The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 6, 1917, Page 8

Unfair Attacks on Frazier E attacks on Lynn J. Frazier, farmers’ governor, have grown in intensity in the North Dakota anti-farmer press during the last few weeks. The controlled newspapers, big and little, are using every action of the governor to criticize him. Reports of his acts and words are distorted to appear foolish or evil, to suit the uses of these papers. Exactly what is happening was foretold long ago by the Leader. The farmers are not going to be allowed to govern North Dakota without their motives and aects being eternally and viciously atacked by those organs of the Old Gang and Big Business who hope to discredit farmer rule and abolish it at the next election. To these anti-farmer papers nothing the governor does is right or done with good intentions. They. try to make him appear dishonorable, foolish or ridiculous, as occasion offers. The governor and his admin- istration have stood up fearlessly and fought for the farmers and the people every minute since they took office. But he is not to have credit in the gang newspapers for doing a single good or honest act or for making a single honorable or just statement. These attacks have not fooled the majority of the people. They have not: succeeded in undermining the faith the people who toil have in the man they elected and whom they are heartily supporting. The people have seen in these dishonest and unfair attacks only another reason for standing pat and sticking together back of those who are fighting the fight for them. LATEST ATTACK IS ESPECIALLY VICIOUS The latest distortion of the governor’s words and acts came after his announcement that the constitution of North Dakota and the laws of the state would be upheld. A peace organization, with which the governor and the Nonpartisan league have absolutely no connection whatever, and which, in fact, IS TAKING A STAND ON MANY THINGS IN OPPOSITION TO THE STAND THE LEAGUE HAS TAKEN, telegraphed Governor Frazier, asking if they would be pro- teeted from mob action and rioting if they decided to meet in North Dakota. Governor Frazier could make only one answer to this tele- gram. He was elected to enforce the constitution and laws, and gave his oath to do so. He replied by wire that North Dakota guaranteed every person his constitutional right of free petition. He said that if this organization decided to meet in North Dakota the peace would be kept, but he added that no seditious acts or statements would be per- mitted, because the law forbids such statements or acts. His position was simply that every citizen would have his constitutional rights pro- tected, but that no individual under the law has the right to urge hindrance to the United States in conducting the war. He made it plain he would have the federal or state authorities proceed against persons who tried anything seditious. No governor, sworn to obey and enforce the law, could take a dif- ferent stand honestly. But this statement of the governor’s was a signal for some of the most vicious attacks on the governor that hatred for the people’s representative could conceive. The Fargo Forum, Grand Forks Herald and other papers falsely declared that Governor Frazier had ‘‘invited’’ the peace organization to come to this state, which he had not done at all. He had merely answered their telegram in the only way it could be answered. The governor was played up as giving encouragement to a ‘‘disloyal’’ and ‘‘treasonable’’ organiza- tion and was pictured as ‘‘turning North Dakota over to a bunch of traitors.””. The Fargo Forum in vicious language denounced the gov- ernor because, so the Forum said, he had not said the people of North Dakota would be protected from treasonable statements made at the meeting in question. The truth was that the day before the Forum printed this attack the governor had made a statement in which he said that, while the constitutional right of free speech would be guaranteed to all persons in North Da- kota, ANY PERSON GUILTY OF SEDITION OR SEDITI- OUS LANGUAGE WOULD BE PUNISHED. The Fargo Forum itself printed that statement of the governor’s in the very issue in which it viciously attacked him for not making such a statement. This eompletely proved the dishonesty of the Forum in its attack on the farmers’ governor. GOVERNOR CRITICIZES MISGUIDED PATRIOTISM > Not content with misrepresenting the governor’s.words and posi- tion to that extent. The Grand Forks Herald and Fargo Forum stated that the governor ‘‘had opened war on Fargo’’—that he was denounc- ing and criticizing Fargo. The occasion for this was what the gover- nor said and did in regard to the near-riot that happened in ¥argo when Fargo citizens, members of the Home Guard and members of Company B, National Guard, succeeded in breaking up a meeting at Fargo, called to discuss the government’s war aims. This meeting was under the auspices of the same organization above referred to. Through urging by and sensational stories in the Forum some Fargo hoys and some of the youths enlisted in the Home Guard and Company B, prevented this meeting from being held. The real blame was not on the part of the boys (See Leader editorial in this issue) but on the part of those in charge of the Guard and Company B who assembled them for the very purpose of breaking up the street meeting, and who later dismissed them so they could follow the speakers to another place and prevent their meeting there also. The governor said that he believed this was an act of misguided patriotism and that it had resulted in giving a wrong impression of what the people of the state as a whole believe, whien is that lawful gatherings of people should not be interferred with by rioting. The governor also wrote a letter of censure to the commander of Company B. These acts and words of the governor were played up by the anti- farmer press as ‘‘an attack on Fargo’’ and ‘‘an attack on loyal and patriotic citizens of Fargo.”” The governor said he believed the people of the state and of Fargo were loyal to the United States and patriotie, and that as a whole they believed in the enforcement of the laws and constitution. The peopie of North Dakota can well be proud of a governor who took the position Governor Frazier did in these matters. It takes »courage and honesty to stand up against insincere and sensational at- tacks of these kinds, especially when an effort is being made in the gang press to inflame the minds of the people and divert the patriotism of honest citizens into dangerous and destructive channels. HIT AT FARMERS THROUGH GOVERNOR Governor Frazier believes he has the backing of every honest eiti- zen in North Dakota when he frowns on rioting or near-rioting and mob intimidation, no matter whom it is used against. There are laws and courts to take care of illegal or seditious meetings. The attacks on the farmers’ governor at least prove one thing conclusively. The Old Gang and their controlled newspapers are going to use every cffort to question the patriotism of the farmers, which they attempted to do some time ago when they denounced President Townley’s patriotic speeches and the patriotic demonstrations of farmers at these meetings, calling them ‘‘disloyal’’ and ‘‘treason.’’ They are trying to do this now by questioning the governor’s patrio- tism, hitting through him at the farmers of North Dakota who put him in office and are supporting him in his administration. The Fargo Forum has again been brought out into the open. Late- ly it has been again pretending to be with the farmers and not fighting them. It can not now, however, wear this mask, after its dishonest and vicious attacks on the farmers’ governor. Every attack on Frazier of this kind is an attack on the men who elected him and who have confidence in him and who are supporting him—and these are the farmers of North Dakota, than whom none are more patriotic or loyal to true American ideals and institutions. Purpose of Meeting Stated by League HE National Nonpartisan “The government has had no dif- and forceful ways of impressing their “The only remedy for this is for the league has given out the fol- lowing statement at its office in St. Paul, Minn., in regard to the farmers’ and consum- ers’ meeting to be held in St. Paul September 18, 19 and 20. The meeting is not to be a protest, but an attempt to help the government enforce a fair price-fixing policy in all commodities as well as wheat. The League says: “The purpose of these meetings is distinctly not to resist any action that may be taken by the government or any action that has been taken. “The farmers of the northwest are patriotic. They will agree to the ac- tion of the government which has re- duced the price at which their wheat could be sold by nearly ninety cents a bushel, but they want their situation and their sacrifice to be understood so that public sentiment may get be- hind the government in other steps that it will be necessary to take to prevent starvation and disaster in this country. PRICE HAS TAKEN "THE FARMERS’' PROFITS ‘““We are calling this meeting so that the farmers can come from all over the west and confer together and so that they can meet representatives of the other classes of working people and discuss the common problems of the producer and the consumer. ficulty in setting a price which means a heavy sacrifice to all of our farmers. It has fixed absolutely the price the farmer is to receive for his wheat. It has taken away from some all of their profits, to others who were fortunate in a big crop it has allowed a slight profit and others again have been made to suffer a heavy loss on the whole year’s work. A G “If high prices for wheat mean star- vation for the children of -the poor the farmers of the northwest are will- ing to give up out of the earnings of their own sweat and toil, but the farm- ers want to be sure that the money c¢hat comes out of their profits does not stick in the pockets of greedy mill- ers and middlemen. FARMERS WILLING TO HELP THE POOR “The government has had little diffi- culty in lopping off a big slice of the price of wheat as it comes from the farm, but it has met with tremendous difficulty in the effort to get prices on anything reduced to the consumer. It seems to be easy enough to cut down the wages or the profits of the man who actually produees but it is devilish hard to do anything that will save the buyer’s pocket-book. “We do not know whether this is because manufacturers and specula- tors and middlemen have more artful views on those who make the laws or administer them. We do not know what is the reason, but we want to find out. X 3 “The farmers are willing to give up their good money and their good la- bor to help the government and they are willing to wear themselves to the hone, if necessary, to save the poor from starvation and suffering, but it they are asked to turn over their hard- earned money to war profiteers and thieving middlemen they will at least want to have something to say about it. “This is not merely a farmers’ prob- lem. There seems to be an effort on foot in this country today to set one class of workers over against the other. The effort is being made to prove that the city workers have no interest in com- mon with the farmers, that the only way to get cheap bread is to give the farmer less for his wheat and that the only way the farmer can reduce his cost of living is by making the wage- worker take less. FARMERS AND WORKERS SHOULD CO-OPERATE “If this game is not blocked it will _-reduce production in every line. It will discourage the farmers from pro- ducing big crops and it will make la- bor discontented and inefficient. PAGE EIGHT This is a consumer’s problem. * farmers and the consumers to meet to- gether and work to get justice for both. “We want to find a way to assist the government to put into effect a fair policy in price making. Evidently the - government has not had sufficient sup- port by public sentiment so that it could move effectively against the big profiteers. So it has been driven to, the course of making the farmer bear the entire burden of reducing the cost of bread to the poor and it has not been able to do anything of conse- quence to reduce the prices of other articles the poor must buy or of the things- the farmer must buy. “We want to help the government into a strong position so that it will hit the big fellow just as well as the little fellow. WILL NOT WORK TO FATTEN RICH “If the government is going to con- script the dollars that the farmer coined out of his own back-breaking labor and the labor of his wife and his children, we want to help the govern- ment to. conscript some of the mil- Hons of profits of the rich millers and the.beef barons and the steel kings. “We are patriotic enough to want to do that for the sake of the nation and the starving poor. We believe that ° '(Continued on page 13) ST