The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 5, 1917, Page 9

Another Ambush Discovered All-Northwest ‘“League” Epidemic to Break Out in Grand Forks April 12 in New Fake “Farmers’” Movement » HE “big drive” is on. The enemy has been piling up ammunition for months, plac- @i@ ing its forces, masking its batteries, and spurring on the men who are to lead the final assault of Big Biz upon the Nonpartisan League. New tactics are being devis- ed. The enemy will not depend wholly upon the old methods that broke down in their campaign of a year ago. They are using different tactics right now. That is why there is such a sudden epidemic of new -“leagues” all over the Northwest. A year ago the newspapers and politicians were ridiculing the farmers for forming one ‘“nonpartisan league.” Now they are at it them- selves in feverish desperation. They tried the open field method—now they are trying through secret channels to deceive the very men in local com- munities upon whom their neighbors rely for sound advice. The same Old Gang that fought with its back to the wall at Bismarck, the same Old Gang that the organized vic- torious farmers drove to bay last November is now organizing a new “league” — for whom? FOR THE FARMERS. It is to meet at Grand Forks April 12, and hold a grand en- campment. After it is over it will be announced in the Grand Forks Herald, the Bismarck Tribune, Mandan Pioneer and other enemy papers, as the real awakening of the farmers to their rights and opportunities. Delegates will be there from different parts of the state. The Old Gang is making a desperate attempt to have them there from every legislative district of the state. They will be led by such men as Senator Englund, O. J. Sorlie, Jerry Bacon, Tom Parker Junkin (the frisky little air scout of Big Biz and Corrupt Politics) Senator Frank Hyland, the king pin of the recently deceased Old Guard senate, and others whose names have been associated with the most bitter and persistent enmity towards the Nonpartisan League. THE AMBUSH IS DISCOVERED IN TIME This great convention “of the farm- ers” was to be sprung as the biggest stratagem of the All-Northwest politi- cal ring, a surprise that would catch the League napping. Plans have been going forward for it several weeks— not as plans for the big Fargo conven- tion of the League went forward openly and by statewide publicity, a year ago, but slyly, underhandedly, by cunning hints to IL.eague men whom the plot- ters thought were disgruntled. It has been passed around by word of mouth, and a few letters have passed between the leaders as to details, and its prospects. Some of the approaches were made to the wrong men. The Old Gang is not always abhle to pick cer- tainly who are the best bets in trying to disrupt the Nonpartisan League from the inside. The Leader has re- ceived letters’and telegrams giving ad- vance notice of this attempted ambush, for the farmers are loyal to themselves, and when they find a clue, tip off the men at the front and follow the clue for further details. CRAFTY METHODS TO SUPPLANT CLUB Watch for the Old Gang announce- ment of its Grand Forks convention. They will multiply its attendance by three or four or 10. They will make a big parade of their patriotism, their public spirit, and will yearn for the welfare of the farmers—the same farmers whom they cheated out of terminal elevators for eight years, and whom they tried to chloroform with a waste basket full of fake “dope” at the recent legislative session. The farmers will know these enemies by the drift of what they will say. But much of the familiar cant, with the anti-League trademark, will be absent. For this occasion, they intend to suppress the mudslinging to a great extent and talk in" a friendly, “constructive” way to the farmers. They intend to try to allay suspicion. They will tell them how necessary it is in these days of Big Business to be properly organized. They will have some real farmers there, . and some speeches by them. This is to be a match of wits, not the blud- geoning methods that the Old Gang has been using. Diplomacy is to re- place abuse. Innuendo is to supplant false charges. THERE WILL BE A NEW NOTE OF APPEAL. THE PUR- POSE IS TO MAKE IT APPEAR TO BE A FARMERS’ MOVEMENT WITH THE BANKERS, AND LAWYERS AND INSURANCE MEN, AND POLI- TICIANS JUST PEEPING THROUGH THE KNOTHOLES TO SEE HOW IT TAKES. GOOD GOVERNMENT LEAGUE’S DIRTY WORK BUT THE FARMERS WILL KNOW IT BY THE DIRECTION IT WILL TAKE. THEY WILL KNOW IT IS THE ENEMY'S MOVEMENT BE- CAUSE ITS EFFECT IF SUCCESS- FUL WOULD BE TO DIVIDE THE FIELD, SPLIT UP THE EFFORT, AND DISCREDIT THE MEN WHO HAVE MADE A SUCCESS OF THE FIRST REAL FARMERS' MOVE- MENT THAT EVER HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. This big convention is the final re- sult of the so-called ‘“good govern- ment league's” work last year. It is part and parcel of the plan hatched up in Minneapelis a week ago and sprung upon the people of that state as “The Minnesota Nonpartisan League.” Jerry Bacon and Tom Parker Junkin were at Minneapolis taking counsel with the men who really sprung that fake organization. That was merely part of the general plot to start the same kind of an attack in North Dakota and else- where. They hoped to make attacks upon the League in so many direction at once that the farmers would be be- wildered. Mr. Johnson, who conceived the Minnesota league idea, spilled the beans the first hour by triumphantly announcing the “Minnesota Nonparti- san League” was formed to fight the- real Nonpartisan League at $3 per head for members. Before the ring's Grand Forks meeting is over, a proposition to organize and pay a fee to Big Biz to help cut their own throats, will Be made to the farmers of North Dikota if presént plans are carried out. WILL RESORT TO RACIAL PREJUDICE One feature of this plan is to organ- ize es;peciully in the German com- munities. The Old Gang is reduced teo its last desperate extremity and in- tends to try to set racial Wdifferences at work to help wreck the farmers’ movement. One plan that was being carefully worked out a while ago, con- templated asking a $25 fee to form a serman anti-L.eague — and where the farmers failed to pay this sum, the “supporting membership” was to come forward generously and pay in this money. Likewise in South Dakota the attempt was brazenly made by one of the politicians of that sta.ie, who is now an “out”, that he would person- ally finance the entire league move- ment in that state, if the local League leaders there would sell out to him just the control of it. He wouldn't ask them for a cent—just wanted a chance to lead the poor, blind fellows to their salvation. From all sides the Old Gang is thus trying to break up the League from within. They tried it at Bismarc but the attempt fizzled. ; WORKING WITH SPIES AND “NEUTRALS” But they transferred their crafty methods to the farms. They tried to work up sentiment among the farm- ers against the farmers’ legislature and against the men who had given the farmers the first inning they ever had at Bismarck. They circulated a few papers in the country trying to get enough names to start an inside rebel- lion. This was part of Norman Black’s publicity work conducted under the name of *“good government.” It was Norman's business to make a card in- dex of-all the enemies of the League. He confessed it himself in a rapturous moment to a League man whom he thought was the same kind of a traitor as E. W. Everson and Albert Stenmo. Mr. Black was to make three lists, composed of the bitterest enemies of the League; like Sorlie, and Twitchell, and Jerry Bacon, and the bankers and business men who felt as they did; another of the people who posed as neutrals or thought themselves really neutral as between the League and its enemies; and the other was to be worked out through the aid of these foes and ‘“neutrals” among their own acquaintances. GET CARD INDEX OF LEAGUE’S ENEMIES They were to SOUND THEIR NEIGHBORS AND REPORT TO MR. BLACK THE NAMES OF ALL LEAGUE MEN WHO TALKED AS THOUGH THEY MIGHT BE DIS- SATISFIED, OR MIGHT GIVE ROOM FOR AN ENTERING WEDGE OF DISSATISFACTION. When Norman got his. job done, he proudly showed the results to a League man—a big steel filing case filled with several thousand names, indexed in tlree classifications, ready at hand to be used in three different sorts of attack upon the League. This case and its MAINE MAN NOW-SEES HOPE Editor Nonpartisan Leader: Brother farmers of North Dakota, I wish to congratulate you on the great victory you have won for commercial and industrial freedom. Al- though you have not yet taken possession of the entire field you have pushed the enemy from one of his great strongholds, and in the near future if you are as persistent as you have been, will compel him to surrender his last fortress. As the Declaration of Independence gave us our political freedom, 50 your program will give us our commercial and industrial freedom, with- out which political freedom is of but little real value to us farmers. You have a great work before you, but you have the history of the past to en- courage you. You represent the Giant Democracy while your enemy repre- sents the Tyrant Autocracy and Oligarchy who enslave dnd oppress the toiling millions. One hundred and forty years ago the Giant drove the British lion from our land and fifty years ago he clashed swords with the Slave Oligar- chy and destroyed him. The Giant has now locked horns with commercial and industrial Aristocracy and is just as sure to win as the sun is sure to rise in the morning. Mr. Editor, when I first saw you poking fun with those cartoons at your opponehts, I pified them from the bottom of my heart, but when I saw Mr. Divet’s reply to that challenge, I felt somewhat different. Evident- ly your opponents can play as well as you at the game of fun, wit and sarcasm. perior intellectual abilities. tories. over your success. I am glad to see among your opponents men endowed with su- This fact adds to the magnitude of your vic- If your enemies were a set of ignoramuses you could not rejoice - In the Lincoln-Douglas debate, in retaliating Lincoln dealt heavy blows against Douglas, but it was done in a spirit of love and kindness. Lincoln loved Douglas and everybody else, even his greatest enemies, the slave-holders of the South. “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,” and when you give those sledgehammer blows with ‘your pen and those cartoons, I suppose you feel somewhat as a kind mother feels when she spanks her darling child for disobedience. / Your opponents deserve a good spanking for disobeying the will of the large majority of the people, and if the spanking is done in the spirit that Lincoln spanked Douglas, it will be more effective than if tempered with hate and revenge. This great battle of Democracy for-the uplift of the human race, which will soon spread throughout the land, should be fought on a high intellectual and spiritual plane, with personal abuse, misrepresentation, hate and revenge left out. C. A. MILLER, R. D. 2, Union, Maine. contents he explained confidentially to a League man, who is ready to make affidavit to this and much more inside dope on the Old Gang's efforts. Then Norman publicly announced with a pretense of being somewhat discour- aged, that the “Good Government League” had disbanded. But privately he said, touching the filing case with an affectionate hand: “THIS HAS BEEN MY JOB, AND IT IS ABOUT COMPLETED—BUT THE PUBLIC WILL HEAR FROM THE GOOD GOVERNMENT LEAGUE LATER ON.” PLAN IS FULL ~ OF SUBTLE TRICKS Norman’s prophecy has come true. The people did hear of it at Bismarck several months later. They heard of it in the attempt of traitors to brealk up the League right while the legisla- ture was in session. They heard of it in the pamphlet full of bare-faced falsehoods published jointly as “A So- cialist Constitution” by the Bismarck Tribune and the Grand Forks Herald and now being sent to thousands of readers. They heard of it in the let- ters sent out by Jerry Bacon, which some farmers sent to the Leader of- fice, (and which were published) ask- ing them to confide their kicks against League leaders to the sympathetic bosom of Jerry and the Grand Forks Herald. They heard of it in the furi- ous, ranting interview with Judge N. C. Young (Northern Pacific attorney) printed in'the Leader a short time ago. AND THEY WILL CONTINUE TO HEAR OF THE “ GOOD GOVERN- MENT LEAGUE” FROM NOW UNTIL THE NEXT ELECTION IN A SERIES OF THE BIGGEST ATTEMPTS THAT UNITED BIG BIZ HAS EVER MADE TO BREAK UP A POPULAR MOVEMENT. ‘Wherever you are, if you get a let- ter, a folder, a circular containg at- tacks on the Nonpartisan League, or even harmless looking little sugges- tions for more efficient organization of the farmers—remember that your name was secured through the activities of the “Good Government League,” and that its underhanded work has just begun. The whole people was organ= ized against ring politics and Old Gang marketing. The only way the enemy could fight the whole people, was to pick out the few who were out of step with this great movement, and use them as cats’ paws to rake their own chestnuts out of the fire. Out of the multitude they are picking individuals. It cost them dearly, but they have un- limited money. lawyers to devise new methods, and they can draw for any amount upon the political funds of every organized Big Biz enterprise in the country. Right now they are getting help from New York. Norman Black has been there trying to get a new printing press to be added to the publicity re- sources of the All-Northwest political ring. They will try to weary the peo- ple. They believe there will come a time when the people will be unable to stand the strain of continued bom- barding. That is all they hoped for when they killed House Bill 44, and all the other League measures that would have let the people put an end to the warfare now and achieve their purpose this year or at the next. Their finances are exhaustless—the people’s are very limited. Time and intrigue—these are their resources, and these will thrust up their heads in still other unexpected and strange ways. WOULD EXPOSE “SUCH GUYS” Steele, N. D., Feb. 19, 1917, Editor Nonpartisan Leader: In representative Sidney Smith of Kidder county we have a specimen of one who will desert his own ranks and plug for the opposition, although he himself is a farmer and evidently as much in need of progressive legisla- tion as the rest of us. Before election he professed loyalty to the farmers' cause, though not indorsed by the League, but afterwards he must evi- dently have seen enough immediate benefit for himself to warrant betray- ing his constituents. will have to be advertised so the peo- ple won’t get burnt by electing such guys for the legislature. We know you by the merit of your work and vote, Mr. Smith, and I am sure that you have by them, gained for yourself a sure exit. Do your work now, be- cause by next election, you will be re- moved and then will have no other chance than to rest on your laurels. THORVALD SIEM. They have corporation * Such characters . — 7o = . T eem———