The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 13, 1917, Page 8

Above—Lynn Thompson telling the Minnesota farmers at_Alexandria of she benefits that labor has received from organization and advising them to stick to their sixteen-cylinder machine “and drive it to the limit.” Below—Charles J. Lindstrom, “that little, dried-up, wizened farmer” and the flag presented to him for the Moe and Urness farmers’ band. A Real Labor Day Meeting Remarkable Demonstration of Farmers and Working Men at Alexandria, Minn.— Five Thousand Attend BY E. B. FUSSELL HEN townspeople of Alexan- dria, Minn.,, came downtown b to their places of business the i»?e__g:]' other day they started rubbing their eyes. It was Monday, September 3. It was labor day, the townspeople knew that. But why should so many farmers be in town? Why was . it that every street was packed, jammed full, with farmers’ automobiles and teams? What inter- est could the farmers have in Labor day? They ought to be back on the farms, laboring on next year’s crops. Then the townspeople remembered. Yes, they had heard something about the farmers celebrating Labor day themselves. A fellow named Townley was going to jplk to them. They re- membered that representatives of the farmers had asked the Commercial club to co-operate with them to make the meeting a success, but the Com- mercial club didn’t think,much of it and had turned the plan down cold. The farmers kept pouring in. Every road was black with them. They came in delegations from every town of Douglas county, of which Alexandria is the county seat. They came in droves from Grant county to the west, from Otter Tail county, to the north, from Pope and Stevens to the south. Every car had a sign on it indicating what township the owner came from and bearing a motto, too. The autos were decorated with flags and bunting. The townspeople had seen plenty of flags and bunting. A week before Alexandria had celebrated Loyalty day. Loyalty day had brought out the largest crowd that Alexandria had ever seen up to that time, a crowd estimated at 5000 people. But this crowd was bigger even than the Loyalty day crowd, it showed just as much flags and bunting and those cards with the queer mottoes besides. BANNERS CARRIED BY AUTOMOBILES One bunch of automobiles, for ine stance, had these signs: Holmes City: We believe in or- ganization. Then there was: Brandon Town: United for a square deal, @ C, Another, short and pat, was just this: Osakis: We'll Stick Some of the other signs were: “Lake Mary: We battle for our rights.” “Hudson: TUnited we win.” “Urness: Divided we fall.” “Solem: We stand for our rights.” “Lund: Justice to all” “Alexandrfa: Organized for honesty.” “Evansville: Equal rights to all.” “Carlos: Our rights must be up- held.” “Ida: In the race to win.” “Millersville: In wunion there is strength.” “Spruce Hill: Organized for our ' rights.” One resident of Alexandria, of an in- quiring turn of mind, started to count automobiles. He counted 1000, and told the writer he had forgotten to go over to the baseball park, where many more cars were parked. At 11 o'clock there was a big auto- mobile parade, headed by the Moe and Urness cornet band, composed of 25 farmers, dressed in blue overalls and Jumpers and wide white straw hats, But not nearly all the autos could get in, there were too many of them. FIVE OR SIX THOUSAND PEOPLE IN-ATTENDANCE After the parade it was lunch time. Many of the farmers had been wise and brought their lunches with them. Those who hadn’'t were out of luck. The writer of this account didn’t bring his lunch along, and he knows. At 1§ minues before one 1 tried restaurant after restaurant and found their doors locked. They hadr’t figured on much of a crowd coming to town. They had been eaten out of house and home and had locked their doors to prevent more people from getting in. After being turned down at three places I got the last piece of beef tongue there was at a fourth restaurant, I took beef tongue because it was a choice between tongue and nothing, and after I had eaten that piece of tongue it was a choice be- tween nothing and nothing. Long before 2 o’clock, when the meeting was due to begin, the farmers _ and their families started flocking to- ward the courthouse grounds, where the méeting was to be held, and by 2 o’clock, when the speakers were ready, they were faced by a throng that at a THOMPSON PLEDGES LABOR AID FOR FARMERS’ MOVEMENT conservative guess contained from 5000 to 6000 people, stretching in every di- rection as far as the voice could carry. Because it was Labor day, and be- cause the interests of the workers of the country and city are really the same, Lynn Thompson, & leader of the Minneapolis Trades & Labor council, was introduced as the first speaker. Thompson was given a big hand. He congratulated the farmers on their de- cision to organize in Minnesota. “We need your help and you need ours,” he said; “and between us we’ll elect & new governor in the state of Minnesota.” ; The crowd cheered. - PRESIDENT TOWNLEY THEN INTRODUCED Thompson told how labor men, long ago, had learned the necessity of or- ganizing, but spoke of the smaller ex- pense connected with the farmers’ or- ganizations on account of the large membership. One labor organization, he mentioned, had been forced to in- crease its annual dues from $50 to $100. Thompson warned the farmers to pay no attention to enemies who would tell them that organization ‘was of no use, or that money was not needed. He' said:-- ¥ ] “It you've got an a;nto‘somq people PAGE EIGHT may tell you to save money by running it on one cylinder, But we don’t want any one-cylinder maehine and neither do you. What you want is a 16-cyline der machine, hitting on every cylinder, and drive it to the limit.” The crowd cheered again. Then President A. C. Townley of the National Nonpartisan league was ine troduced. President Townley told the farmers he was no stranger to that section. He had been raised on a Minnesota farm, and had gone through the Alexandria high school. “When 1 went to high school in Alexandria,” said Townley, “the busi= ness men used to be pretty progressive. They used to have a band and get it out to furnish music whenever there was a big meeting in town. But they don’t seem to be so progressive now; they didn’t get any band out to welcome the farmers, “But the farmers have been lucky enough to have a band of their owns to be able to make their own music. Pm sure we're all glad to have had a real farmers’ band with us today, since the Commercial club wasn’t progres= sive enough to get out a band for the farmers. - “And I want to call on that little, dried-up, wizened farmer that they had