The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 22, 1917, Page 6

Yy, % V) Nonpartigan Teader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Thursdav. 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, ohe year, in advance, $2.50; s1Xx months, §1.60, Communications should be addressed to the Nonpartisan Leader, Box 941, Fargo, North Dakota, MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS THE S. C. BECK\WITH 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. . / i A AN = PEOPLE IS PoL 1iciA TWO CASES—A CONTRAST LSEWHERE in this issue the Leader reports two cases of open E and flagrant violation by grain buyers of the government fixed prices for wheat. In northwestern North Dakota, elevators have been robbing the short-crop farmers of that region about eight cents a bushel on freight rates and by wrong classification of grain. At Watertown, S. D., grain buyers_have taken it upon themselves to set new prices for wheat, from three to seven cents a bushel less than the government fixed prices. Both these instances were investigated by Leader staff men. g The two cases, in different states, at widely separated places, are interesting in more ways than one. In North Dakota the robbery was discovered by the state grain department, created by the farmers’ legislature last winter to do just that kind of work for the farmers, The department has ordered it stopped, and is preparing a court action, if necessary, to make the grain buyers return to the farmers the money taken unjustly from them to date. In South Dakota, on the other hand, nothing, apparently, is being done. Day after day the newspapers carty, side by side, the government’s fixed prices on wheat and the Watertown grain buyers’ prides, the latter an open violation of the government agreement with the farmers. The state market commissioner of South Dakota says he can do nothing except publish the facts and ‘‘shame’’ the grain buyers into being good little boys. The federal food administration has been noti- fied of this abuse, but to date the abuse still exists. If South Dakota had a state grain department, like North Dakota farmers got through the Nonpartisan league, it could stop at once the Watertown outrage, and collect back what the farmers have lost to date, just as North Dakota farmers are going to get justice through the North Dakota grain department. And, by the way, South Dakota farmers are progressive and alive to the issues—the Nonpartisan league candidates are going to carry the 1918 election there. And there will be a new deal—the farmers will fix the rules for a while. MURDERING SLEEP E can not help again extending our sympathy to the editor of ‘;‘/ the Fargo Forum, a man with more or less intelligemrce, who must, however, write as told to by the anonymous owners of the paper, who purchased it last spring to fight the battle of the poli- ticians in North Dakota against the Nonpartisan league. probably gets little sleep o’nights. The load on his conscience is heavy. Foreed %o take the opposite side of eéverything said by papers friendly to the League, and bound to attack everything put forward by the farmers through the League, he has got into many impossible positions: The Forum editor has had to sneer at the right of free speech; he has had to defend or ‘‘explain’’ the destruction of carloads of food products by middlemen in Chicage; he has had to refer to the under- fed, under-clothed people in New York City as ‘‘disaffected elements’’ and ‘‘malcontents’’ (heaven forgive him) ; he has had to call the doc- trine of conscription of excess war profits ‘‘demagogy’’; he has had This editor. te defend or ‘‘explain’’ mob violence. No wonder that, in desperation, he ocecasionally clips and runs as his own an editorial from the New York World. : Think of being an editor and having all that on your consecience| ' COUNTING ’EM UP HE enemies of the farmers’ cause have not been overlooking a I very important little announcement that has appeared on the front cover of the Leader every issue for several months, and this accounts for some of their bitterness. This announcement on Sep- tember 20 read: ‘‘More than 100,000 circulation each issue.’’ On Sep- tember 27 it read: ‘‘More than-110,000.”” The next week it was boosted to 120,000. The October 25 issue carried the announcement: ““More than 130,000 circulation each issue.’”’ If you will consult the announcement on the eover of the issue you are now reading, you will find it reads: ‘‘More than 140,000 circulation each issue.’’ It must be annoying for the politicians to realize that the farmers® vrganization counts its new members, and the Leader its new sub- seribers, not by tens and twenties, nor even by the hundreds, as weeks go by. Nor yet are they counted by the thousand. We count them by THE TENS OF THOUSANDS. Figure # up: One hundred thousand paid subscribers to the Leader September 27; today, one hundred and forty thousand. Forty thousand new paid subseribers, new boosters for the League, in two months. Let’s see, that’s about five thousand a week, isn’t it? Say, wasn’t it some paper in South Dakota—or was it Minnesota —that reported the other day that the League was ‘‘bankrupt?’’ Seems to us that several papers in both these states made the statement. But we should worry. THE PEOPLE AND WAR AND PEACE \HE proposition of the American Federation of Labor that the ’I working men of the country be represented on the commission that decides the terms of peace, when peace comes, is not only fair, but is necessary. Of course, the federation was speaking primar- ily for organized labor, but farmers also are working men—>part of the great army-of producers—and they too must be adequately represented in the peace negotiations when the time comes. Strangely enough, President Wilson, the American Federation of Labor and the more radical element of the revolutionists in Russia have all voiced the same sentiment, and no doubt it will meet the ap- proval of the peoples of all countries now in the war, President Wilson puts it in this way: That the German people themselves, apart from the German government, in some unmistakable way must take part and pledge themselves in the ultimate peace nego- tiations, as'a guarantee that Germany will abide by the terms. The president is not willing to trust the word of the German autocracy alone. ‘ ‘ The radical party in revolutionary Russia puts it this way: That peace must be negotiated by direct representatives of the people of all countries, not by diplomats and personal appointees of the rulers, as in the past. The president of the United States, the great body of organized labor in America and the more radical revolutionists of Russia have used different phrases in announcing this doetrine. It is true that the president was speaking only of the participation of the people of Germany in the peace negotiations, and that the Federation of Labor was speaking only of the participation of American labor. The radical party in Russia, however, made it apply to all countries and all peoples. But it is the same doctrine in all three instances, . If democracy in the world, as the result of this war, wins this and this alone—the right of the people themselves by dire¢t representatives to make and enforce peace—something great and good will have come out of the bloodshed and destruction. - ' established by precedent, the corollary—the right of the peoples of all countries alone to declare war—will not be far from accomplish- ment. 7 . .P.resident Wilson shows a deep appreciation of the meaning and s1gmf1ca1%ce of democracy when he says that no Ehoroughly democratic people will start a war for power or pelf. If, in 1914, the peoples of | ° PAGB SIX L I e s S T s And -when this is won, ‘and - e e ———