The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 15, 1918, Page 13

ST 2 i ) Y '.. [4 A @ 4 [ e 4 b/ | |t 72 North Dakota Farmers Pack Fargo Auditorium in Opening Rally of This Year’s Campaign—Governor-Frazier and A. C. Townley Are Chief Speakers ORTH DAKOTA'’S patriotism in- cludes both a determination that the world shall be made safe for democracy and that democratic . institutions shall not be weakened or impaired at home while the war for world- democracy is in progress ~=="ghroad. North Dakota is in the war to win, and besides sending her boys to the trenches, will do her utmost to produce the greatest wheat crop in her history. These sentiments, and sentiments like these, ex- pressed by speakers at the monster massmeeting at the auditorium in Fargo, last week, concluded the state Nonpartisan league rally following the state League convention. - These sentiments were applauded and cheered by an audience made up largely of citizens of Fargo, although there were several hundred farmers present. Other hundreds of farmers, hurry- ing into the fields to take advantage of the early seeding season, sent word by their neighbors that they would be there -in spirit,” although the nation’s necessities required that they stay on the farm and plant the grain that will win the great conflict against thrones and tyranny. The speeskers, in their order, were R. B. Martin, who opened the meeting; Governor Lynn J. Frazier of North Dakota; President A. C. Townley of the National Nonpartisan league; Charles A. Lindbergh, indorsed by the - League in Minnesota for the governor- ship of that state; and Walter Thomas Mills of Berkeley, Cal.,, who has been delivering a series of addresses throughout North Dakota under Non- partisan auspices. PRESIDENT WILSON’S WORDS ARE HEARD There was yet another speaker— Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States—who spoke from the pages of his book,, “The New Free- dom,” read to the audience by~ Mr. Townley, who was compelled to pause many times by the waves of applause which greeted the president’s words. Chairman Martin, in introducing Mr. Townley, referred to President Wilson’s book, saying that those who wished a copy might buy it as they _ left the auditorium. Many copies” were sold as a concluding patriotic demonstration of a meeting that was itself a mighty testimonial of patriotic fervor. ! Mr. Townley, introduced as “a man to whom the world is looking,” said at the outset that he wished to correct the impression that he is.a “leader.”. “I am not a leader,” he declared, “Any one can see that to look at me. All that I can do is to ask that you prepgre yourselves to act together for the common good, Unless you do that, I can do nothing. - You must agree among yourselves as to what you want done, or anything that I can say or do will avail nothing.” e / ‘Mr. Townley then referred to a report which he said had reached him from a dozen different sources that an attempt was to be made to break up the meeting with a disturbance in which-cowbells would play a part. : e 7 “T don’t believe it,” he said. “I don’t believe that there are citizens of Fargo who would employ I profiteers. W. W. methods to break up this meeting. The. I W. W., you know, hinders useful effort in the fields and factories by putting sand in the bearings, by throwing wrenches in the machinery. ! “T refuse to believe,” he repeated, “that there are citizens' of Fargo whd are sufficiently influenced by those politieians who have lost their jobs, and by newspaper editors who ‘work for those politi- «cians, as to do this thing which I have been told it is proposed to do. 3 i . “Now if this were Minnesota it would be differ- i ent,” and.there was a general laugh. ~ “But here in North Dakota,” Mr. Townley con- " ple. tinued, “the constitution is being upheld, the con- stitutional right of free assemblage and free speech is'not being violated.” ¢ THREATENED DISORDER DOES NOT APPEAR The speaker’s confidence in the character of his audience was vindicated by the closest attention and most generous applause. throughout for all the speakers. There was not the faintest hint of an at- tempt or intent to break up or hinder the meeting. “We felt,” said Mr. Townley, “that we were be- yond the possibility of mob violence. We knew that such things might happen in some states—in our sister state of Minnesota, for instance. “We live today in a democracy, under a form of government where the law is made by all the peo- That law is the expression of the will of a majority of the people. “As opposed to the idea of democracy, of rule by —Drawn especially for the Leader by John M. Baer The producers of America—farmers and workingmen—bear the burden of in- dustry, but industry is monopolized by private corporations for private interests. The fight of labor and the farmer is to democratize industry and eliminate the the people, there is the idea of autecracy, of rule by one man, responsible not te the people but to himself. An autocracy is a government by private monopoly,.a government. which is:none of the peo- ple’s business. 3 WHY FREE SPEECH MUST BE ALLOWED 3 “But in a democracy, the kind of government - we have is the people’s business. . It is the peo- ple’s business, your business, to be interested in the affairs of government, a government which is run by the people, and not by any king, kaiser or Roosevelt. ; _ “Since .government is your duty,” Mr. Townley went on, “it is very necessary that you give careful thought-and attention to the affairs of government. It is your first duty to see that-you have good gov- ernment, the Grand Forks Herald and the Fargo Forum to the contrary notwithstanding, to see ‘that 'PAGE. THIRTEBEN - ) the machinery of your government is kept working properly. “And in order to have good government you must have the right to get together and talk things over. “You couldn’t run a threshing machine without getting together and talking things over. The Ladies’ Aid society couldn’t meet and do its work without getting together and talking things over. “Now, when the farmers and the workers get to- gether to talk things over, such things as making - two blades of grass grow where only one grew be- ° fore, how to increase crop production, how to pay their debts, nobody has any objection. “But when the farmers get together to talk things over and find out what becomes of . their crops after they raise them, then the devil is to pay. “When they get together to talk tlsl'hgs over as to how they can have good government, then the land is filled with the cries of those who would deny them the right to get together and talk things THE PRODUCERS’ BURDEN- over.” The Nonpartisan leader then re- ferred to the fact that the right of free assemblage and free speech is writteén as an integral part of the na- tional Constitution and of all the state - constitutions. ; “THE NEW FREEDOM” QUOTED BY TOWNLEY “We all believe in this prinaiple,” he said. “I believe that every man in North Dakota and-Minnesota believes in the right of free assemblage and free speech. S : “But I have found something out in the last few months; and that thing is that some of tHéSe ‘nien believe in the right of free 'asdémblage and free speech only w}i‘e'fl“tfley‘f‘_themselves are talking. B “Some of thesé’ men are here to- night. I know théy are here, because I can see where they are sitting.” Mr. Townley said that the Nonpar- * tisan league in Minnesota has been having an experience in the last six months that “you have missed in North Dakota.” : “Were it not for the fact,” he de- clared, “that you have had officials in North Dakota who have sworn them- selves to uphold the law and the con- stitution, and not only that, but in- ® tend to uphold them, you would have had the same state of affairs in North Dakota that we have had in Minne- sota.” Then followed the reading from President Wilson’s book, “The New Freedom,” which Mr. Townley told the audience was written in 1914, and in which there is a ‘prophecy of the up- rising' of the people against political and economic injustice. : c “In the pages which were read, the president refers to the system which makes injustice possible as “The Jungle” and the forces which subsist and fatten on that injustice as “The Beast.” He tells how the jungle is to be cleared away; how “sick things are going to be dragged to light,” and how a great hunt is to be organized in which the predatory animals that hide in the jungle are to be hunted down and destroyed. ; “How did the president at that time,” asked Mr. Townley, interpolating as he ‘read; “know what we were doing in North Dakota?” THIRTY-YEAR FIGHT - IN NORTH DAKOTA “Yes,” he went on, sick things have been brought to light. Jerry Bacon is sick, McGahan of Minot is sick, Black of the Forum is sick; and all those for whom they avork are sick, sick almost unto death: “It is well \that they are sick. ' Wé wish them no harm. They have to become sick ‘before they can become well. - They have been accumulating poison in their systems in the darkness of the' jungle for S0 many years that they are sick and it will take /them some time to get it out of their systems.” Then, speaking to State Senator Thomas Pendray of Stutsman county, who sat in the third row, Mr.