The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, October 18, 1917, Page 6

Tonpartiséin Teader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan Leaéue—Evary Thursday. Entered as second-class matter Se;})ltember 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. Biioa¥ rs “T MUST be admitted that some of the commerecial clubs, bisiness men and town officials who attempted to stop or hinder the Non- - partisan league organization work in Minnesota this week and last week were being deceived by the Big Business press as to the real purposes and objects of the League. But many of those who tried ic orevent the farmers from peaceably assembling at patriotic gather- ings acted with full knowledge of the truth about the League, and did it because pressure was brought on them by Big Business, which is menaced by the League, and by the politicians, who fear they will be swept out of office by the farmers through the League. In neither case was the interference with the farmers’ organization work defensi- ble, for, no matter what some persons believe about the League, or what the motives of others are in fighting it, the farmers have an inalienable and undoubted right to free assemblage and free speech. The 300 farmers prohibited from meeting at Lake City, Minn., by the mayor and commercial club, and who were threatened by a fire hose aimed menacingly at them, adjourned to Dumfries, 20 miles distant, where the meeting was held without molestation. Resolutions were adopted pledging the farmers’ support to the government in the war, backing the president’s statement of American war aims and de- nouncing the people of Lake City who refused to permit the meeting. The county attorney, who addressed the meeting, said it was the most patriotic rally he had attended, and the sheriff, who was present, said there was nothing to eriticize. . Contrast, if you please, the conduct of these farmexs, who peace- fully withdrew from Lake City to meet elsewhere when there was great provocation to insist with physical force on their undoubted rights, with the conduct of the so-called ‘‘public safety’’ association of Fergus Falls, which sent the farmers’ organization a letter saying the police had promised not to interfere with persons throwing rotten eggs at the farmers’ speakers, if a meeting were held there. So far as the Leader has heard, the written and signed statement of the Fergus Falls miscalled “‘safety’’ association, threatening mob violence and the violation of the laws of Minnesota, has gone unre- buked by those in Minnesota charged with the enforcement of the laws and with protecting the rights of honest and patriotic citizens, even if such honest and patriotic citizens are only farmers. THE WAR AND THE RADICALS HE first and natural tendency of the liberals and radicals of the I United States on the entry of this country into the European struggle was to take a position hostile to the war and to the government. This tendency was natural because liberals and radicals .everywhere are properly and traditionally opposed to war. ‘War, with its bloodshed and destruction, so useless and unnecessary if the people of all nations could only see the light, was abhorrent to them. They did not stop to analyze or consider the exigency of President - Wilson’s position or the critical danger of the United States in a world aflame with war. They did not stop to figure out what the alternative would have been if the United States had permitted further aggres- sions against it by the autocratic ‘government of Germany, or to learn that in the last analysis this war is a war for peace—a war of the polit- ical democracies of the world against the political autocracies. Radi- cals, if consistent, must be on the side of the political democracies. But PAGH BIX at first they saw war only as they had always considered it—useless, murderous, destructive—and we must not be hasty in condemning them for being consistent with their historic position. ay . But the Leader is one of the few publications that does not see a - setting back of the cause of reform or the complete and permanent dis- crediting of the radical and liberal cause because of this initial impulse - of the majority of radicals and liberals in the United States. We be- lieve that more and more radicals and liberals are being won over by the straightforward and unassailable statement of the president re- “garding the war aims of the United States. -What is more important, we-believe that there is, at the present time, a big and important work for the radicals of the United States-to perform. That work is to keep the war aims of the United States pure and unselfish, as stated by the president. : Great agencies are at work to corrupt the war aims of the United States. The campaign by the moneyed interests and the war profiteers against a fair and demoeratic war profits tax and against conscription of wealth, must be fought by the radicals. The war can not remain a war for democracy while individuals and corporations are making riches out of it, or while wealth is not paying its Jjust share of the cost. " Radicals can’ have a tremendous and wholesome influerice by: sup-. - ~ porting the government in forcing Big Business ‘to submit to fair prices : and’ just regulation during the war. - And .there is a:big field for activity by radicals-in helping to prévent the war being made a means of placing industrial autocracy more firmly in the saddle in the United States; and preventing oppression of labor—not to mention the great work radicals can do, without sacrificing a single principle, in helping the_government in plans to take over munition and war supply manu- factories, so that no. profit whatever can be made out of the industries- directly interested in promoting war. The Leader has no sympathy with the few radicals and liberals who have completely forgotten their former cause, who go up and down: the country adding their voice to that of Big Business and the war profiteers in efforts to suppress free speech and silence all attempts to keep conditions at home just and fair while the war is being fought in Europe. Neither have we sympathy for radicals who fail to see, or refuse to see, that the government must be supported and the war prosecuted to as quick and victorious a termination as possible, or who profess to believe that the war aims as announced by the president are not unselfish and just and worthy of support of every true American citizen: LA FOLLETTE’S DEFENSE ENATOR LA FOLLETTE’S speech in the United States senate S answering the charges of treason and sedition made against him was almost entirely a defense of free speech. As such, it was brilliant and telling and undoubtedly will go down in American his- tory as the classic defense of constitutional rights of citizens and mem- bers of congress during war times. When he speaks of the causes of the war and gives his interpretation of the events leading up to it, the senator’s arguments and oratory fall to a low plane. The American people can not and do not accept them. They are so plainly warped that they constitute no danger to the country or hindrance to its prose- cution of the war. S : On the other hand, when the senator insists on the right of senators. and congressmen to vote against war without having their motives questioned, he takes a position that no person or newspaper, no matter ' how hysterical these times are, can successfully attack. Representa- tives elected to congress by the People have a perfect right to oppose and vote against declarations of war. Furthermore, they have a per- fect and undoubted right to oppose the war after the declaration and vote and work to have the declaration repealed. Such a course. is in- advisable, of course. When war is once declared by a nation, every energy of the people should be devoted to prosecuting it to a quick and successful elose. But this does not alter the fact that congress is a deliberative body and that both before and after a declaration of war both sides of the question must be heard and discussed, in order that by this threshing out of the question the truth can prevail. There can be no doubt but that the eriticism of the wal; in con- gress by La Follette and others has had a wholesome effect. It hag put congress on its mettle. Knowing that there were eritics who would pounce on every error made, eongress has not acted hastily, and war legislation on the whole has been earefully thought out. When the members of & deliberative body are all of one mind, there is no discus. lionmdthsutsotdmhlbodymhoapttobema_nd ill-advised, The benefit of this minority eriticiam of the war in congress has more e Yimeman SN . SR S g Y ] e 4 oy PSRN S - TR R A e "