The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 2, 1917, Page 6

lNonpartisan Teader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Thursday. Entered as second-class matter September 3, 1915, at‘the postoffice at Fargo, North Dakota, under the Act of March 3, 1879. OLIVER S. MORRIS, EDITOR Advertising rates on application. Subscription, one year, in advance, $2.50; six months, $1.50. Communications should be addressed to the Nonpartisan Leader, Box 941, Fargo, North Dakota. MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS THE 8. C. BECKWITH SPECIAL AGENCY, Advertising Representatives, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. Quack, fradulent and irresponsible firms are not knowingly advertised, and we will take it as a favor if any readers will advise us promptly should they have occasion to doubt or question the reliability of any firm which patronizes our advertising columns, 5 RAKING THE BONEYARD RACK your brains. Do you have a dim recollection of a man named Dr. L. T. Guild, once owner of the Fargo (N. D.) Courier-News, which he ran to support the North Dakota po- litical gang and to fight the farmers’ political and economic program ? If you think hard enough, you will recall this carpetbagger and his brief but exciting experience in trying to run the State of North Da- kota. True, it has been less than a year since he flattened out and ‘“beat it for greener pastures, but, having completely forgotten Guild and his fiery editorials, we were mildly interested the other day to hear he had purchased a newspaper at Santa Monica, Cal. Then, for our amusement, somebody sent us one of his recent editorials, written for California econsumption. This editorial is so good we are not going to be selfish and keep it to ourselves. Says Guild: A CLOUD ON For political gullibility, commend us to the tiller of the soil in the northwest, where fortunes have been made on a single crop of grain or in a very few years in raising stock...... The farmer toils a few wecks in the spring putting in his crops has a few weecks more of strenuosity in harvest, j rolonged lateé into the fall, and threshing follows. Then fer about six or eight months of a long northeirn winter you can find thousands of these persecuted, plundered far- mers at the California and Florida winter resorts, driving their auto- mobiles and telling about how they are robbed in North Dakota. ‘What do you know about that? Pity the doctor didn’t take to farming while in North Dakota, instead of newspapering! But here’s some more, equally good. Says Guild: The procedure of the North Da- kota legislature last winter is the maost grotesque record ever' made in the United States. The ignor- ance of members was so great that the house of representatives had a red-headed and a black-headed \ clerk; when a bill on third reading was read by the black-haired clerk the faithful followers voted “aye”; when read by the red-haired clerk’ they voted it down. ‘Thus do the people rule, Now, it was hardly to be expected that foxy Guild would give himself away like this. While fighting for the gang in North Dakota and trying to line up farmers’ votes for politicians, he was saying how WISE the ““‘sturdy sons of toil were”’—what SPLENDID CITIZENS they were and how they were ENTITLED TO RULE THE STATE_ only not through the Nonpartisan league. But he really thinks far- mers are ignorant and he calls the farmers’ legislature of North Da- kota ‘““‘grotesque.”” Also he invents a funny story to make fun of the farmers. ; Let us laugh again at the poor old “‘doe’’—and let him slip back into oblivion. He amused North Dakotans for a few brief months, and anybody who contributes to the world’s mirth has not lived in vain. #* * # The United States government has had to call a halt in the exporta- tion of mares for war purposes to Europe. Money made the mares go too fast to suit Uncle;Sam. : # Ok % OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS MERSON once said that if you let a man talk long enough he E will eonviet himself—that he can conceal nothing from you. This bit of philosophy-is proved true by the insurance men. In the northwest states where hailstorms are a menace to crops, the Nonpartisan league has a plank providing for state hail insurance on the Canadian plan, under which a tax of three or four cents an acre PAGE SIX THE HORIZON A cartoon by Berry in the Washington (D. C.) Star. on all agricultural land furnishes a fund that reimburses all farmers for hail loss. This will cut present hail rates down 90 per cent or more. The insurance men have of course been fighting this League plank. Last year in the campaign in North Dakota, the Leader took ‘occasion to point out some of the huge profits in fire insurance as well as hail insurance and recommended state regulation of fire insurance rates, which past legislatures, dominated by the insurance lobby, had defeated. Some of the North Dakota insurance men formed a feder- ation to fight the Nonpartisan league candidates last year. How far the federation got was shown by the sweeping victory of the farmers’ candidates. The federation didn’t cut much ice in North Dakota, but it did some more or less effective dirty work by sending a mass of lies about the League out of the state to insurance and other papers all over the country. : One of the charges the Leader made last year was that the in- surance lobby had controlled past legislatures. The insurance men hotly denied- this. Now comes the Underwritérs’ Report of San Franciseo, an insurance publication, and admits the insurance lobby, charge. In an editorial in the July 5 issue, this publication says: When the North Dakota legislature met this Year a number of bills di- rected against insurance were introduced, BUT SO EFFECTIVE WAS THE WORK OF THE INSURANCE FEDERATION OF NORTH DAKOTA THAT NONE OF THE OBJECTIONABLE MEASURES WERE PASSED. Now, this boast of the insurance men that they defeated people’s measures for the regulation of their business in North Dakota, is not well founded. The insurance federation was so utterly discredited in North Dakota by the election result that it never peeped during the legislative session. Nevertheless, in elaiming to have defeated insur- ance regulation in this session as they had heretofore, the insurance men admit the charge the Leader made last year—that the insur- ‘ance business is in polities up to its neck, and is ever alert with its lobbies to defeaf people’s meas- ures, when there is any chance at all of winning, The last North Dakota legisla- ture did pass a bill putting it up to the people at the next election to vote for or against an amend- ment to the constitution permit- ting state hail insurance on the ~Canadian plan. So the boast of Underwriters’ Report is idle, but it nevertheless proves the insur- ance men’s wish to control legis- lation in their own interests, and their approval of insurance 10b- -bies to do it. * * * Even the old time friends of Jerry Bacon and Norman Black realize now that they are a detri- ment to the anti-farmer crowd. A North Dakota paper which sup- ported Burtness, in explaining his defeat, says: “Burtness showed up quite strong, and but for the hin- dicap of the Grand Forks Herald and Fargo Forum support he might have polled still more votes.” ¥ * % _ THE WAR AND REFORM HOSE who feel that the war is going to set back social and economic reforms in the United States for another decade should take heart. It is not going to. Past wars have. Wars have often been precipitated for that very purpose, and their prose- cution has turned attention away from internal abuses. But this war is different. This.is a war for democracy, say those-who got the United States into-it and are managing it.’ And because it is a war for democracy the people are not going to let the American, autocrats run it without the benefit of some good advice and without the people insisting on having the leading voice in its conduect. Already the voice of the people is being heard, and some start- ling things are brewing. In the first place, the rich, for once, are going to pay heavily for war. Past wars have let them off. Their principal contribution has been flag waving and, cheering. In this war they are going to PAY, while. the people BLEED. They may not- pay to the extent they should, but they are going to pay as they never have befor@ in a war. This in itself is a triumph for the people—it is making America as well as Europe safe for democracy. If we can make the munition manufacturers, the war profiteers in all other lines and the food speculators disgorge, these eléments will hesitate long before they throw their influence in the balance in the future for war, While supporting the governmentiin a foreign war, this is something to fight for at home. ‘ ; 2 . Now comes also a proposition for the government to take over l 4