The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, March 25, 1918, Page 5

» training for youths under 21. Whether it should be made com-" AGAINST AUTOCRACY AND KAISERISM IN SOME OF THE e pulsory or optional should have careful consideration, if it is de- SMALL TOWNS OF MINNESOTA, where the farmers have been cided to have it at all. When the time comes to decide, we should mobbed and: prevented from holding.patriotic meetings. - i weigh carefl_llly the influence of military training in peace times on the plastic minds of our youth. Can a system be devised that will not make militarists of them? Can a system be devised that will not glorify war for the sake of war? * And all the time we must keep in mind what universal, compulsory training and ‘military service did for Germany, old Russia and other European countries. ! It made them into armed camps in times of peace; it fired Germany B i with the idea of world conquest ; it propagated the idea that military | might was right. We do not take a position against military train- g ing in time of peace, but these questions must be studied carefully, and in the calm atmosphere of peace times, before we take the step. ; It is true that some genuine democrats and peacelovers, who - i . would shun any war that was not waged to maintain human rights, defend liberty or establish democracy, are urging the passage of . AGREEING WITH THE LEAGUE EORGE Soule, journalist, a careful observer and intelligent G critic of events at the national capital, has a very clear o a universal training act at this time, but all the paid propaganda analysis in a recent issue of The New Republic of the sit- to this end, all the effective arguments and publicity are coming, uation and the action taken in regard to the price of wheat 6 Dy not from this class, but from individuals and organizations which for 1918. After showing that senators, who had introduced bills conceal their militaristic and imperialistic convictions under the t¢ raise the price of wheat, did not have as thorough a grasp of the cloak of patriotism. They are trying to discredit those who ques- gjtuation as they should have had, and after showing that some- tion their judgment by inferring they are pro-German. But re- thing must be done to stimulate wheat production other than the member, that if anything on earth is pro-German it is the prin- gcjentific experiments and information of the department of agri- / d ciple of universal military training and service in time of peace. cylture, Mr. Soule pays the following tribute to President Townle, And remember also, that now the president of the United States of tlllle Nonpartisar? 1§ague: 1ed o has set his foot down on their propaganda. A clear-headed statement by Mr. A. C. Townley, leader of the Farmers’ Nonpartisan league, has put the matter concisely. There are two ways to stimulate production and finance it. One is to leave prices uncontrolled in a competitive and speculative market. The other is to adopt a consistent policy of price control for all necessities, and accompany it with complementary financial aid from the government. The former method is wasteful and results in a per capita tax on every one’s income. It would be impossible in times of great stress like the present. The latter method is feasible and should be adopted. It has been adopted by the food administratoin, so far as its legal powers permit, and it has been adopted by the farmers’ government of North Dakota, sc far as the limitations of state action permit. Mr. Soule thinks that the president’s proclamation fixing the price of wheat for 1918 at the same price that prevailed for the R WE FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY - —so0 they thought—the right of self-government through peaceful assemblage and free speech. Brave men bled on many other fields to keep these inalienable rights from being . repealed or unjustly restricted. Are these rights, so dearly bought d - and held, which have been written in the constitutions of the | B United States and of every state, to be relinquished without a pro- : test by the people of Minnesota? Have we, the sons of the heroic founders of the Great Republic, degenerated to a.condition in which ' we hold the God-given right of free speech and peaceful assemblage ‘ in contempt? Have we, sons of the patriots who preserved the free %fl institutions of this country on many bloody fields, sunk ‘into an & B RAVE men died on many battlefields to establish for all time apathy or a condition of mental slavery in which we watch the = over-riding of our constitutional rights with composure? ' The farmers of Minnesota have answered these questions. Barred from holding loyal and patriotic meetings, subjected to. vile abuse by newspapers, mobbed and threatened by gangs of poor deluded so-called “patriots,” who have been urged on by the sinister interests that are fighting the Nonpartisan league, the farmers of { Minnesota have rebelled. H strong, they cry aloud at this oppression and persecution. They o demand and will have justice. To them this is no light matter, and 4" a day of reckoning is coming. i - While the laws and constitution of Minnesota have been tram- pled under foot with impunity in various parts of the state, Min- nesota is treated with the spectacle of a set of state officers and a | B so-called “public safety” commission, claiming to be simon-pure B B patriots, sitting inactive and supine,-apparently under the thumb - of the newspapers and powerful interests who have said to the = farmers, “You shall not organize.” ‘ S The “public safety” commission (what irony in its name!) is > speakers and public meetings and in other ways, to convince the %% people of Minnesota, they say, that we are in a war for democracy : and liberty, and that every man should support that war and the - and the farmers of Minnesota take second place to no man in pro- . claiming that the United States is fighting for democracy, and in . standing by the president and the government in the prosecution L N of this war. But there is a difference: Not for one instant will the o Leader and the farmers of Minnesota relinquish the fight to main- £, tain democracy AT HOME, and not for one instant WILL THEY W~ . STOP THE BATTLE AGAINST THE WAR PROFITEERS, THE 2 NEWSPAPERS AND THE POLITICIANS OF MINNESOTA TO EXTEND DEMOCRACY IN MINNESOTA.. i The statements of the governor and “safety’’ commission pro- claiming their own belief in and loyalty to the principles of democ- racy in connection with the conduct of the war on Germany, would come with better grace if they ook even a mild and academic in- terest in the maintenance and spread of DEMOCRACY AT HOME. Their expenditure of a huge state fund to convince people of the justice and need of demoeracy in Germany, weuld ring truer and convince more pro-Germans if it was accomplished by A STAND ) 1917 crop, will kill the price bills which hav congress. He then goes on to say: : Is $2.20 a bushel high enough to insure maximum productivity, . the members of the League. In one voice, hundreds of thousands . é N F N X ¢ spending a million dollar fund of the people’s money for pamphlets, ’ T - government of the United States in its prosecution. The Leader tence. in the circumstances? It is no higher than the price agreed on for the 1917 crop. It could not be; otherwise the last of the 1917 crop could not be moved off the farms. But is it high enough for 19187 And if it is not high enough, what measures of relief are to be ex- tended to the farmer? y Probably the agitation has stimulated the government to do all that can be done to relieve the labor shortage. But the prices of farm machinery are still uncontrolled, and the farmers who most need money still have no opportunity to borrow it. This confirmation of the position that the Nonpartisan leagu has taken in regard to the price of wheat is very encouraging to There can be no doubt but that con- gress will be forced in the very mear future to regulate prices of the things the farmer has to buy, and regulate them on the same basis, and with the same sacrifice of profit, as has been forced on the farmer through fixing the price of wheat. IN HIS TRUE COLORS e been introduced in HE governor of Minnesota, as chief executive of the state and supposedly representative of all the people, was invited by the Nonpartisan league to address the big St. Paul mass- ; meeting scheduled for March 19, 20 and 21, at which the organized farmers and workmen of the state will open this year’s political campaign. In response to that courteous invitation the governor of Minne- sota wrote a bitter attack on the organized farmers and organized workers of Minnesota and declined the invitation. The governor intimates that the nearly 50,000 farmers who belong to the League in Minnesota are pro-German, and that the labor unions that will participate in this big meeting with the farmers are “a criminal element.” : ; ~1In his attack the governor wrote his own political death sen- e. Smarting under the state-wide protest against the denial of peaceful assemblage and free speech permitted by him, the gov- ernor completely lost his head, and with it his chances of ever being - governor of Minnesota again.. By merely protesting against the high-handed denial of constitutional rights of farmers, the people . of the state have succeeded in bringing the governor out squarely.' " He can:-hardly expect the votes of farm thus insulted and besmirched: ers and union labor he has - T T S s W S i