The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, January 7, 1918, Page 18

"into the hands of the people. \ _. B v : z e Out on the North Dakota-plains a man—young, ambitious and strong—dreamed a dream. . He dreamed of a ranch home all his own earned by his own efforts. He dreamed of comfort and plenty for his family in.a house of their own on the Dakota plains, ) And he worked to make his dreams come true. He plowed and harrowed and planted and figured and schemed to make ends meet till har- vest time. But he met what every farmer meets about every twice in a while—a crop failure. It was a‘year of drought, and all his work and schemes and dreams had no infiuence with the rain-maker. Then he met what every farmer meets every year—the interest fell due—the principal fell due. The money had been spent in high-priced machinery, high living expenses, high- priced seed, high-priced everything—and it was gone, With a crop he could have met it all and made good. With another year’s chance heveould make good in spite of his year’s crop failure. But he did not get his chance. This was somebody else’s chance to reap, and they proceeded to do it. The man who had dreamed and wotked for a ranch home found himself closed out— no land—no ranch home—not anything left but debts, callouses and mempries. But he was still .a dreamer and still a worker. And he dreamed a new dream of a world where a farmer had a chance, of a world where a farmer wasn’t ruined and thrown off his land because of crop failures. He looked around and saw that the farmers who had crops were not much better off than he was., No matter what kind of a crop—big or little, they grew, they ‘were all just struggling along. Then he looked at the men who handled the farmer’s crop, the millers, the packers, the commission men. They were making money—plenty of it. . Crop failures didn’t worry-them. So he figured some more. How did it happen to be this way? Finally he decided that it didn’t just HAPPEN. It was done by organized effort. These men who “farmed the farmers” weren’t born into that position, nor were they put there by the grace of God. They were organized politically and : ihdustrially for the job, and they were surely doing it well. So A. C. Townley, the farmer who was driven off his farm, re- volted and determined to fight his way back. But he determined not-to make the fight for HIS right to go back on to HIS farm—but to make a . bigger fight for the rights of all farmers. And he talked to other farmers about it, and he found them eager to get into the fight, too, and thus the Farmers’ Nonpartisan League was born. And they did fight—and they won in North Dakota. They cleaned out the old gang and gave the state back And then the farmers in other states waked up, too, and wanted to go into the fight, . - But Big Business wasn’t asleep either. They took the farmers’ revolt as a huge joke at first. The idea of a bunch of rubes—hayseeds— thinking they could run the government and their own business! But they quit laughing pretty soon. Then they began fighting. They called the rubes everything under the sun—anarchists, I. W. W.s—pro-German—disloyal. They’ve used the press, the power of their money and position—every force " they could muster to fight the farmers’ League. They are getting ready to . hurl all their forces against the League in the coming campaign. NOW here’s why we’ve been telling you all this over again. We want to know if you are willing to do what Townley did—get off the farm awhile and fight these vampires who have not only the farmers, but the whole American people, by the throat. Of course we hope you won’t get kicked off like Townley was—but don’t-you think it would be a good plan to fight now while you still have a foothold on the land? If ever there was a time when every man who believes in this fight against Big Business should get on the firing line and help—it is NOW. We can win if we can get enough men in the field to get to the farmers and explain to6 them what the League is doing. Are you ready to do your part? Can’t you put in some time organizing among the farmers this winter until time for spring work and then get back into the field for the campai during the summer and fall? .Can’t you put somebody on the farm for the next year and help put this fight across? - You can better afford to lose some money next year than to lose this fight. y % ‘Write us for full particulars of organization work—tell us how much time you can spend in the work. The League doesn’t ask you to work for nothing. The farmers realize that this organization work is most impor- tant—the place where we win or lose—and are paying well to get it done. You can make a good living and at the same time help win the biggest fight ever waged for the people of the United States. Now sit down and figure this out. Consider seriously'what vie- - tory means in this campaign and what you can dd;to help win it. National Nonpartisan League Gflfiuan Block, St. Panl,‘Minn. i [=~==—=——SEND US THIS COUPON TODAY —==r-u—-mj NATIONAL NONPARTISAN LEAGUE, " Educational Department, Gilfillan Block, St. Paul, Minn, I want to do organization work for the League. Send me full par- ticulars, I am a League...... e T AR A AR 1 r L8 OHE WHAT A NIGHTNARE! T DRENT THE WAR WAS oVER! S iw e This week the Amateur department reproduces two particularly good cartoons. The top one is by Charles F. Tressl of Blackfoot, Idaho. Tressl calls his car- " toon “His Small Audience.” It shows “Big Biz” playing a phonograph, which is the press hostile to the farmers and their organization. The “music” is the charge that the farmer is disloyal and unpatriotic. But the audience is not large. It consists of the gang politicians and the war profiteers. They enjoy.. .. it, but most of the seats are empty. Tress| is only 14 years old and has never H taken a drawing lesson. -For a lad his age he has done fine. His ambition is . = to be a cartoonist when he grows up, and he certainly has made a fine start. N The bottom cartoon is submitted by Walter Engstrom of the Dakota Photo ) Engraving company of Fargo, N. D.. We left the title on the cartoon’ just as the artist drew it. The war profiteer has had a bad dream. He just woke up, scared to death. He dreamed the war was over! This is a mighty good idea, too. The Leader is paying a dollar to every amateur cartoonist whose work Iis o acceptable for this department. Cartoons must be on white, unlined paper, in BLACK.ink. We can not undertake to return unused cartoons or to correspond with anybody ahout the contest, which will continue as long as we get enough - good amateur drawings to keep it going. And the way the boys and girls are i AR S » » P LT Y responding assures a long life to the contest, Proposes Plan to Put Soldiers | on the Land Congressman Crosser Would Suppl.y' Farms to Veterans, Homes to Lumber-jacks, Washington Bureau, s Nonpartisan Leader UTTING the returned soldiers upon tbe land, when the war is done, so that more food can be produced and the primary wealth of the nation be: increased, is one of the fashionable schemes in this. session of congress. Senator Curtis of Kansas has a plan for giv- ing every returned soldier a farm. Senator Harding of Ohio goes him one better, by. proposing that with each farm shall go some of the lum- ber and other material that has been used in the army cantonments. Just where the million farms are to be found, and how the soldiers who have been, say, skilled- garment-workers -in -New York City, are to be made over into successful farmers, without any previous experience or working - capital, they have not explained. As one critic has remarked,- the - scheme" has only one parallel in American history—the proposal after the civil war -to give every éx-slave 40 acres and a mule. S : But there is now before congress ‘a really sensible plan of getting peo- and Save Timber . . land and the timber land, too. This * cal wholesale basis, Methods such as - ore from ground to mills, plan is embodied in the Crosser colonization bill, which was first in- troduced two years ago, and which has the endorsement of Secretary of Labor Wilson in his recent annual report. It was drafted after Secre- tary Wilson had declared that the natural resources of the country ~ought tc be developed in a way that would create a real opportunity for the workers of the United States. Today the bill provides a means of greatly- extending the home-making chances of workers who want to live on the land, and the returned soldiers . who likewise want to.earn their liv- ing direct from the soil or the tim- . ' ber. CROSSER’S COLONIZATION PLAN IS PRACTICAL It is really comstructive, because = & " it proposes, in a practical way to get = * the land cleared, drained or irrigated, as the case may be, and the necessary farm equipment provided, -through public authority and on an economi- the Steel Trust might use-in openin ‘up 'a new ore field, and ha : P 7] 03 W e o |