The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 6, 1918, Page 5

power has been denied. The set prices for steel and copper, for instance, are the result of volun- tary agreement and not of power conferred on the president. The regulation .of milling profits was also voluntary. Who is balking the president’s plans? We can hardly blame the individual corporation very much for taking advantage of market conditions. It is business with them as with the farmer to sell for all they can get. Appeals to the individual, so- called soulless corporations are of no avail. Prlces ¢an be orought within reason and fairness to the eonsummg public only by forceful government mgulatlon, and those who are hindering such regu- Jation of prices are responsible for the profiteering. They are the big business interests who are more or less openly conducting a vicious propaganda against price-fixing. While they individually pro- fess their loyalty and support of the administra- tion, the big business men are as a class respon- sible for the fight being made against any limi- tation of profiteering. HERE'S HELP FOR THE PRESIDENT Organized farmers are against profiteering; or- ganized labor is strenuously opposed; the president is opposing it to the utmost. That it has been little affected, not to mention eliminated, shows what tremendous power those anxious to make profits out of the war have. "~ The profiteers intend to make 1918 another “good year.” Hayden, Stone & Co., the brokerage firm quoted above, says: “We do not, however, at all concede that the period of abnormal earnings has come to an end.” The profiteers expect to prevail against the people. and the president for another year, and they will unless the people become more thorough- ly aroused to the issue and force their congress- men into giving the administration the necessary price-fixing power with the alternative of govern- ment operation if big business balks at price-fixing. Squelched the Junkers of Minnesota Governor Burnquist’s Emissary, Judge McGee, Draws a Broadside From APRIL 20 President Wilson wrote as follows to the chair- man of the United States senate judiciary committee: “I am heartily obliged to you for con- sulting me about the court martial bill, as perhaps I may call it for short. I am wholly and-unalterably opposed to such legislation and very much value the opportunity you give me to say so. I think it is not only un- constitutional, but that in character it would put us nearly on the level of the very people we are fight- ing-and affecting to despise. It would be altogether inconsistent with the spirit and practice of Amenca, and in view of the recent legislation, the espionage bill, the sabotage bill and the woman spy bill, I think it is unnecessary and uncalled for. I take the liberty, my dear senator, of expressing myself in this emphatic way because my feeling is very deep about the matter, as I gather your own is.” Again the confidence of the American people in : President Wilson has been proved well placed. In these words the president has quashed the organ- ized effort in America to place the civilian population under military rule and courts martial during the war. The president has a way of stating a proposition that is unanswerable. Courts martial and military rule for the civil population is kaiserism. It is the Prussian method.” President Wilson says we would be hypocrites to adopt in America the methods that we affect to detest in our enemies. He clinches it by saying that in America military rule of' the civil population would be unconstitutional. A VICTORY FOR THE PEOPLE This stand of the president is ime portant to the farmers generally and particularly to Nonpartisan league farmers. To understand the meaning of and occasion for the president’s words, it is necessary to tell of the present political fight in Minnesota between organized labor and organ- ized farmers on one side, and the profiteers, newspapers, big interests, politicians and governor and state ... public safety commission-on the other. As in other states there have been state, and with an average of about 3,000 joining weekly, it might almost be said that the League and its sympathizers constitute the rural population of the state. . The old political gang, led by Governor Burn- quist and his public safety commission, have there- fore freely intimated that Minnesota is a slacker. The governor wrote a letter recently calling the farmers “pro-German” and referring to organized labor as “a lawless element.” He and his commis- sion have led in the attempt to blacken Minnesota, and thus strike indirectly at the organized farmers and organized labor which dominate the state. GAVE HIS OWN STATE A BLACK EYE The climax of this dastardly political plot was reached recently when J. F. McGee, member of the state public safety commission, an appointee and henchman of the governor, went down to Washing- ton, D. C., to demand of the”senate judiciary com- mittee that Minnesota be placed under military rule and courts martial. ‘Watcht=Traitors In These Stirring Times the Greatest Caution Is Needed to Distinguish Between Patriots and Enemies. { ‘Scnator Overman 8aid that over 400,000 German spies were working to hamper America in preparation fop ¢he war. THINK OF IT 1 Sometimes treison comes in one form, sometimes in another. Somectimes it presents, itself with characteristic Prussian brutal boldness, but more often it is cloakéd with Mephistophelian cunning. Some- times it comes as a religious movement, sometimes as a labor movement, sometimes as a political movement, } The latest and most diabolical form of Treason i is that promulgated by a North Dakota I. W. W. mmed A. C. “Townley, which comes cloaked as a Farmers' Party ‘movement. The dangerous character of this movement is proven- by the fact that Minnesota and Dakota towns refuse to per-mit the organization to hold meetings. The Council of Defense"of Asotin County, Wasliington, comes out boldly and properly classifies Townley’s Non- Partisan League with the 1. W. W., which has demonstrated that it is an outlaw organization and with the Bolshevik. Read whay the Asotin County Council of Defense has co say, as quoted in a local paper: Denounced By. Council of Defense Mr. McGee made a statement President Wilson—Foils the Plot Against the League to the committee to back up his demand for mili- tary law. Military law and courts martial are of course necessary or advisable only in the case of serious and widespread insurrection. The mere fact that he, as a representative of the state government of Minnesota, made such a request, is of course a charge that disloyalty is running rampant in Min- | nesota and that it is so widespread and serious that civil authority and courts can not take care of it But Judge McGee had to show some grounds for | such an unusual request. He therefore charged that the federal authorities in Minnesota were fail- ing to deal with the widespread disloyalty that he said existed; that the county prosecutors of the state seemed helpless and lacked ability or desire to stamp out open pro-Germanism; that federal and county courts failed to convict persons charged with disloyalty, and that military law and courts martial were the only hope of the state. He freely charged that leaders and members of the League were seditious, gave figures which showed that ome ° county was fully half populated by actual traitors and made a bitter personal attack on President Townley of the league. The facts are that the state and federal authorities and courts have had no difficulty in finding, arresting and convicting the few disloyalists in the state, and scveral persons have been convicted during the last year. Some of Mr. McGee’s statements to the committee follow: WON'T EVEN TRUST A JURY “Where we made a mistake was in not establishing a firing squad in the first days of the war. We should now get busy and have that firing squad working overtime. going to have a state of anarchy soon. “These men who are fighting our soldiers and stabbing them in the back are going to die. 5 “The department of justice in Min- nesota has been a ghastly failure, “The United States district attor- ney is patriotic, but he lacks a fight- ing’ stomach. “The nation’s life is at stake. The government has mno more conception of the state of affairs in Minne&ota " a few scattering and unimportant in- “stances of disloyalty in Minnesota. “These have been rare and arrests and onvictions by federal and state au- absolutely no organized opposmon to the government or the war in Minne- sota. The Liberty loans have been greatly oversubscribed, . the biggest crop of history has been sown this- year, to help win the war and the state g freely and willingly of its songlto fight the battles of democracy in France. Despite these conditions, the Minne- sota politicians and .anti-farmer gang have sought to prove the farmers of the state disloyal, because they have joined the Nonpartisan league. In order to tar the League with disloyal- ty, it of course has now become neces- sary to make out that the state itself . as a whole is" disloyal, because, with ‘over 50,000 farmer members in the o Amnttn, Washington, March 13.— The Asotln county council of dofense bud'tsaucd the (ollowing. “The county council of defense Rereby invues warning to all farmers of Asotin’ county to beware of any nad all solicitors connected with the sw-ralled Non-Partisan Jeague. This organization s under the dan of the slute council of defense of the ntute © of Winnasota and other states and ita principals ure undex indistment by wrand juries for treasonable and se- ditious uderances. obstructing the vation s draft laws and spreading a decidely pro-German propaganda. Its activition an nlu:hlnwu in the ex- The movement has demved many of the best hnueu in the state, but as they become acquainted. with its true «haracter they are rapidly droppmg out, because they arc patriots first and selfseckers a(urvnds treme, even when acting under a shin disguise of feigned loyalty. It is a veritable ‘wolf In sheep's cloth- ing* and ‘kamerad’ of the kaiser, and Is strongest in soclalistic and pro- German comwmunities. Quite & num- ber of our people have, we under- stand, already subscribed to these grafters a sum of $16, half of which goes Into thelr private pockets and the other balf to swell a large bank deposit ia the banks of St. Paul, Mino., and made subject to check by the president, A. C. Townley, mow under indictment. Eaough s known about this orfaniuation to class ft -m: the Bclnqvlhl of Russia, and its propaganda fs & part add parcel of the ins{dious poison that betrayed that country into the haads of Prus- alan militarism. “We earnestly ask ow farmez loys alists to study carefully this orgens- zation before baving anything to do with it ' We must have a united couniry if we are to win this war for world domocracy, and tmll.u that tands to create discord amomg our people or swerve them from a.one and unfted purpose ia the war's pro- socution must feel the beavy welght of the nation's condemuation. (Signed) “ASOTIN CfiUNfl WIINC‘II. or COLONEL ROOSEVELT SAYS: “The four great leaders of Shadowy Hun Forces in America are Townley, " Hillquit, La Follette and Victor Berger.” Can_YOU Afford to Allign Yourself With Such Leadership? This is a photographic copy of a handbill now being circulated in the Northwest- a’ traitor every time, but county at- ern states. The dnshonesty of the. charges is evident to my reader. PAGE ?IVE " people. than a child unborn. .“In these days the judges should not think in terms of peace. What we need is a military court. You can’t fool a military court. You can’t fool a naval court. Under the existing cir- E SR cumstances it is almost impossible to | obtain convictions. ® “The disloyal element in Minnesota is largely among the German-Swedish The nation blundered at the start; of the war in not dealing severe- ly with these ‘vipers.’ +“Local courts in Minnesota have failed in many instances. The chief cause ‘of this are weak-kneed and chicken-hearted judges with eyes look- ing toward the polls and figuring on future elections; incompetent, inef- ficient, lazy, cowardly prosecuting at- torneys and seditious and disloyal ele- ments from which juries are drawh, H | it — “A Nonpartisan league lecturer is | (Continued on page '28) “Unless something is done we are |