The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 12, 1917, Page 4

! | @ 5 B A 54— U SO "““'.-—.—u.l,w.._____...——'-_g e - a storm that sweeps the sneaking In the interest of a square deal for the farmers lNonpartisan Teader A magazine that dares t» print the truth Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League VOL. 4, NO. 15 FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA, THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1917 WHOLE NUMBER 82 In the Eyes of the Nation USTICE is coming the way of the farmers of the Northwest. They J have been lied about and ridiculed. Their cause has been mis- represented. This is still going on. But the tide is turning. The truth of the farmers’ cause is beginning to catch the ear of the nation. The eyes of the nation are on North Dakota. The real facts can not be kept away from the people of the country. On this page is a cartoon that means a lot to the farmers of the Northwest. The Leader has run many good cartoons of its own, but this is a borrowed cartoon. It is drawn by one of the greatest Ameri- can cartoonists and it appeared in the last issue of the Country Gentle- man, a magazine for farmers printed in Philadelphia It is a good cartoon because it tells a story and tells it well. It carries a punch and it carries a laugh. That old hound dog of Privilege, the Political Old Gang, has long herded the sheep, the producers of North Dakota, in the pens of the commercial masters. Woe to any sheep that tried to stray over the line into the richer fields of free political action. The hound dog of Privilege (otherwise known as the ‘‘shepherd of the flock’’) was on the job to bite him on the ear or take a chunk out of his hind giiarters. The sheep must not get off the reservation. : But look what has happened! The sheep have organized and as the old hound dog (the ‘‘shepherd of the flock’’) lolls in the sun, a fierce and bloodthirsty young lamb springs at him and bites HIM on the ear. ‘‘IMPOSSIBLE,”’ they say. Exactly so, but— “IT REALLY DID HAPPEN ~—IN NORTH DAKOTA.” * ¥ % NOT WITHOUT A CAUSE HIS is the true picture. It I is the salient feature of the 3 whole situation. It is the feature which appealed to the correspondent of the Country Gentleman and which he passed on to the cartoonist to be handled with such telling force in the car- toon reprinted here. The people of the state of North Dakota, long ruled and oppressed by the agents of corruption and extortion, have rebelled. The rebellion is spreading to other states. The sheep of Big Business have suddenly displayed qualities that don’t belong to sheep at all. ‘““What insanity is this?”’ asked President Townley at Grand Forks. ‘“What insanity is this that presumes to tell you that 80,- 000 people of this state rose up in revolt without a reason?”’ Do people rise in anger without a cause? Is a whole state over- turned without a reason and without justification, simply be- cause some ‘‘agitators’’ have talked to them? _ Oh, no. The people are patient. They endure and are silent. They are many times called to revolt and they do not answer or follow. But at length there comes a time. At length the anger of a whole people at outrageous wrong and flaunting privilege breaks out in agents of corruption into the gutter and that will not ceaZe until* thi cleanup is cpmplete. ; THEY’'LL NOT STOP NOW NTIL the cleanup is complete! Until the people have accom- l I plished their purpose! That purpose is not yet accomplished. In North Dakota the work has been temvorarily blocked; in other states the big fight is only beginning. I IT REALLY DID HAPPEN—IN NORTH DAKOTA I (Reproduced from The Country Gentleman) Will the Old Gang stop it by standing in the way? We think not. Tt didn’t happen that way last year in North Dakota. It is not happening that way now. It will not happen that way in other states. The Old Gang in North Dakota thought that if they were able to keep the people from accomplishing their purpose in this one legis- lature their fight would be won; that the farmers would abandon their fight; that the people would forget. But the farmers are not of that mind or that temper. They are used to discouragements. They are used to the long fight. * * * THEY DON'T KNOW THE FARMER HESE Old Gangsters don’t understand the farmer temperament. I The city man, the man who works for wages or the man who sees the money coming in over his counter every day or bills for his services paid every month— reward for their effort—these men might be expected to quit a fight if it were not won quickly. But the farmer—not he! His life is one of long struggle and patience. He may get his reward for a year of back-breaking toil at the end of the year, but again he may not. He may see flood or hail or rust sweep it all away, or the credit sharks that prey on the farmer may get it all. Never mind, he starts in again with the long battle—a lifetime battle—and he feels rewarded for continuous and unremitting toil if only his children get a chanee. ; Battling forever with the elements, ridden by food gamblers and market monopolies, the prey of unscrupulous money lenders and legal shysters who are con- tinually seeking to rob him of all he possesses, the farmer yet strug- gles on. And will such a man quit at the first opposition when relief from the worst of his foes is in sight ? v Oh, no! You who are counting on this don’t know the farmer. ¥ % % NO POISONED CRUMBS HE farmers are sticking to their purpose and sticking to . their program. The program of political control by the people in the interest of the people has not changed. Their plan for state-owned industries to break up the market monopoly has not been altered. The first plank in the League platform, supported in the last election in North Dakota by 87,000 people, called for state- owned grain elevators, flour mills, packing-houses and cold storage plants. The League has not given up those objects just because a crew of professional politicians, relics of the old order in North Dakota politics, denied the peo- ple’s will and stood in the path of progress. : Two years ago in the drunken- ness of their power they refused the farmers even a slight crumb in the shape of a terminal ele- vator, many times demanded by ~the people. This year they at- tempted grudgingly to dole out a . poisoned erumb, but the men who represented 87,000 citizens scornfully refused. The people sent them to get something better than that and they will have it. The Old Gang are not masters any more. The people do not have to take their stingy charity. This is not the year 1915; it is 1917 and the farmers have an organization. This organization is going to be used to bring the Northwest .into the front rank of modern progress. THRER -