The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 22, 1918, Page 6

% N S W N\ & N\ NN N \\ Sy 3 \ Q\\\\ N\ A8 Nonpartisan Teader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Week Entered as second-class matter September 8, 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, $2.50; six months, $1.60. Communications should be addressed to the Nonpartisan Leader, Box 575, t. 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. T THE MARTIN ACQUITTAL HE first trial of a League organizer or speaker on a charge of alleged disloyal actions or statements occurred at Red Wing, Minn., recently. There had been two other trials in Minnesota of League staff men, but both of them were for holding meetings illegally and unconstitutionally forbidden by local town or county officials, and nothing involving disloyalty was at issue. -But L. W. Martin, a League lecturer, went on trial at Red Wing on a charge of “discouraging enlistments” by disloyal and pro-German statements. This was the first trial in Minnesota growing out of the great hue and cry about disloyalty and pro-Germanism in con- nection with the League’s work. Mr. Martin was acquitted on the first ballot of the jury. After the defense began to put in its evidence there was not a particle of doubt about the outcome. The case was a trumped-up one. When " Martin came to town to make a League speech there was a con- certed effort to stop him, and intimations that he was pro-German and was going to make an anti-war speech were circulated by League enemies. Before the meeting Martin entered a barber shop and in a jocular mood asked if there was anybody there who “would shave a pro-German.” That was the basis of the charge against him. The public speech he did make, of course, was a loyal and patriotic one and Martin himself is a man whose patriotism and loyalty have never before been questioned. He very foolishly made a statement in jest at a time when, and in a locality where, hysteria had seized manry people, preventing calm thinking -and making beasts out of men who at one time were probably sane and decent citizens. The jury which acquitted Martin—which was able to see the facts as they were through the atmosphere of hate and prejudice which exists in some parts of Minnesota against the organized farmers—deserves the thanks of every honest citizen of the state. The discouragement of future false prosecutions for disloyalty will strengthen the hand of the law in dealing with real pro-Germans and disloyalists. Trumped-up prosecutions for disloyalty, for po- litical or other base motives, can not help but destroy public con- fidence in courts and weaken good-faith prosecutions against gen- uine seditionists and spies; at a time above all when the public should have respect for law and order. THE PRESS AND THE WAR HE civil population of America has responded nobly to every appeal of the government for war work. Every Liberty loan issue has been greatly oversubscribed. Every appeal of the Red Cross has been met with enthusiasm and oversubscription. In addition, the people have given without stint for the welfare war work of the Y. M. C. A. and Knights of Columbus. The workers of the country on farms and in factories are mobilized and deter- . mined to produce the necessary crops, munitions and supplies to win the war. The people are united, patriotic and anxious to make every sacrifice. All this, of course, is aside from the supreme sac- MY DAD SAID IF | WOULD WATCH THIS ROCK AWHILE VD SEE | = Z é Z Z 7 rifice offered freely on the altar of home and country by the mil- lions of America’s best, who are going to do the actual fighting. Furthermore,” the spirit of the people shovqs no slackemng; the third Liberty loan and the fourth and fifth (if necessary) will be oversubscribed. The farmers have put in the biggest crep in history for this year. Union labor has agreed to the arbitration of industrial disputes affecting manufacture of war materials. No- where in the country is there the slightest organized opposition to the war or any organized move to hamper the president or govern- ment, except from the profiteers and politicians, like Roosevelt. All this is as it should be. We are united for a mighty purpose and steeled for the necessary sacrifices, however great, to wipe militarism, imperialism and the other causes of war off the earth forever. We must, we shall win. Py - Yet, in reading the American newspapers, foreigners, especially the Germans—even some of our own people at home—get the op- posite opinion. The scattered and unimportant instances of dis- loyalty and pro-Germanism are played up out of all proportion to their importance, as if they were a serious and menacing condition; charges of pro-Germanism and disloyalty are manufactured against patriotic and loyal citizens for political purposes, producing the impression that there is organized and open rebellion against the government and against the war; the people are hounded and hec- tored by the big business press in connection with necessary war work, as though the people would not do their duty in the matter of the Liberty bonds and other war measures, unless goaded, slan- dered, abused and coerced into doing it. The press, by exaggeration of pro-German activities, or by manufacturing false stories of such activities, by thinly veiled praise of mob violence, by failure to protest against violation of law and order, and by other means has inflamed the people in vari- ous communities into mob violence. These mob outrages lead to the belief that disloyalty is so widespread and menacing that reg- ularly constituted authority and courts are unable to cope with it. They lead to the belief that our democracy is crumbling. ' - In fact, in every conceivable way the press has given a false impression of conditions in this country. If some sense is not knocked into these papers shortly we will actually face an alarm- ing condition. Nothing could be more harmful to our just cause in this war than the attitude of the American press as a whole, and its deceptive handling of isolated and unimportant instances of pro-Germanism and disloyalty. ‘ THE PRESIDENT AND THE LIBERALS bulwark_ to prevent unworthy aims from creeping into our war policy is rapidly spreading among the minority of rad- 4 I VHE realization that President Wilson stands as a mighty ‘icals and liberals, who, at the start of the war, were either openly hostile to the president or who adopted a sulky or scolding attitude. President Wilson’s statements of war aims have not only dis-: countenanced the militarists and imperialists of our own country ; they have been the inspiration also of the peoples of the govern- ments at war with us against Germany. Here and abroad those who hoped to use the war to fasten a militaristic system on the people, to make war prefits, to extend territory or to capture com- mercial markets have had to take a back seat. Every liberal and radical of America, without sacrificing a single principle or tempor- izing for a minute with his conscience, can rally back of the presi- dent in his splendid statements of the meaning of democracy and the object of America in this war. It should be no little satisfaction to members of the Nonpar- tisan league, representing one phase of the great liberal movement in this country, that they and their organization realized from the start that President Wilson is the friend of democracy and justice, and that the same agencies and interests that are opposing the organized farmers’ program are working against the president, sometimes openly, sometimes by underhanded, discreditable meth- ods. And the Nonpartisan league is being given full credit for this. understanding of the president. A. W. Ricker, publisher of Pearson’s magazine, in a recent article in that publication, says: The only radical organization in this country which has funec- tioned properly (during the ‘war) is the Nonpartisan league. The * WRONG | HmiesE | “é —_——