- it is all sold; have been well repaid for advertising in the Leader. ” stock of cockerels is sold out; am recelvmg many orders that I can not o f