The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 15, 1918, Page 4

~"year and giving them democratic political institutions of the United States, freedom of speech, press and assembly and denouncing the autocrats and oppressors. The crowd loudly applauded. The stoppage of the meeting cheated the Red Cross out of a big subscription, as one of the chief items on the scheduled program was a collection for this worthy war work. Mr. Buell then got into the auto- mobile with the sheriff and drove to the county seat. The farmers, how- . ever, were suspicious of what treat- ;ment might be accorded to Mr. Buell. They knew what has happened of late in some Minnesota towns. A committee of 20 was hastily appointed to follow the sheriff’s automobile to town. Mr. Buell, the sheriff and the 20 farmers waited on the county at- torney. NO ONE CAN REPEAL NATION’S CONSTITUTION “Your so-called ‘war board,” said Mr. Buell to the county attorney, “has no legal standing whatever. Even if it were composed of exactly the same men as the county public safety com- mission, it was -meeting as a ‘war board’ and not as the regularly con- stituted public safety commission when the order The order to the sheriff was, therefore, without even the color of to stop the meeting was made. legal basis. “Furthermore, even your county safety commis- sion has no right to stop a peaceful assemblage. Not even the ‘state public safety commission; not even the governo:, not even the legislature of the state of Minnesota can constitutionally enact a statute or make an order empowering any one to Here is a fact story without any embelhshments The meet- ing proposed by the farmers which resulted in the incidents re- counted was a political meeting, called to discuss farmers’ candidates for office and the platform on which those candi- dates are running. The suppression of the meeting under the remarkable circumstances which are described here was in the ° interests of the candidates for office in Minnesota who are opposing the farmers’ candidates. Remember, this happened in the United States, ‘where we enjoy free and democratic political institutions, chief of which is self government through public discussion of public questions and through the ballot box. If the right of self government through these means is to be lost to us, then no matter what the result on the Euro- pean battlefields, no matter how victorious our arms, no mat- ter if we succeed in democratizing Germany, we as a people will be defeated, crushed and oppressed. To permit the denial here, in America, of the very things we are professing to the world that we are fighting for abroad is hyprocrisy of the rankest sort. Self government is practicable only through the continuance of the inalienable right of peaceful assemblage and free speech and a free and open discussion of political candidates and platforms. The Leader challenges the denial of this truth, and refers the incidents at New Richland, Minn., to the people of the country as an example of Kaiserism and Prussianism in America that must bring a blush of shame to the face of every free-born, patriotic American citizen. break up a peaceful meeting ‘of citizens. I will go even further and challenge proof that I am wrong.” I WILL SAY THAT NOT EVEN ALL - . THE PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA BY A CONSTI- TUTIONAL AMENDMENT COULD CONFER POWER ON ANYBODY OR PERSON TO PRE- VENT PEACEFUL ASSEMBLAGE IN THIS STATE, FOR THE RIGHTS OF PEACEFUL AS- SEMBLAGE AND OF FREE SPEECH ARE GUARANTEED BY THE CONSTITUTION OF "was wholl THE UNITED STATES TO EVERY CITIZEN OF THIS NATION. “The order stopping this meeting unlawful, .unconstitu- tional and an act of violence.. Do you think you could make a case in court _ on these facts if you should under- take it?” ; The county attorney frankly ad- mitted that he could not make a case in court, but asked “in the interests of peace and order” that the farmers refrain from holding any more meet- ings. Mr. Buell, on behalf of the farmers, refused to make any such pledge. He insisted that the farmers had a legal right to “hold meetings and .would exercise that right, and that those who interfered with such meetings would lay themselves open to prosecution for violating the ‘state and federal statutes. : In the presence of a large number of farmers and other people, Dr. J. F. Lynn of New Richland, member of the local draft exemption board, made a threat which throws considerable light on the kind of a fight being made on the farmers in Minnesota. Justice of the Peace Verplank has a young - grandson, who had been examined for service in the draft army and who had been exempted. In-the presence of Mr. Verplank and the assembled farmers, Dr. Lynn declared that, “if Verplank’s grandson con- tinued to associate with members of the Nonparti- san league, his exemption would be canceled, and he would be sent to the front.” To date this public threat, this attempt at illegal intimidation, has gone- officially unrebuked. farmers of Waseca county will be long in forget- ting it, but Dr. Lynn-is still serving in his official capacity as a member of the exemption board. The - More About the lowa Fight on Farmers ' Back of the Big Front and Cheap Anti-Farmer Propaganda of the Greater Iowa Association Is the Desire to Getan Appropriation From the Legislature - special train (special trains, wine suppers, taxicabs and expensive hotels have always been a strong point with the Greater JIowa associa- tion), stopping in. the cities to line up the big business men as “char- ter members” and roping in as many small fry as they could at $10 per “agsociate memberships” to denote their inferior- ity and subordinate po- sition. And that was the chorus to the song they sang after every big haul—“Don’t it beat hell how the money rolls in!” It rolled in all right. They got $32,000. The fact is they were up against a big proposition. They had to have the money. Waterloo, jeal- ous of the pork that Des Moines was getting out of the public barrel, set up._a shout to have the right to put on for the . whole state of Iowa the Towa exhibit at the Pan- ama-Pacific - exposition. This was a Waterloo publicity stunt pure and simple and this was where the publicity agents and the commer-’ . cial bodies came into the big game. The legisla- ture had jnst retused to. NG ON'T it beat hell how the money rolls in!” sang the Greater Iowa association in 1914 when it launched its big mem- bership boom in that state to capitalize the enthusiasm of Iowa citizens in the Panama-Pacific exposxtlon From side to side of the state they traveled in a luxurious mittee on public information. boys in the fight against Prussianism and appropriate the $175,000 demanded by the big business interests as necessary to make a good showing “for the great state of Iowa,” and so Wa- terloo business men played a trump ecard and rromised that Waterloo would do the whole thing —and furnish a $300,000 exhibit instead of a measly $175,000 one! Whoopee! Here is another war picture, used by the Leader by special arrangement with the United States Ccome. f the'young American officers who are leadmg your in France. There is no finer-type of soldier in the world. - They are pictured here in-trench equipment. Originals of official war plctures appearing in the Leader can be had by readers by cutting out the reproductions-as they appear in the Leader and sending. them, with 10 cents, to the “Committee on Public Information, Division of Plctnres, Washington, D, C* .Start a war: photograph collection by getting originals. of war pictures appearing in the Leader. Such a collectlon will llave great value m days ‘to come. i N These are i:amples ?AGE F‘OUR The legislature called their bluff. emnly passed a resolution officially authorizing Waterloo to represent the entire state of Iowa with an Iowa exhibit, and it turned over to that enter- prising. city the ofliclal invitation of the state. Then the spirits of the Waterloo boomers began to sag. They had given themselves so much publicity in I "AMERICAN OFFICERS IN FRANCE l / It very sol- their own papers, and through various meni- bers in the legislature that they couldn’t back down. But they lost their nerve to the extent that they declared Waterloo did not wish to monop- . olize all this glory and would let any other city share in it that wanted to. That was where,the Greater Iowa association was born. The other cities understood that they couldn’t get any of Waterloo’s “glory” with=: out paying hard money for it, and so they form- ed the Greater Iowa as- ' sociation and started out to solicit that $300,000, promising every one who subscribed that the state legls ature at the next session would pay it back to them. The Greater Iowa as- sociation must be given credit for one thing: It has valiantly tried to make good. ' on thig promlse ever since—a to itself, since the influ- ential part of the mem- the ‘big manufacturers, bankers, real estate men, grain dealers and other! who expected to be able to lobby this appropria- promise, however, ‘made: bership is- composed: of tion through—-tor ‘them- s {