The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 21, 1917, Page 4

ST o i e T O S e e e onapvenca s and the League since the indorsing convention is the charge that the " League has gone back to the old convention plan of nominating can- didates, and that the convention was secret. That was exactly the charge made about the same convention when it nominated Frazier and the other North Dakota state candidates last year. The Fargo Forum went so far as to compare the League convention unfavorably with the convention the Republicans of the state expect to hold at Grand Forks to name a candidate. The Republicans at that convention have announced they will defy the opinion of the attorney general and governor and will seek to name their candidate strictly under the old convention plan. "On the other hand the League convention decided to obey the law, the opinion of the attorney general and the governor’s decree. Baer’s name was put on the ballot strictly under the terms of the decision of the state officers charged with enforcing the election laws. He was put on the ballot by petition and as many League members of the First district as possible had an opportunity to sign his petitions. *® *e * WHAT THEIR REAL TROUBLE IS EMBERS of the League and the increasing army of city M people who see justice in the farmers’ cause can be sure of one thing. It seems almost silly to mention it. It is that no matter who had been nominated by the farmers and no matter how the convention had been conducted, the controlled press would have been against the candidate put up by the farmers, That was a fore- gone conclusion. They do not care who the choice of the farmers is or how the farmers reached that choice. Be sure of that. That is not their trouble. Their lamentations are really because the farmers have made a choice, no matter who it is, and that the farmers will elect him. The indorsement of Frazier for congress or anybody else by the farmers would have brought out the same attacks, if the man picked was known to have been a real farm8rs’ man. And there would have been the same holler no matter how the indorsing convention was held. These papers are the tools of the politicians and the Big Inter- ests and they are hired to fight the League—to ecriticize its every act, to besmirch every man entrusted with leadership and belittle and ridicule every man proposed for office by the farmers. - The gang press has to make good with its masters—it has to de- liver the goods. But in the case of Baer it had a hard job before it, for there was nothing about Baer or his past that could be success- fully attacked. So the attacks have been silly. They have defeated their own’purpose. They are on a par with criticisms of the kind of clothes a man wears or how he cuts his whiskers, when there is nothing in the man’s character or record that can be assailed. But the biggest point after all is that Baer is a safe and sound man for con- gress for the farmers of the First district BECAUSE THE OLD GANG AND THE CONTROLLED PRESS DO NOT WANT HIM. S—. ; TRy — TS Y e TR —— “Bart”—in other words, Charles L. Bartholomew—veteran cartoonist of the Northwest, has volunteered to help his brother artist, John M. Baer, in his race for congress. A This little sketch, which he made after hearing of Baer’s nomination, he sent on with his compliments. To show his sincerity “Bart” has offered to give chalk talks in North Dakota in the interest of Mr. Baer's candidacy. Prejudice That Makes Men Insane HERE was a time when the shortest way with those who_dis- I agreed with you in religion was the stake and the hot pinch- ers. Men once lived who approved of the gallows and the dungeon as the best argument against those who advocated politi- cal opinion they did not approve. The pages of history for cen- turies are lit by the fires of fanaticism and unreasoning intoler- ance, and drip with the blood of men who sought only the free ex- pression of ideas that today are universally accepted. Gone are those days, you say. This is the twentieth century. Men’s minds are no longer warped by hate, prejudice and passion against those whose conscience and reason dictate a different opinion in religion or politics. The bright dawn of education and liberty, you say, has banished the night of ignorance and persecution. But you are wrong. Today in North Dakota men whose minds have been twisted with frantic hatred, whose consciences have been' dulled by fanatical prejudiee, are advocating a return to the rule of rioters, the justice of Judge Lynch and the argument of the gallows. The state has been treated to a reversion to the middle ages. Men admittedly misled or corruptly hired, but till now sup- posed to be sane, would again usher in the weapons of intolerance jand, fanaticism that the diseased brains of men in the dark ages contrived. ; The Grand Forks Herald has advocated the hanging of President Townley of the Nonpartisan league for expressing the opinion of the farmers on how the war ought to be financed. The Fargo Forum made an appeal to the people to riot at the Fargo meeting of the League, to prevent Mr. Townley from speaking. Both of these papers openly called on officers of the law to throw Mr. Townley in jail, and when these requests were of course ignored, argued for hanging or mob violence as the alternatives. * * * BLINDED BY MALICE ; HIS is scarcely believable. That editors and newspapers in the twentieth century would run amuck to this extent, even under stress of a losing cause and in the heat of controversy, will not be believed outside of North Dakota. . : The Grand Forks Herald has not yet pulled the rope that it hopes will hang Mr. Townley. The rioters that the Fargo Forum urges to come forward to do violence have not yet materialized. But these facts do not lessen the guilt of these newspapers and their editors and publishers. Men who publicly advocate crime and lawlessness are as guilty under the law as the deluded beings who follow their advice. The Herald and the Forum are not saved by the fact that the peo- ple of North Dakota are not yet insane and have not taken the ad- vice of these papers. They are not saved by the fact that enlight- enment, constitutions and law and order have taken the place of the ignorance, anarchy and fanaticism of olden times, and that their mad appeals have fallen on deaf ears. WOULD REMOVE FEDERAL BANKERS To Hon. Woodrow Wilson, President of United States of America: WHEREAS, Chairman John H. Rich, and Governor Theodore Wold of the Federal Reserve bank. of Minneapolis, have made statements reflecting upon the patriotism of the farmers of the northwest, charging them with interfering with the sale of Liberty bonds, and criticising them for not sub- + scribing for more of these bonds. : WHEREAS, Chairman John H. Rich and Governor Theodofe Wold stated that the farmers were receiving the highest price in history for their products, when they well know that the farmers did not receive the highest prices when they were compelled to market their meager in quan- tity and poor in quality crop Jlast fall, but that the gamblers and specula- tors taking advantage of the present crisis, compelled the consumers to pay them abnormal and unwarranted profits. WHEREAS, the farmers are supporting the government, having bor- rowed money at high rate of interest to purchase seed at the gamblers and speculators prices in order t¢ increase the acreage and assist their Nation; AND WHEREAS, the Federal Reserve bank at Minneapolis, under the management of Chairman John H. Rich and Governor Theodore Wold, has never given the assistance to the Equity Co-operative exchange to farmers’ elevators and other farmers’ enterprises that thy should have, but in fact have financed the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce and other grain gamblers and speculators, through large banks, instead of the farmers of the northwest, as the Hon. John Burke, U. S. treasurer, pointed out some two years ago, when he advocated the removal of the Federal Reserve bank from Minneapolis to some other point more in sympathy with the needs of the common people. : NOW THEREFORE, we are forced to the conclusion that John H. Rich and Governor Theodore Wold are not serving the best interests of this Nation, and we respectfully petition the Honorable President of the United States that he cause them to be removed from office, and cause to be put in their places men who afe in sympathy with the farmers of the northwest and in whom they have confidence, and with whom they will gladly co-operate in this, our Nation’s crisis. Respectfully submitted, - Resolutions adopted by 1,000 farmers in Nonpartisan League mass meeting at Dickinson, N. D, and at other League meetings last week. i ) PAGE FOUR