The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 24, 1918, Page 6

S THIS is written Minnesota is in the last hours of the pri- mary election campaign. By the time this reaches your eye you will know the result of a political contest unpre- cedented in the United States—a contest in which organized farm- ers and organized labor, with the support of every liberal and pro- gressive element in the state, matched their strength with the organized exploiters, supported by the press, the political machines of both parties and by all the enemies of the common people that fly to arms against every popular move for better government and a square deal. Minnesota is a big state. The Minnesota branch of the Na- tional Nonpartisan league was organized less than two years ago. The movement has had no support from the big daily papers of St. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth. Instead, the great circulations of these organs of the powers-that-be for nearly two years have been used to fight the organized farmers by every method known to unprincipled editors and invented by the desperation of the sin- ister interests which control these papers, and which for the first time felt their grip loosening. ITH the political machinery of the state in their power, the governor their willing tool, and aided by a “public safety commission” with despotic authority unprece- dented in any state anywhere, in war or peace, the ruthless enemies of this people’s movement have filled the jails with their political opponents, have prevented meetings of the opposition candidates and their farmer and labor supporters, and have connived to bring about a reign of terror which has resulted in frequent midnight tar parties, mobbing of persons displaying farmer-labor banners or candidates’ pictures, and other intimidation calculated to pre- vent the open advocacy of the farmer-labor cause by individuals. The full story has never been told in any newspaper anywhere—no one has DARED to tell even a PART of it. Lindbergh, people’s candidate for governor, . was prohibited from speaking in Duluth in the interests of his candidacy, in order to give a free field to his opponent. Lindbergh was arrested and thrown in jail during the last hours of the campaign for “unlawful assemblage,” in a county to which he came to speak under a special permit of county authorities, but which was a ruse to get him in the power of one of the county at- torneys of the state who cowld be used to spring this last-hour trick to swing sentiment. The corporation that controls the billboards of the Twin Cities agreed to accept a contract to display Lindbergh’s campaign posters, but was “reached” at the last minute. The billboards were denied to the people’s candidate, but for three weeks flaunted the posters of his political enemies and of the big business organi- zations which raised a tremendous fund and used this means among others to treat the public to ruthless and unprincipled at- tacks on Lindbergh and the Nonpartisan league. EMEMBER, the League and the candidates it indorsed had R no means of reaching the people, except in its own publi- cations and by its own speakers. and farmers worked under almost insuperable difficulties in get- ting their message to the peo- ple and in telling the story of the intimidation and suppres- sion used against them. The vote would have been unani- mous, almost, if the usual chan- nels of publicity had been open to the League and its friends, because the American people love fair play. Thousands of voters, however, heard only one side, and the side they' heard was not a discussion of the issues, but “argument” which consisted ' of the grossest lies, the most ingenious misrepre- sentations - and ‘the most un- scrupulous personal slanders that were ever indulged in dur- A ing a campaign. Under these circumstances, with everything, 'seemingly, against the Nonpartisan league, defeat for the people’s movement in the Minnesota primary was confidently expected by the press /. f /s I e T P N o o T T P BT T T S s The organized workers. ‘disagreement about that. PAGE . W %: 3 % é‘ ’ 'j;m P v/{/, %M P /j i 'l”////// 7//////%' 4 7 Just Before _the Battle in Minnesota and its big business backers. By now you know the re- sult. If it is defeat, then foul, un-American methods have suc- ceeded temporarily in keeping the truth from the people, and it will take only a little more effort, a little more sticking to the job, to bring victory—the pioneering is done. If it is vic- tory, Minnesota has taken the first step to place itself beside North Dakota as a free state, and much has been done, in a remarkably short time and un- der tremendous difficulties, to carry democracy and justice a ° step forward in America—and not the least result is the ut- ter discrediting of foul, Prussian methods in an American polit- ical campaign. : HAUNTING ‘EM 0AY AND NIGHT. SOME OF HIS OWN MEDICINE T WILL be remembered that Governor Burnquist was invited in a courteous letter to address the 8,000 delegates of the Nonpartisan league and labor unions who assembled in St. Paul last spring to open the 1918 political campaign. It will also be remembered that the governor refused to address the farmers and workers in a letter in which he referred to the farmers as “disloyal” and to labor as a “lawless element.” : Last week the national convention of the American Federation of Labor met at St. Paul, in the same hall. The governor was not invited to welcome the delegates on behalf of the state of Minnesota. Instead, another state official was invited to' perform this function, which always falls to the governor, except when a governor in a state where the convention meets happens to be against labor. This snub of Burnquist by labor was well deserved. More and more labor is learning to distinguish between its friends and enemies, and the mark the American Federation of Labor has placed on Governor Burnquist will never wear off —it is a scarlet letter that the governor can never conceal, and he is a marked man for life. His political career is at an end, whether he pulls through the primaries this month or not. 3 s The governor simply got a little of his own medicine. He insulted workers who asked him to speak last spring. He is denied a chance to speak to labor a few months later—a chance he would have given a fortune to get. MR. GREGORY AND THE SEDITION LAW HE great danger of a sweeping act like the new sedition bill recently passed by congress was pointed out by such progressive senators as Borah of Idaho and Johnson of California. Everybody wants to see spies and persons aiding the enemies of the United States, especially disloyalists within our gates, caught and punished or interned for the war. There is no But the danger of the sedition bill, framed as it is in sweeping, all-inclusive language, is that there is a chance of its being used to persecute honest men, who speak or write the truth with justifiable motives. This was the objec- tion raised by the progressive wing of the United States senate. There is also the danger of the law being used in political or fac- tional fights or personal feuds, to discredit ‘“the other side.” However, granting the necessity of a sweeping, stringent law at this time, to give more power to the United States in dealing with traitors and disloyalists, the success of the law depends on how it is enforced. . Such a law as congress passed, if ignorantly or designedly enforced in certain ways, would utterly wipe out free speech, even by earnest, loyal citizens with good purposes, .and would place the country under a despotic rule, foreign to our traditions and principles and akin to the worst that we see in Prussianism and czarism. The department of justice of the United States asked for this law." It said it was necessary to protect our soldiers and our homes: it. While the Leader be-. against plotters, and congress passed lieved with the progressive members of the senate that the law should have contained more safeguards for those who speak truth SIX