The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 27, 1917, Page 6

lonpartisén 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 S. C. BECKWITH SPE(,:IAL AGENCY, Advertising Representatives, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. Quack, fradulent ahd 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. “ FUST because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we should wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confi- dent, conduct our operations as belligerents wi.hout passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and fair play we profess to be fighting for.”’ —Woodrow Wilson. WITHOUT RANCOR HE words of President Wilson, which the Leader quotes above, I have been drowned by the mad chorus of the American press. It is in the hope that their calm and patriotie appeal will not be lost forever amid the hysteria of war times that the Leader ve- suscitates them. President Wilson believed that a demoeracy could be led to battle for the right without songs of hate for the enemy and without rancor and suspicion for each other, festering in our own ranks. But he reckoned without the American press, which has de- creed that this war shall not be conducted exeept in passion and hatred. 1t is a sad commentary on democracy. Temporarily deranged by the sensational and hysterical press, the order of the day is for hitherto sane and reasoning ecitizens to attempt 10 prove their own patriotism by questioning that of others. To really be patriotie, according to the standard of the newspapers, one must organize mobs to break up mectings suspected, generally falsely, of being disloyal, or form spy-hunting posses to get something on fellow citizens that will prove them pro-German. Newspapers and certain persons politically opposed to certain other persons, attempt to get political advantage by charging oppo- nents with lack of patriotism or disloyalty. Farmers, because they are organized in many states and ‘wanted a voice in price-fixing, are denounced as traitors. The farmers’ governor of North Dakota, whose patriotism and loyalty are above suspicion in all fair minds, is charged by his political enemies and the political enemies of the farmers with being unpatriotie. The war is used in an attempt to discredit the great farmers’ movement for justice and fair play, on the ground it is bampering the government, when its object is to help the government and facilitate the conduct of .the war. This war hysteria takes strange forms. The colonel of a Montana National Guard regiment refuses to call out the regimental band to honor the drafted men of Ielena and give them a send-off to war His reason is that these drafted men are slackers, because they had an opportunity to volunteer and didn’t! One reads with astonishment in the paper that the Kaiser has set a price of 400 marks on the heads of American soldiers, ‘‘dead or alive’’—promising to pay this to German soldiers who bring in the persons or the bodies of our boys in France, as though they were out- laws or criminals. * One reads this with a sickening sensation, filled with resentment for a people, even at war, that would tolerate such things. And then we turn over the page and find that an American loyalty organization has done the same thing—offered rewards of $1000 down to $200 for the first ecaptures, dead or alive, of German soldiers by American soldiers, the highest reward being for the Kaiser and the lowest for an ordinary German private! This silly sort of stuff is called patriotism, and we are expected to approve it and act just as silly in other ways, or we are disloyal! The American press and thousands of individuals are doing and saying things today that they will be heartily ashamed of when men’s minds get back to normal. * *® % Congressman Baer says that Food Administrator Hoover referred to ~ the producers of the United States as the “blooming farmers,” and inti- mated that they were unpatriotic. It is to be hoped that Mr. Hoover was temporarily irritated by press of work and spoke thoughtlessly, and, on more sober thought, will not want to be put in the position of being con- temptuous of the real workers, or of questioning the patriotism of our most loyal group of citizens. ’AGE SIX AL SECT THE PEOPLE SPOKE HE great patriotic meetings of farmers and consumers held at I TFargo and St. Paul under the auspices of the National Non- partisan league, at which 13 states were represented, are his- tory—they ended with the St. Paul meeting last Thursday. But their effect will be lasting and far-reaching. With all that has been said and done to make the United States effective and efficient in this war, nothing, until these meetings, had been done to really build up and ‘solidify a public spirit. that will support the government in its most important work, aside from military preparations. That work is to so regulate economic conditions at home that suspicion and disecontent among the people will end, and the country can have a free hand and a united people in prosecuting the military operations in Europe. The government has found it easy, owing to the backing of the big moneyed interests and the war profiteers, to regulate the price of wheat, taking from the farmer most or all of his profits on that prod- uct this year. But the people were not solidly enough organized or in a position to give the government the backing it so badly needed to go down the line in price-fixing, against the wishes and the influence of Big Business. And the government must go down the line in regulat- ing prices, if food control is to be successful. Otherwise there is going to be discontent and impatience, hampering the conduet of the war. The consumers, not the mills and the middlemen, must benefit by the taking away of farmers’ profits. Farmers profits on what they sell must not be taken away, while the government permits outrageous profits on what the farmer has to buy. There must be justice and fair play at home during the war. The League mectings have given the government the support it needs to be fair to the common people. Now that the voice of the peo- ple has been heard in terms that ean not be misunderstood, the people’s representatives who are conducting this war need have no fear of the machinations of Big Business. The government ean get its support for - fair price regulation from the people. It can go down the line in price regulation and laugh at the threats of Big Business, because the peo- ple and not Big Business have the power and votes. : The meetings made perfectly plain the opinion of the common ped- ple of this country on another point. They crystalized the demand for the conseription of wealth, without fear or favor, during the war. Un- less the dollars are made to fight in this war, just like the men are being made to fight, each as it is able, the war can not be prosecuted to a quick and victorious result. Men and women whose sons have been taken, and who have been willing that those sons hould go, have not made their offering to their ecountry-conditional on-anything. But in justice to them and the heroie boys themselves, the dollars must not shirk, and congress and the president must not let them. It is not fit- ting in this war for democracy that men and corporations should profit by the bloodshed and destruction. Congressmen and senators, who realize this and want to vote for conseription of wealth because they know it is right and mecessary, need not fear in standing firmly and voting as they believe. The meetings have shown that the people who sent them to congress will support them in this policy, almost to a man. Not the least important phase of the meetings has been the demon- stration that the producers and consumers—the farmers and the work- ing and salaried people of the cities—have a common cause and a com- mon enemy. Because they proved that the common people everywhere can and will unite, the meetings made great strides in offsetting the. insidious propaganda of Big Business that is continually playing groups of the people against each other, to prevent them from uniting and overthrowing Special Privilege. In a system that gives the pro- ducer only 30 per cent of whatithe consumer pays, there is plenty of room for economic reforms that will lessen prices to eonsumers and at the same time increase the returns of producers. * * * Mr. Hoover is quoted by Congressman Baer as saying that the farm- ers would have gotten only 75 cents a bushel for their wheat if $2.20 had not been fixed by the government. A representative of the consumers quotes Mr. Hoover as saying that consumers would have had to pay a price for flour that would make wheat $6 or $7 a bushel, if the government hadn’t fixed the price of wheat. This, in the language of the street, is playing both ends against the middle. ! * % # ANOTHER FORUM FAKE HE Fargo Forum, acquired last spring by interests that are using I it to fight the Nonpartisan league, .Governor Frazier and the men the farmers elected in North Dakota last year, has been caught several times publishin_g fake stories about the League. But being caught telling lies does not seem to bother this enemy.of the farmers. ' S In the accompanying photographic reproductions of a clipping from the Forum and a letter from the secretary-treasurer of the South Dakota Farmers’ Union, the Leader presents the evidence in another fake published by the Forum in its fight against the farmers. This time the faked story hits both the League and the Farmers’ Union. The Forum declared in big type that the League and Farmers’ e