The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, January 28, 1918, Page 6

Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Week YT i S M et G e L N0l A S T e M OB O R R Tntered as second-class matter September 3, 1915, at the postoffice at St. Paul, Minnesota, under the Act of March 3, 1879. - OLIVER S. MORRIS, EDITOR Advertising rates on application. Subscription, one year, in advance, $2.560; six months, $1.60. Communications should be addressed to the Nonpartisan Leader, Box 575, St. Paul, Minn. MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS THE S. C. BECKWITH SPECIAL AGENCY, Advertising Representatives, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. Quack, fraudulent 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. -\-fl; Zrem, THE N. D. SPECIAL SESSION I YNN J. FRAZIER, farmers’ governor of North Dakota, has ecalled a special session of the North Dakota legislature. The session is called in order to amend a state law, which provides that various counties of the state may issue bonds, to furnish money to loan to farmers for the purchase of seed. The law was originally passed to meet just such emergencies as now exist throughout large areas in North Dakota, where there were crop failures last year and where the farmers are ‘‘broke.”’ But like many other laws of this kind, this law is not entirely prac- ticable and it needs to be amended to make it really of value to the farmers of North Dakota;, who are in need of money to buy seed to put in a big crop this year. There- fore, the governor, deeming the matter of sufficient importance, -has called a special session of the legis- lature. At this time nothing is more important than that the farmers sow just as large an acreage of food crops as is possible. It is not enough to tell farmers to do this. It is not enough to appeal to their patriotism to do it. A farmer, who was practieally ruined by last year’s crop failure and who is unable toborrow money to' finance a new crop, is not in a position to respond to such appeals. The only solu- . tion, therefore, is to make conditions such that the farmers, who are anxious to serve the government in this erisis, can do so. The farmers do not need charity and do not want charity. They merely desire an opportunity to borrow money at fair rates of interest, which they will repay. The government is now engaged in a plan to assist the rail- roads in financing, either by finding a market for railroad securities, or by furnishing money to buy up railroad securities. That is all the - farmer is asking. He merely wants legitimate assistance in placing him in a position to help himself and to help the government in winning the war. The political gang of North Dakota, and the newspapers which serve-that gang, have seized upon the fact that the special session of the legislature has been called, to make capital out of it. Many of these papers are stating that it is an insult to the state to call a special session of the legislature with the idea of making money available for the purchase of seed by the farmers. They say that to intimate that any considerable number of farmers are not able to buy their own seed is an insult to the farmers and to the state. Statements of that kind do not deserve an answer. Another move made by the politicians and their newspapers is more serious. Everything possible is being done by these interests to get the special session, which the governor has called, involved in a mass of legislation which WILL PROTRACT THE SESSION AND MAKE IT A COSTLY ONE. The idea is, of course, to discredit the farmers’ administration and the organized farmers, who control polities in North Dakota. Governor Frazier is exerting every effort to confine the business of the special session to passing the legislation to amend the seed bonding law. He hopes that the session can be adjourned within three or four days. There is no reason why it can not be ad- journed within that time. The farmers, and their representatives in the legislature, will exert every effort to prevent the political gang from getting the session involved in endless debate and legislation. If the gang succeeds in its present plot to make the session a protracted and expensive one, there . will be considerable gloating in the gang newspapers. But if we h L i o e e TS e A B AT A R S e AL s ANt Bt .THAT WOULD BE OF ANY MILI- . situation in France. credi}t_(yhue radical and progressive press, through questioning its loy: ave ty during the war.- He was too prejudiced against p PAGESIX o e S § e not missedfl our guess, the farirers, and their répresentatives in the legislature, are ‘‘wise’’ to the sivuation, and the gang is due to be fooled again. KEEP UP THE FIGHTING SPIRIT HIE efficiency.of the United States in the war is menaced from a direction that was expected to give little trouble. The situ- ation is not serious as yet, but it may well become so, unless something is done. We refer to the American censonship that is keeping the people mostly in the dark about the American expedi- tionary foree in France. Lest we be misunderstood in these hysterical times, we hasten to say that we do not believe that anything diabolical is being concealed, or will be concealed, by the govern- : ment, and we wish to make it plain that we believe that the -censorship should suppress EVERYTHING TARY AID TO THE ENEMY. The fact is, however, that the American public, with no excuse whatever, is being fed on a skim- milk news diet in regard to the - This is little calculated to keep up the fighting spirit and morale of the people at home, so necessary if the war is to be brought to the soonest possible, successful conclusion. On the con- trary, the censorship is letting so little pass that there is bound eventually to be suspicion among our people at home—suspicion that errors and disasters and offlicial in- competence are being covered up. i3 Correspondents at the front are telling about the suppression by the American censorship of news that can be of no possible advantage to the enemy—of ncws, in fact, that the Germans have long been possessed of. ‘Nothing that in any way reflects on official management of the expeditionary forces, or on the war office at Washington, no matter if it is of no advantage t6 the enemy to know it, is allowed to pass. The result is that the people-are completely—or nearly so—in the dark. Instead, their fighting spirit and morale should be EN- COURAGED BY FRANK REPORTS AND DISCUSSIONS of all the facéts which are not of military value to the enemy. ~ MR. BURLESON MAY QUIT . T IS reporied in the press ‘‘on good authority’’ that Postmaster General Burleson will resign shortly to run for United States senator in Texas. It is also reported that Mr. Burleson’s impend- ing resignation was forced by Samuel Gompers, president, of the American Federation of Labor. Gompers has opposed Burleson strong- ly because of Burleson’s attitude in regard to the organization of labor unions among postal employes. Burleson has refused to admit that postal employes have a right to organize. He is inclined to look on every person and every publication fighting for political or economic re- forms as seditious and treasonable. As postmaster general he has re- - served to himself autocratic powers of censorship and suppression of publications that would shame a czar or a kaiser. Z He has occupied a place requiring an intelligent understanding and a clear eonception of the movements in the United States for better social and economic conditions, for it has been up to him to suppress or to let live the publications which are for- warding internal reforms in -the United States. Having not . the slightest idea of what these publica- : tions have been driving at, or what the words ‘‘social justice’’ and ‘‘democracy’’ mean, he has of course made a mess of it. Along with publications which clearly merited sup- pression as seditious, he has suppressed or annoyed publications clearly patriotic—papers which, while backing the government in this war and approving of our war aims, have at the same time insisted on fair play and justice at home while the war is being conducted abroad. Mr. Burleson has destroyed his usefulness as postmaster gener He was not the man to censor the press at a time when the hereditary enemies of progress and reform were exerting every influence to d “ D | ;nd