The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, January 7, 1918, Page 8

: league: ¥ as it proved, to weaken the organization politjcally.. The long and short of it was that the farmers found that & political organization and a business - organization ' didn’t - work well together. they had\gone into'the co-operative business,a little too soon, before the laws were sufficiently favorabile. At any rate, it created some dissatisfaction. Possibly The South Dakota farmers were so enthusiastic over" fusion that they determined to try it again. Loucks pleaded with them to abandon the plan, It might win once more or twice more, he urged, but in the end it would mean that the People’s party would lose its identity. The issues that formerly " -had been clear-cut would be clouded. Loucks could In 1894 the/South Dakota Populists lost again.. Then came the big year of 1896. The money question was the big issue of 1896 and 3 ' the west was aflame with enthusiasm for Bryan’s remedy -for free silver. The large majority of the members of the Alliance were in favor of free silver. ““Free silver had little to do with the primary - pur- “poses for which the farmers had decided to go into politics. But the Democrats said to them: “In 1892 you got a big vote but even with twice that vote you haven’t a chance to elect a president. But your vote added to our vote will elect a presi- dent easily. Let us agree on the same man; let us nominate Bryan, and then we will win together.” .. There was talk of allowing the Populists to name the candidate for vice-president. Some oi the Popu- lists claim a definite agreement to this effect was made. A few of the farmers saw the dangerl of fusion. They feared that the Populists would’ be swallowed up in the Demoecratic party. Loucks of South Dakota was one of these. He remembered the experience he had had in South Dakota “co-- operating” with the Republican politicians and he didn’t believe that the Democratic politicians were any more to be trusted than the politicians on the other side of the fence. Loucks and his friends urged that the party organization should be kept intact at any cost, that the party should'go “straight down the middle of the road,” without affiliation with either side. They called them the “middle-of- the-roaders.” 5 FUSION WAS SUCCESSFUL S IN SOUTH DAKOTA ELECTION But these men were in a small minority. The Democrats followed out their plan of nominating Bryan for president, but failed to select Thomas E. Watson of Georgia, the Populist choice, for vice- -president, naming instead Arthur Sewall of Maine. . Although-some of thé Populist leaders charged that this constituted a breach of faith, the People’s party convention, held at St. Louis two weeks later, agreed on Bryan for president and then named its own zandidate, Watson, for vice-president. * ‘What happened nationally that year — how Mark Hanna rallied the millions of the East against the fusion. candidate, how New York swung into line for McKinley and elected him, is too recent history to be worth repeating. But only a small portion of Mark Hanna’s millions reached South Dakota, and fusion that year re- sulted in giving the Democratic-Populist ticket almost a clean sweep. The farmers elected a fusion legislature, elected Andrew BE. Lee as fusion governor, and J. E. Kelly and Freeman Knowles as fusion congressmen. The legisla- ture re-elected Senator Kyle, whose term ex- bired that year, and submitted to the people constitutional amendments providing for the ini- - tiative and referendum. - e Shows The League . 1s Constructive The following editorial on how the Nonpartisan league is pointing the way to run a democracy, was written by Dr. Frank Crane. Dr. Crane is one of the most celebrated editorial writers in the United States and his editorials appear in several hundred papers. Here is what he says of the Nonpartisan <“In North Dakota there is a farmer by the name of A. C. Townley. His main crop was flax. This was what happened. I quote from Eleanor Taylor in the Survey: : ““In order to buy new equibn‘lent, seed, ete., he bor-- rowed a large sum of money from a group of inter- ests. which controls not only-the credit offered to the farmer, but also the tra.n‘sgortation and market- ing facilities of the state. When his crop was ripe . it necessarily passed through the hands of this group :to be put on the market. They paid Mr. Townley, .~ as they did many of the farmers, a low price for his flax, and sold it for a high one. Their price to him was so low that he found it impossible to make the required payment on his mortgage. The mortgage was foreclosed, therefore, and his farm taken to liquidate the debt. ; ““‘Townley saw other farmers in almost similar - predicaments. Tn spite of hard work and intelligent effort they were 8o at the mercy of food and grain < ‘ see hothing but disaster ahead. / But the big majority was for fusion. ' Then occurred the-great breach. Loucks was intensely interested in the success of the initiative and referendum amendment then before the people, to-be voted upon at the 1898 election. He feared that if the Republi- can organization decided to work against it, the amendment would be defeated. THEN THE REPUBLICANS GOT BACK INTO POWER Loucks conferred with leading Republicans on the situation. He offered to support the Republican ticket if the Republicans would support the initia- tive and referendum. The Republicans considered the matter at their 1898 convention. They didn’t come out flatly in support of the. amendment, but they agreed not to fight it and adopted a resolution recommending the initiative and referendum to the “earnest consideration of the voters.” Loucks was bitterly arraigned by the farmers at the time as a deserter of their cause. What hap- pened in the election of 1898 was that the initiative and referendum carried. South.Dakota, by this ac- tion, was the first state to adopt -this reform. Also, Lee was re-elected governor, but the Republicans won most of the other offices. Loucks made a final attempt to fight fusion in 1900 but it was unavailing. Then he joined definite- ly with the Republican party. Many others did the same. The Populists and Democrats became disor- ganized and the Republicans made practically a clean- sweep of the state, and have been doing . it ever since. = This ends the story of the Populist party in South Dakota. The party died, but it accomplished many things. The farmers won their fight against railroad passes and for a free market. They made South Dakota the first initiative and referendum state in ! o the Union. After that time the supreme court di all it could to nullify the initiative and referendum, holding that the legislature could amend or repeal ‘an initiative law immediately after the people had : voted for it, and allowing the legislature to declare any bill it chose an “emergency measure” so that it could be put into effect at once ‘without the people . being given a chance to vote on it. But the People’s party started the movement, and while the party died, friends of the people sprang up later to carry on the fight. ; THE PEOPLE'S PARTY ACCOMPLISHED MUCH While in South Dakota the writer talked with many pioneers in the People’s party movement. Every one agreed that many mistakes were made. The farmers tried to go into politics without suffici- . ent money. They tried to carry on business and politics, to a large extent, through the same organ-: ization, They went into business before they were ready, before their members had been sufficiently drilled in the “We’ll stick” idea, and, some of them think, they went into politics a little too early. And nearly all of them agree now that going into partner- ship with the Democratic party in 1896 was mis- taken judgment. " A Most of the old bitternesses have died away now. There is no more feeling against Loucks over the 1898 affair—in fact, as far as the writer could dis- cover, Loucks is one of the best liked -men in the state. The farmers who oppesed him in 1898 are ready to acknowledge that he acted with the best motives and time has served to justify his objection to fusion.: While the People’s party haé perished, many of the things they advocated, probably a good half of them, have been enacted into law today. And, as one of the.farmers himself put it, “all of them will be law before this war is over.” ~ But the writer is inclined to think that the bes thing the People’s party did was not the legislation it advocated, which eventually was adopted by other parties. The biggest thing the .People’s party did 'was to show the farmers that they can win political- ly if they stick together. A street scene in Plerre, 8. D, as it is today. Pierre is the capital of the state. “\"—_—_fifi—__—“ speculators that they barely made both ends meet. He gathered a few together, ‘ therefore, talked the situation over, and out of their conference grew the North Dakota Nonpartisan League, with today a membership of 130,000 farmers and an annual in- come of about $1,000,000.’ ; “Very soon the combined farmers saw that they could not do much toward relieving their economic troubles without going into politics. The old parties, both Republican and Democratic, had beer: side-step- ping in their usual way. The farmers put their own men in the primaries. -The 1916-1917 elections seated their candidate in the governor’s chair, and got them three supreme court judgeships and 105 out of the 138 members of the legislature. “The labor unions have co-operated with them. “The point I want to bring out in all this is that this is a fine sample cf the real way to run a demoec- - racy. > < 3 3 “Instead of -standing about berating your country and moumlng\the injustice of the laws, why not get busy and create a majority to remedy the bad condi- tions? : % “Why complain of politics? Why not go into poli- - tics, clean things up, and get\what you want in a straightforward, American way? P ” “If you don’t like the parties on hand, 'start 2 new one. bl S 2 “Anything that will break up the old, traditional political alignments, that. have come to mean noth- ing but phrase-making, is welcome. Perhaps Town- _know if you think best. ley and his co-workers have shown us the way. At the recent convention ke said: ‘The farmers control 35 per cent of the vote of this country; labor cen- trols about 27 per cent; a combination of these two elements would make itself felt throughout the na- a uon.y ” S SAYS LEAGUE MEMBERS “SHIFTLESS” Butte, Mont. Editor Nonparfisan Leader: : I think this (enclosed editorial in the Butte Miner) is the worst I ever heard about the farmers. I wanted you to see it for yourself and let the people \\E. W. DEWEY. The Butte Miner editorlal said that %he Nonparti- - san league is an organization of shiftless farmers who let weeds grow in their fields, let the hinges fall off the gates, let houses and barns go unpainted, and then blame the government for their “fajlures.” It stated that this is the class of farmers who can be appealed to hy such an organization ag’the League, ' .and then it added the customary charge that the League is made up of traitors. “But it will not appeal to the thoughtful and forward-looking- tiller of the soil,” added the editor, in an effort to jolly its. Montana farm readers: have joined the League, 25,000 strong. thus have an idea of what the Butte Miner thinks of them—THE " EDITOR. . el THE Montana farmers who . -