The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 5, 1917, Page 8

_{ .l:'fl v; Mr. Townley said: “Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen? It is always a difficult matter, when I find myself in a position like the pres- ent one, for me to bring myself into an attitude of mind, and be on the plane, where I can appreciate in sufficient measure, what is expected of me; and to get myself into the frame of mind where I can do what at other times it is impossible for me to do. For I am not a public speaker. One of the last things that I ever expected to do, when I was going to school, or later when 1 grew up, was to make speeches. And I would not be.here talking to you to- day, if it were not for a peculiar com- bination of circumstances which oc- curred later, and one of the results of which is this meeting. PROUD OF CERTAIN ENEMIES “I am going to try this afternoon as best I can, to tell you something of the story of those circumstances and events which have led up to this meet- ing. To tell you some of the things that have taken place, as I remember them, and which bring you here today, and bring these other gentlemen here; and make it necessary for me for a little while as best I can, to talk to you. “The gentleman who introduced me made it very plain, while he did not say I had no friends—and I am going to tell you that I have; I have a few— bhe made it very plain that I have some enemies. “I want to get back of that state- ment of his a little bit. I want to re- inforce it, lest you forget. I want to tell you that I HAVE some enemies— I believe that I am pretty fairly well hated. I am glad I have some enemies! I am proud of the fact that in the state of North Dakota, by CERTAIN GROUPS of individuals I am roundly hated. And I want to tell you for your information, I want to make this sug- gestion, that if ever a time comes, so long as I am acting the part that I am acdting now in this organization, so long as I am connected with it, if ever a time comes, when a lot of fellows in a lot of different places in the state of North Dakota, do not roundly hate me —when they do not talk of me as you hear them talking today, when they do not cartoon me as you see me cartoon- ed in this sheet—if THAT time comes, you farmers want to get a shot gun and go after me and find out what is the matter; because THAT will be proof that I HAVE SOLD OUT! “I want to say to you that the best proof that you have got that this or- ganization HAS SOMETHING IN IT —will be OF BENEFIT to you—that in this organization you have a weapon that is greater tham any other weapon you ever knew, to protect yourselves against the robbers of men—the BEST PROOF you have got, is the OPPOSI- TION OF THE ROBBERS AND THEIR LACKEYS, IN THE CITY OF GRAND FORKS, AND EVERY CITY OF THE STATE. (Applause). (Applause) MISREPRESENTATION EXPECTED “I want to warn you gentlemen here today, that today and tomorrow all over the state of North Dakota, and perhaps all over the United States, this meeting WILL BE MISREPRESENT- ED. There are some papers in the United States, and some in the state of North Dakota, that will represent the meeting as it is, and there are another host of papers that will repre- sent the meeting ANYTHING but as it is. “Your salvation in this struggle, your success, depends upon how quickly and how fully you are able to tell, when they are telling you the truth, and when they are lying to you—how soon you will be able to sift the wheat from the chaff, and with the blinds torn from your eyes, in full knowledge of the conditions under which you live, march ahead to freedom for yourselves and your children. NATION GETTING INTERESTED “I am going to begin now to tell you something of the history of the move- ment. I am not going to talk about House Bill 44, or the program of the League. I presume more than anybody else I am qualified to tell the story, the plain simple story, of this organi- zation. “Do you know this story of this or- ganization is being told to millions upon millions of people all over the United States? That all the large publications, either have representa- tives on the ground, or have had or will have, and that they are all look- jng for this story of this thing in the state of North Dakota? The Curtis Publishing company, the company that publishes ‘The Country Gentleman’ and the “Saturday Evening Post,” sent a man out here last winter. He spent Address by President Townley at Grand Forks Herewith is printed a portion of the address delivered by A. C. Townley, president of the Nonpartisan League, at Grand Forks, Friday, March 30, 1917. The entire speech is a wonderful docu- ment that is worth preserving by all members of the League, in- cluding those who were fortunate enough to hear it. The install- ment printed embraces only about one-third of the speech. The ‘remainder will be printed in later numbers. The address was not written before its delivery. It was not a ‘‘prepared’’ speech, but is all the more remarkable for that reason. The copy here printed is a direct transeription by a stenographer who took the entire address and it is printed just as delivered, without any changes. some time at Bismarck. I think he spent two or three weeks in the state. He went to Fargo; he came to Grand Forks; he talked with the Grand Forks Herald; with the owners of it and the representatives of it. He talked to all the rest, and today he is writing the story. The first instalment of that story will appear in the next issue, the issue of April 7, of “The Country Gen- tleman.” ‘The Country Gentleman” is a farm paper that has over 400,000 circulation, published by the Curtis Publishing company, a concern as big if not bigger than any other publish- ing company in the United States. I want to ask you to read that story. As you go away from here, do so with the determination to get and read that story. I believe it is the most impartial representation of this movement that has yet appeared; and you will be in- terested in reading that story. THE MEETING WITH WOOD “Most of the farmers in this state do not know how the Nonpartisan League started. Here is a farmer over here— here is Lageson here—THEY don't know anything about this movement in the EARLY months of its develop- ment; this thing that is big enough now so that it attracts the attention of all the people of the United States. You and they want to know about it, so I am going to tell you, that just a little more than two years ago, out here in the county of ~McHenry, at Deering, North Dakota (most of you know where it is) I met Mr. Wood here —Howard Wood—you see him in the corner there—and his father, Mr. F. B. Wood. I had met them down at Bis- marck at that legislative session. I had talked with them, and with Mr, Bowen and two or three others, about a plan to organize the farmers of the state and capture the government of the state. “We had an idea—just an idea—and on the first day of March or last day of February, I came out to Mr. Howard ‘Wood’s place at Deering. I called him up over the phone. (I am telling you a little story, just the same as Myrvold here might tell a story). “I had told Mr. ‘Wood about my plan to build the Nonpartisan League; but he did not expect me to come there in the winter—when there was snow on the ground. But he knew what I meant when I phoned, all right. And he met me on the sidewalk. I will never for- get how he looked the day and the hour and the minute that he looked at me and shook hands. “He said to me (because he knew what I was there for): “WHAT THE DEVIL ARE YOU OUT HERE AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR FOR?” “He thought I was coming in the summer, and there Ivwas in the middle of winter with plans as he knew to organize all the farmers of the state. NO FUNDS TO START WITH “Now we didn’t have any of the funds that are back of the Republican party, or the Democratic party. We didn't “have any money to build this organiza~ tion. All we had was just the idea. And the story to tell. 5 “You know I have got a reputation of having gone broke. I want to plead guilty to-that. I don’t need to empha- size that very much here. -Junkin has done that long before I got here. You all know that as a farmer I was not MUCH more successful than the average farmer. I want to tell you that there is not very much difference between myself and a good many other farmers, except that I went broke and found it out, where a good many fellows go broke and DON'T KNOW IT; THAT is all the difference. (Laughter and applause). E SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE “And when I found out that to farm UNDER THE CONDITIONS that you farmers have to live under, made it impossible for a man ever to hope to win an honest competence, ‘I simply QUIT, and said THERE IS ANOTHER ‘WAY OUT. I am going to cut out this. I know a different way. “So Iroamed around about the prai- ries of North Dakota for about a year and a half, TALKING TO THE FARM- ERS. I used to walk 30 miles a day sometimes, and TALK TO DIFFER- ENT FARMERS as I came to them. I THOUGHT I UNDERSTOOD THE MATTER. And I went from one to the other; and I TALKED to them, sometimes an hour, sometimes two hours—and discussed things with them, TO SEE WHETHER THERE WAS NOT SOMETHING THAT COULD BE DONE. “You may think it was peculiar, a funny thing, that I would tramp back and forth in that way, TALKING TO FARMERS. But I THOUGHT that an organization could be built. I did not KNOW—I was not SURE. So I went on and on, and TALKED TO FARM- ERS—discussed things with them. And we would come to the conclusion that SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE, or there was not any use staying on the farm. And so I got THAT IDEA, and THAT EXPERIENCE. NOTHING BUT A PLAN “Mr. Howard Wood and his father knew I had gone broke as a farmer, and I was discredited. My neighbors and all people knew that I was out hollering against conditions; and when I came to Mr. Wood without any money—my wife at that time was sick in St. Paul, and I was without any money—with nothing but a PLAN to organize the farmers of North Dakota in one summer—when I came to his house when the snow was still on the ground, asking him to help me do that, you can readily understand what he meant when the said: ‘WHAT THE DEVIL ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR? “Mr. Wood had been in the state 8 or 10 years, and had given about half of his time to trying to build an or- ganization, and had not got very far. And he had FRIENDS! And here I came to Mr. Wood’s place without any money, without any friends, with NOTHING but A STORY! You begin to get some idea of the situation. I wonder how many men there are in this room that I could have got to get out a team and go with me to see a neighbor with a proposition like that? Of course if I had had a GOOD REP- UTATION, like Jerry Bacon here, and lots of money, it might have been a little bit different. (Laughter.) But I was an ‘“undesirable citizen”; a dis- credited man; an outcast. A man with AN IDEA, but without friends! HOWARD GROWS “ABNORMAL" “Well, I spent a couple of days talk- ing with Mr. Wood and his father; discussing conditions and talking about what should be done. At last I began to get them a little bit excited. I can not account for it in any other way. I don’t think I had convinced them of anything. I guess I must have got them ‘off the trolly.’ They were ‘NOT NORMAL’ (as our opposition friends call it), after I got after them for 2 or 3 days. Any more than you farmers were ‘NORMAIL’ when you built the Nonpartisan ILeague. YOU ARE AN ABNORMAL BUNCH OF PEOPLE! “Well, finally Howard hitched up a team, and we went and saw a neighbor, and I ‘put him on,’ and got his $6. ‘Well, it began to look like something real! So the next morning he hitched up again, and this time we went in another direction, with a buggy, and tackled another man and got HIS $6. “And we found out that over there were a couple or three townships with- out any snow on the ground. By this time Howard was beginning to get a little more excited, and when we heard about this he said: ‘I have got a LIT- TLE OLD FORD, and we will TAKE THAT, and go and see some of those fellows. “The old gentleman was not so much excited. He had his head with him yet. What I wanted was to get HIM in the car But his standing with the farmers was too good He didn’t go. He had-more farmers’ elevators and farmers’ stores to take care of those two weeks, tham any other man in the ryrT™ ‘state! Iam not criticizing the old gen~ tleman for that. I give him credit for good judgment. But Howard got ex- cited better than the old fellow. “Well we started out next morning with the Ford. We took along a couple of shovels; and by shoveling and push- ing and cranking, we got over to where there was not any snow. And I paint- ed a picture to those farmers, that made every one of them see the Non- partisan League BETTER THAN YOU SEE IT NOW! Some of them were very doubtful whether they would ever get any value for their money; but they thought it was worth trying any- way, and some of them said: ‘It is worth §6 TO HEAR THAT FELLOW TALK!’ CHOOSING A COMMITTEE AND PRESIDENT “By the way, I want to be very frank with you this afternoon. The Grand Forks Herald, and the gang in the senate that killed “44”, and Everson down here, and all the fellows that oppose this organization, SAY THAT I WAS NOT ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE LEAGUE. “They want to know what right I have got to call myself President of the Nonpartisan League. I am going to be very very frank with you and explain what right I have. When Howard and his father and two or three more of us found that this thing would GO, after I had been organizing for four or five days and put on every- body we saw during that time; we saw that it would be necessary to have some kind of a committee to take care of it. “We didn’t have AUTOMOBILES and GASOLINE enought to go to all of the farmers of the state,' and to Jerry Bacon and the Grand Forks Herald, to ask them who this committee should be. “So we got- busy and picked out a committee. The old gentleman named five nren that we knew, and asked this little group of farmers if they thought those men would be all right. By the way, Howard was to be a member of the committee to begin with, because at first the old gentleman did not know whether HE WANTED to or not, so Howard was proposed as a member of the committee. Mr. Wood was sug- gested as treasurer and vice president. 'So we took a piece of paper and wrote the League program on it—NOW I WANT YOU TO GET THIS, JUNKIN, BECAUSE THIS IS IMPORTANT— wrote the League program on it; and wrote the names of this committee here up at the top; and because I had the idea they named me as chairman of the committee, and wrote my name on there as president. CONFIRMED BY ALL MEMBERS “And then when we went to the farmers we showed them these names, and said the League would be carried on under the direction of this commit- tee. And there was a clause there that said in so many words, THAT THE MANAGEMENT OF THE LEAGUE, AND THE MANAGEMENT OF THE FUNDS, WAS TO BE IN THE HANDS OF THAT COMMITTEE. You noticed that didn't you, Andrews? Yes. “And THIS fellow, and this fellow, and everyone who joined the League, read that program and those names, and -signed up and paid his money. And I have got a kind of a foolish idea.. THAT ALL OF THOSE MEN WHO SIGNED THAT PAPER, VOTED FOR "ME AS PRESIDENT AT THAT TIME. “I don’t know of anybody that voted against me. And we have got the names of 40,000 farmers, in their own handwriting on this paper, subscribing to this program AND TO THOSE MEN TO CARRY OUT THAT PRO- GRAM. I think that was a pretty fair election. A VOICE: Yes! “About as good as we could accom- plish at that time, with the machinery we had. ~ “Of course it might have been better to have got 4000 or 5000 farmers to come down to Grand Forks and hold a convention; but we could not have convinced them at that time THAT THEY OUGHT TO COME! FARMERS WOULD NOT HAVE COME TO A CONVENTION “I will tell you who would have been here if we had tried to do that. There would have been about half a dozen politicians and corporation lawyers, and a newspaper man or two. But you farmers would not have come. We HAD TO SHOW YOU FIRST that SOMETHING SHOULD BE DONE, before you would come. ° “Now that is how I came to be president of the committee, and how (Continued on Page 14) ——wwrre-wy @ PONA 1SSUE OT the people. S