The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 17, 1918, Page 6

- . T TNonpartisan Teader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Week L II/% I 7 . Z '/é////% L / '%//a 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. months, $1.50. Please do not make checks, viduals. Address all letters and make all Box 575, St. Paul, Minn. MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS THE S. C. BECKWITH SPECIAL AGENCY, Advertising Representatives, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. in advance, $2.50; six drafts nor money orders payable to indi- remittances to The Nonpartisan Leader, Subscription, one year, 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. L. THE STUPID REACTIONARIES THERE are two forces constantly working against orderly reforms. Strangely enough, these forces are bitterly op- posed to each other, and yet together they seek to block social and economic improvements promoted by the ever-progres- sing great mass of the people. Each of these forces that are fight- ing orderly and thoughtful progress are composed of extremists. One is the force of extreme conservatism and reactionism. This group believes and acts as though-everything that is is right. Any reform that changes the existing order even in the slightest is wrong. This group looks.behind, not ahead. If the majority of people had always belonged to this class, we would still be living naked in caves and eating raw meat. The other group of extremists, doing just as much to hold back reform and. discredit orderly and intelligent improvement in society and government, con- sists of the ultra-radicals—the radical revolutionists. This group sneers at progress made step by step. It looks upon reform only as a palliative, making funda- mental evils bearable for a while longer, and therefore putting off the day when conditions will re- quire an uprising and a revolu- tion. This group does not want reform. They believe it is too slow and can not succeed.- All it does, they say, is to deceive the people into believing that they are getting relief, and to delay the time when the forces of dis- content will rise up and sweep the existing order into the dis- -card at one stroke. _ Both of these forces are opposed to the reforms demanded by the organized farmers and by union labor. The reactionaries in- timate that the program of the organized producers is the same as that of the extreme revolutionists. They say that the Nonpar- tisan league, seeking relief from existent abuses by the orderly means of the ballot, is really the same as the I. W. W. or the bolsheviki. They know that is false, but it serves their purposes to encourage this falsehood. .On the other hand, the extremists at the other end claim that the moderate and thoughtfgl progressive program of the farmers and labor is no better than reactionism, and they refer in- sultingly to the Nonpartisan league with such cant terms as “petit bourgeoisie.” See the.So- cialist party year book and the recent.declarations against the League by the Socialist party of the states of Minnesota, Washington and South Da- kota. These declarations were written by the ex- | treme revolutionary element in the Socialist party —an element that is fighting orderly, progressive reform just as bitterly as the reactionary group. They do not want reform—they want revolution, : and at once. 5 e However, many Socialists—an increasing number—are not of that kind. They. believe in socialism, but they are not opposed to immediate, step-by-step reforms. Such Socialists’are not fighting | _the League; many of them are joining it, just like hundreds of thousands of Republicans and Democrats are joining it. They revolution” they profess so much “to fear, for if the avenues of re- . orous criticism for alleged un- Yy, v,///,,”/ 'l////l/// G, g YY" N AR A | 7 a3 a chance in Nonpartisanism to make progress against social and economic diseases, and they do not look on progress as an evil that is merely putting off the great day of “the revolution.” . \ Of the two forces fighting reform, the reactionaries are ‘t};g more stupid. They do not know that they never _have and never can prevail, and that, in opposing the ordetl_y_ improvement of society, of government and of economic_conditicns through the ballot, as proposed by the or- : > ganized farmers and organized labor, they are playing into the - hands of the extreme revolution- ists. They are promoting “the form open under the Constitu- tion and through the ballot are stopped up, revolution in truth would be the only remedy. GIVING THE DEVIL HIS DUE HEODORE ROOSEVELT I and others have sub- jected the president of the United States and Post- master General Burleson to vig- fair suppression of free speech ; : during the war. It will be remembered that the Nonpartisan Leader last fall and winter pointed out some of the shortcomings of Mr. Burleson’s handling of progressive and liberal publications, and that we particularly took exception to many of the acts and rulings of Solicitor Lamar of the postoffice department. Having been an adverse critic of the postoffice, especially of what at that time we believed to be a senseless exhibition of re- actionary tendencies in Messrs. Burleson and Lamar, which led them to discriminate against the liberal press as in some way- “dis- loyal,” the Leader can with all postoffice department on its recent act in connection with three state newspapers established four months ago by the organ- ized farmers. . : ; The postoffice department, as reported elsewhere in this issue, has granted the full rights and privileges of second class mail matter to three newspapers, ganization among the farmers and advocating the progressive pro- gram of reforms contained in the Nonpartisan league platform. There has been a great outery against these papers by the vested interests affected adversely by the program of the organized farm- ers. The work of organizing the farmers has been declared “dis- loyal,” just as the work of organizing labor has been classed as “seditious¥ in some quarters. : The postoffice department, however, has granted the organ- ized farmers the right of free speech. Although reactionaries and the hired press have attempted to block the Nonpartisan league on the ground that it is “hindering the war,” the postoffice depart- ment, by its decision as to admittance of these papers to the mails, finds nothing in the promotion of the organization’s work which is hindering the vigorous prosecution of the war abroad, or of the necessary war activities at home. These papers are published by the publishers of the Nonpartisan-Leader. The fact that the Leader was a more or less severe critic of Mr. Burleson did not - prevent fair consideration of the right of these Pa _pers to the mails on their merits. . This action of the ‘ought to go a long way in removing any cause for criticism of the postoffice department that may have existed earlier in the war, in regard to its tions, whether such publications are friendly or not to the present national administration. . MOB VIOLENCE - ° -, -a mob, who hung a man suspected of dis: of alleged Americans who call themselves . - lynch law can be as widespread as it is. in Ame ' ica is bad enough; that misguided, ignorant or i . vicious persons who practice it can escape pun-' ishment is far worse. i R N L . /The United State8 is making an issue inf the war of German’ “barbarity. German atrocities have been a’large part of the - murder in America ent used to convince doubting Americans that Pru iped out. there is 1 the more grace congratulate the which are engaged in promoting or- - postoffice department: attitude toward liberal and progressive publica- - ; THE acquittal in Illinois of the members of = loyalty to the limb of a tree till he was dead, is probably cheering news to a certain class triots.” It is also good news in Germany. - That-