The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, December 17, 1917, Page 11

HE Leader proposes to discuss here some of the enemies of North Pakotn OUTSIDE THE STATE, and one of the enemies of } North Dakota WITHIN THE STATE. =The TFargo Forum was purchased, as the people of North Dakota will recall, by inter- ests hostile to the farmers’ prograim-and to their elected officials. Long-ago it abandoned its oririnal pretense of fairness to the farmers and opposition only to-“‘the’ leaders of the League.”” Its policy for some time has-been as follows: First, to-indulge in bitter personal attacks on persons connected with the League and in malicious insults to the League itself. This has succeeded in nothing.except in making evident to the people of North Dakota the hatred of the proprictors of the Forum for the farmers’ organization. ' : . Second, a policy of conying articles attacking the League from the Big Business press OUTSIDE - THE STATE. These atricles are given editorial approval by the Forum by reprinting. They have. been grossly false in fact and: distorted in opinion. They constitute an at- tack, not only on the League, iis officers and its members, but on all the people of North Dakota. For the [Pargo Forum is perfeetly willing to besmirch North Dakota and o traduce its people when it imagines this sort of tacties in some way reflects on the individuals connected withthe Tieague, whom the Forum hates, or on the program of the or- ganized farmers, which the Forum is hired to oppose. HOLDING A WHOLE STATE UP TO RIDICULE AND CONTEMPT The Forum has been referring to the organized farmers of North Dakota as the ‘“We’re Stuck’’ society—a clever parody, the Forum thinls, on the slogan of the farmers of North Dakota. The term used by the Forum is equivalent to the epithet ‘“‘Suckers,’’ applied to the farmers of the state last year—before the primaries indicated who the RBEAL ‘“Suckers’” were. This insult, and the personal abuse heaped on President Townley of the League and Governor Frazier hy this ENEMY WITHIN, the Leader is willing to let go unanswered, We believe it reflects only on the Forum, and not on the farmers and the people of North Dakota. It is a form of venom that poisons only those who secrete it. But the Forum has reprinted with approval articles from the Big Business press of Chicago and New York along an entirely different line. These articles malign North Dakota and hold its people and its institutions up to ridicule and contempt. The Leader brands these articles as false and malicious. We do so knowing that it is probably » unnccessary to answer them. It is unnecessary because everybody in North Dakota—even the enemies of the organized farmers, INCLUD- ING THE FORUM—know them to be false. It is probably also unnecessary to answer them because this policy in time will destroy the Forum without any assist- ance by the Leader. This policy in time will destroy the Forum, because no institution, drawing even PART of its support from the people of this state, can continue to traduce those people without feeling the heavy hand of the citizens it has outraged, who in this case constitute the overwhelming majority of the people of North Dakota. No financial subsidy from enemies of the people from WITHIN or WITHOUT will avail any newspaper when that time comes. Z On December 6 the Forum printed an article from the New York Herald the tenor of which was that North Dakota and its people were $‘unpatriotic’” and ‘‘against the war’’; that there were only two offi- cials in North Dakota, federal and state, who are not against the war and the government, and that the only other real patriots in North Dakota were the ‘‘loyal newspapers,’”’ probably meaning the Fargo Forum, the Grand Forks Herald and the Bismarck Tribune. We ad- mit these papers have been loyal to two interests—the gang politicians pnd Big Business. Any loyalty they have pretended to have of any other kind has been emphasized by them chiefly in attempts to dis- predit the organized farmers of North Dakota and their program. [THE FORUM SAYS NORTH DAKOTA IS DISLOYAL AND SEDITIOUS The Forum, giving comfort to the enemies of the United States,* In this article says that patriotism in North Dakota is ‘‘in a rather chaotic condition, due to the activities of the Nonpartisan League.”’ In order to take this fling at the League farmers, the Forum is willing, as this statement does, to brand the great majority of North Dakotans as disloyalists and the state as disloyal. The majority in a political democracy like North Dakota are the rulers—are the state. In branding the League farmers as disloyal, the Forum brands as disloyal the people and state of North Dakota as a whole, much to the delight, doubtless, of the few North Dakotans who still help the Forum to-exist by subscribing for it and patronizing its advertisers. ‘‘Sedition and disloyalty,”’ the Forum goes on, ‘‘are not heing gpunished by the state administration and, furthermore, are being fgnored to a large extent by federal officials, with possibly one excep- ion.”’ h How do you like that, people of North Dakota? The plain inti- mation is that disloyalty and sedition are rampant and that the offi- ipials and public opinion of North Dakota are so disloyal that no at- . Sempt is being made to combat the disloyalty and sedition which the ¥orum says exists. The people of North Dakota elected a farmer administration to office—the first deal in clean politics the state ever had. The people stand back of that administration. An insult of this kind to the farmer overnor and his administration is a reflection, not only on the organ- i1zed farmers who put him there and are upholding him, but on all the " The Enemy Without—and Wifhin people of the state and the state itself, which gave him a Ipajority of 65,000, the biggest any governor of North Dakota ever received. The Forum meant this to be an insult to the people of North Dakota. The Forum meant it to be an insult, for the Forum has only malice for the people of North Dakota, be- cause the people of North Dakota have not listened to the Forum'’s purchased, poisoned counsels in political matters. ““‘The two officials who are the exception—one state and one fed- eral—are John Steen, state treasurer, and United States Marshal S. J. Doyle,”’ says the Forum, quoting approvingly the New York Herald’s slander. The Leader does not wish to question the patriotism of John Steen and 8. J. Doyle, who thg Forum says are the ‘‘exception’’ among several hundred disloyal state and federal officials in North Dakota. The Leader does say, however, that there are some other patriots in and out of office in North Dakota, besides Mr. Doyle and Mr. Steen, with all due respect to them. THE ONLY TWO PATRIOTS IN THE STATE ARE NOT LEAGUE MEN The Leader thinks that probably Mr. Steen and Mr. Doyle are blushing with outraged modesty on being thus singled out by the Forum as North Dakota’s only true patriots outside of the Forum it- self, which of course is a simon-pure ‘‘patriot.”” The Leader will point out, however, that the Forum’s ‘‘only two’’ patriots ‘“happen’’ (!) to be the only state official of North Dakota NOT ELECTED by the organized farmers, and the only federal official in North Dakota re- ported to be going up and down the state OPPOSING THE LEAGUE. Can it be that out of the many hundred men in office in North Dakota, part of them elected by the farmers and PART APPOINTED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, only two are NOT TRAITORS? Can it be that these two sole patriots ‘‘happen’’ to be the only man who defeated a farmers’ candidate for office and the only federal official who is using his influence against the organized farmers? This seems strange. Maybe the Forum can explain it. On December 8 the Forum printed, with editorial approval, another attack by the ENEMY WITHOUT—this time an article from the Chicago Tribune, frankly attacking the Nonpartisan league and the farmers of North Dakota, practically every one of whom belongs to the League. There is nothing in this article about ‘“only heing op- posed to the Leaders,”” the phrase with which the Forum has unsue- cessfully attempted to mask its drive against the organized farmers. On the contrary, this article is an out-and-out attack on the organized farmers, their political and cconomic program and on the people of North Dakota who have adopted that program by over 65,000 majority. This article shows how the Forum views the efforts of the farmers of North Dakota to get a square deal for all the people and make the state a better place to live in. We will therefore quote from this article freely. We want the good people in the 50,000 homes of North Dakota, who take the Leader and are proud of their membership in an organization that is bringing justice and democracy to all the people, to know how the ENEMY WITHOUT and the ENEMY WITHIN the state view their sacrifices, their financial outlay and their tireless energy for the public good in bringing about the new political deal in North Dakota. So we quote the Fargo Forum. The Forum says: Unless the patriotic people of the middle west fight back, they will awake some day to the realization that socialism, with all its anti-gov- ernment, anti-society teachings, has become firmly intrenched in one= third of the states of the Union. Socialism, masking under the disguise of the Nonpartisan league, al- ready has captured one state—North Dakota. It controls the offices of the state. It has a majority on the state supreme court bench. It con- trols the majority of the lower house of the legislature, and another elec- tion will give it a majority in both houses. North Dakota has been saved the results of class legislation for the moment, only because the state senate contained enough holdover Ameri- icans to defeat the legislative program of the League. Even the most optimistic opponent of the League fears the result of the next election. If the League does elect a majority of the state senate, North Dakota will rival Populist Kansas in wild cat legislation, and the state will have a mnew constitution—a Nonpartisan league constitution—over night.: Members of the League will be considered in that constitution, and no others need apply. FORUM SAYS NORTH DAKOTA IS AN “AWFUL EXAMPLE’’ Because they think socialism is an unpoplar thing and something to frighten the people, the enemy calls your organization and your plans for justice and fair play ‘‘socialistic.”’ If they thought anything else was unpopular or would frighten the people, they would call your plans that, just as they called them ‘‘anarchy’’ and “I. W. W'ism?’ before the war, and as they call them ‘‘pro-Germanism’’ now. The Forum goes on as follows:: North Dakota, facing bankruptey, and for the present in the grip of socialism, no matter what other name it goes by, must be the “awful example” for twelve other states selected by the Nonpartisan league for the spread of its propaganda and influence, How do you like to have your state, which you have united to re- deem from the exploiters and the politicians, besmirched in this way? The Forum reprints with approval the statement that your state is ‘‘an awful example,”” BECAUSE YOU HAVE ORGANIZED TO MAKE, AND ARE MAKING IT, THE BEST STATE IN THE UNION POLITICALLY AND ECONOMICALLY. The Forum is at least partly living off this ‘‘awful example’’—is drawing at least a part of its sustenance from this state, which it contemptuously and falsely ' (Continued on page 18) PAGE ELEVEN S G B3 A et e e e 5 A