The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 3, 1918, Page 9

The Heart Cry of a Farm Wife When She Found Even the Country Newspapers Were Sup-- " pressing News of the Democratic Program of the Non- partisan League, She Opened a New Life — A Graphic Picture of the Fight in Washington “Dayton, Columbia County, Wash. HAVE acquired considerable knowledge of the Nonpartisan league and world- democracy in a very short time. Some months ago I made my usual Saturday trip to town from the farm and went into the office of one of our county papers to write up the items of our rural section. The editor had just returned from a meeting of fellow newspaper men in Spokane. On my asking what their meeting had accomplished, among other things, he said it had been agreed not to print all the news; that they had considered it best that the public should not be told all the events that were happening. This statement did not apply to war or military news that is of necessity kept quiet. This editor’s report caused me much reflection. - Naturally I was curious.to know what news was not printed. A suspicion came that some sinister influence was keeping vital events away from the people. : The effect of this suppression came suddenly to my notice in bitter condemnation by, county papers and garbled accounts of a Nonpartisan league. I called to mind vague extracts I had read concern- ing it the last two years, but the néwspapers had - skilfully covered up its growth, and extent and beneficial object. Instead it was referred to as several counties in North Dakota that were an or- ganized menace -in politics. My neighbor farmers knew no more about it than I did. WAR BROUGHT g THE GREAT TEST Since our country went to war we farmers slow- ly came to realize that it was up to us to conquer the Huns, no matter what the cost. It also be- came impressed on my mind of the unity of opinion among the farmers of our country as to our part in the war and what we were up against. The realization also that the burden of carrying the middlemen on top of the burden of the war, on our shoulders, was a weight too great to be borne. We realized that we farmers did not have the repre- sentatives we needed at this critical time. Many of us admitted to each other that we had voted for candidates we knew nothing about except that their names were on the particular ticket we voted for. Among us farmers, editors, pastors, teachers, lec- turers and speakers have a great influence in moulding lines: of thought—though there are many independent thinkers among us, also. We needed help in our trouble and perplexities but the line of talk handed out to us by these individuals applied only to the one-fourth of the farmers who are rich and prosperous. Very few sensible ideas that would be of benefit to the other three-fourths of us were given. They spoke eloquently of the'farm- ers’ vast acres of waving grain, their wealth and their automobiles and that the farmer’s love for- his dollars must now give way to his love of coun- try and to use his all to save us from the Huns. A noted preacher even told us we were too well fed, and that _one meal a day was enough for all of us. That did not set well with some farmers who ‘walked 11 hours a day behind All o'ver the glorious West, in just ‘such little homes as M, honest, hardworking men and wonien are - | = : . planning to use the power of their ballot to dethrone injustice. 5 L : 2 o : : PAGE NINE A T NN A VS ‘year that decreased our ] eight ornery mules with' a plow. Among all the speak- ers and writers there was not one word of advice about the prices being set hy others for the produce we sold and the articles we bought with which we produe- ed. The drouth last grain crop while the expense of raising it remained the same, of the dockage of a pound for each sack of grain and the loss of a 14-cent sack beside, which this har- vest will cost 28 cents for each sack. The.pricgs of corn, barley and oats that were kept down until they got out of the farmers’ hands into that of the speculators and then they went soaring. "TOPICS AVOIDED BY LECTURERS A Red Cross speaker said the farmers were prof- iteers because they got $2.25 a bushel for their wheat. The truth was that, deducting cost of haul- ing, warehouse and guarding charges, dockage for sacks and weed seeds, freight and grading at ter- minals, put the average price down so many farm- ers got nearer $1.80. than the $2.20 at Chicago. And those FARMERS WHO RAISED WHEAT ALONE GOT THEIR PATRIOTISM WELL TESTED WHEN THEY HAULED $60 A TON WHEAT TO TOWN AND HAULED HOME $80 A TON BARLEY TO FEED THEIR HORSES while raising another crop. The speakers knew nothing of the amounts of mortgages and loans on farms to raise the -crop, and the huge losses from the potato crop we were urged to raise with no cars available to ship. the potatoes east. Seeing no help from editors and speakers, but with a strong belief in the saying, “Seek and ye shall find,” I continued my efforts to get help to solve our pressing problems.” THEN SHE LEARNED OF THE LEAGUE Luckily I made a visit to relatives in another county where the farmers were well organized in the Nonpartisan league. It required only a short - time for me to absorb a whole lot of KNOWL- EDGE THAT THE NEWSPAPERS HAD KEPT HIDDEN. 3 I came home with a new vision and a new mes- sage for my family, a definite platform to work for, a realization of what the democracy meant that our president kept telling us about in his speeches; a chance to vote for representatives we can trust to help the farmers in their great task and a new courage to work for the winning of the war without the profiteers on our backs. OUR FAMILY WELCOMED THE: TWO LEAGUE ORGANIZERS that were sent to us, enthusiastic young farmers and with. as fine a courage to meet the perils in their path as the soldiers in the trenches have in meeting the Huns. Luckily for the short time they were in the county THEY ESCAPED WITH ONLY ONE ATTACK - which they successfully warded off, AND A BUL- LET HOLE THROUGH -ONE OF THEIR AUTOS. They were arrested while visiting their stopping—and then we read it again. attract your eye in this issue of the Leader, don’t fail to read Mrs. Pettyjohn’s letter, and then tell us what you think of it —what you think of American communities where persecution éxists such as she reports in this simple, unvarnished narrative. " a copy . of, the Garden City Monitor, published in ‘Walla Walla. It is a labor paper whose editor, | The Leader on this page publishes a letter from a woman in the state of Washington. You learned in your Sunday school days about how the early Christians hid in huts in the desert and in the catacombs of ‘Rome to escape their persecutors. But they kept the fires of progress burning. In this letter is a story of persecution today, told as a simple narrative by a farm woman. It is hard to believe that such things as she writes about are possible in America today. But we are con- fronted with grim facts. The Nonpartisan Leader might have | sent its most skilled reporter and ablest writer to the state S of Washington to get this story. But he could not have writ- ten like this farm woman. He would have had to have LIVED these things before he could have told them for you so simply, so effectively. This letter was one of several hundred in the day’s pile of mail that came to the editor’s desk. It came un- solicited. We started to read.” We finished the letter without Whatever else may families in another county and made to stop work in this county. As new-fledged members of the Nonpartisan league my husband and I and one of the organizers were called up before the chairman of the defense council. This chairman, who runs a garage and repair shop, gravely told us we were the profiteers of this country and we were giving our $16.to a bunch of grafters. I answered that Masons and Odd Fellows had to dig up dues to run their lodges and the church had tried to get more than $16 a year out of each of us to run its organization and there had been no kick about it from the business men of the council of defense. DRAGGED BEFORE THE “COUNCIL OF DEFENSE” The organizer told him the different political parties met and raised money to finance their cam- paign this fall and he could not see why any ex- ception should be made to the farmers organizing. The chairman answered HE COULD RING THE FIRE BELL AND 500 MEN WOULD ASSEMBLE - INSTANTLY TO DO HIS BIDDING. That sounded queer to me when we had all proved our loyalty to this chairman as being in favor of the winning of the war. 1 He advised the organizer to go to work and my husband and myself to stop stirring up the farm- ! ers until after the war. But it appears to me the patriotic and DEFENSE COUNCILS ARE STIR- RING UP A LOT OF AGITATION and distorting vital truths which they are trying to keep from the public in this county and others. A neighbor League member who was called later was able to show up the type of man this chairman was, when, being unable to convince the loyal farmer of the wickedness of the League, the chair- man informed him, “If your brains were strychnine there would not be enough of them to poison a vinegar-ant.” COMFORT IN A PEOPLE’S PAPER Before the drganizer left the county he gave me | RS Jesse Ferney, says that there is one paper in south- | .eastern Washington that believes in the mission of the Nonpartisan league. In an editorial he says: “From a number of sources during the last few weeks it has been intimated to the editor of this paper that unless we ceased to mention the Non- -partisan - league, trouble would follow. * * * | The point at issue is not that of supperting the Nonpartisan léague. It is that WE MUST NOT | MENTION IN ANY WAY IN THESE COLUMNS £ THAT THERE IS SUCH AN ORGANIZATION.” | Truly the kept press have kept the farmers of this county in ignorance.. So many of us do not know the sweeping. progress of the League in !r many states. They do not know of this little labor paper valiantly fighting for the right of the farm- | ers to organize as well as their brother workmen | in the towns. And it’s up to us, the few farmers | among whom the seed has been sown, to enlighten |i our neighbors from whom this knowledge has been ' i} kept. They are unknowing of the mighty forces for i their welfare that are sweeping over the country. i while the county papers are suppressing and dis- @ torting the vital events that are making world de- § mocracy for the people. ! Yours in the fight to the finish, SRR : MRS. M. E. PETTYJOHN. s ) L S N ) I D R ST R TR G S TS e Ve TR R