The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 12, 1918, Page 12

Victorious Grain Belt Farmers - An Iowa Agricultural Editor Discusses the League Outlook in Minnesota and Nebraska (James M. Pierce in the Iowa Homestead) WANT to call attention to two great victories which the farmers of the grain belt have won within the last few days, victories with such far- reaching results that they may, in time, come to rank alongside that of the embattled farmers firing “the shot heard round the world” at Lexington in 1775. It is more than a passing coincidence that the farmer should be always in the vanguard when the bat- tles for freedom are being fought against the forces of tyranny and op- pression. It has been so since the be- ginning of time; it will continue to be so until all our injustices are ended and all those who seek to use power to advance personal interests shall be relegated to the oblivion they so rich- ly deserve. Within the last few years the farm- ers of the grain belt have been or- ganizing against political bosses and those exponents and apostles of cor- rupt big business who have exploited both the producer and the consumer for their own enrichment, all too many years. As my readers already know, I am heartily in favor of farmers or- ganizing. Alone, of all the workers of the nation, they have stood aloof, unorganized, supinely content to take whatever price might be offered them for the things they had to sell, to pay whatever price might be demanded of them for the things they had to buy. Defrauded of hundreds of mil- lions of dollars annually, through the abuse of our system of marketing, they have kept silent; betrayed by po- litical leaders who came to them with glib protestations of friendship before election, but who spurned them and repudiated . their- campaign pledges once the victory was won, they have held their peace, hoping against hope for the deliverance it seemed would never come. Only within the last few years have the spasmodic efforts to- ward organization attained any meas- ure of success, have the farmers come to realize the strength of their united voices, the power of their organized strength. With this long-delayed awakening on the part of the farmers has come, at the same time, an awakening to the threatening danger on the part of the politicians, the cor- ADVERTISEMENT . rupt business men and all the gang’ which finds its perquisites threatened and its privileges attacked by thelr combined votes. I can not do better than to cite the case of the Nonpartisan league as an example. By effecting a compact or- ganization and working together sin- gle-mindedly, the organized farmers of North Dakota succeeded in electing a farmer (a splendid man, one of the very best of the executives of our grain-belt states) as governor and secured control of every office and branch of the state government, except the upper house of the legislature. THE REFUGE OF SCOUNDRELS When the farmers in the neighbor- ing state of Minnesota saw what could be done by organizing, and how the political bosses could be overthrown and the reins of government secured once -more by the people, they set about to copy the methods and the or- ganization plans of their North Da- kota brothers. A branch of the Non- partisan league was organized in Minnesota and some 60,000 farmers banded together to overthrow the ele- vator magnates and the market manipulators who had held them by the throat for many years, just as they had done in North Dakota. Corrupt big business saw its privi- leges attacked and its perquisites en- AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY Licensed by the United States Government Pa The President of the Western MalleablesCo. Beaver Dam, y your dealer | $10 to $50 less SAVE $50 on a spreader, $15 or $20 fc BRANCHES Des Moines # ¢ : i‘lhmflhn “the Leader When Writing:. Indeg{ on a plow, $15 on a drill, up to $50 on other 1mp1ements—every one stand- ard, highest quality, fully guaranteed! ‘Wis., and Vice President of Globe Seam- dependent Drills mfl:;?ed nstrustion, very id frame of hizgh carbon channel flat smel. ”1;3 bent comm,;tr y reinforced. 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Kemper (Bloodgood, Kemper & Bl e, R?.;‘,’,‘.ihmflm% in broadening fiod), and A, ilbrandt (Secretary Westem uen lgumt the success of the “Inde- Fuzi guaranteed. alleables Company)—have effected pendent Plan” o?m cing prices. Iti xs sxmple. sensnble. sonnd. T!wnsands of farm- dent dealers and nsve 15 % to 25 iz’. Every In dent Implement is built at Plano. Here. for 70 gv o the beat farmingmachineryhas beenma o ez' quality, better constructed, more reliable machines than lndependent are to be had, Independent enre%x:ee t generationsof farm ma expenence chimplementabsolutelyguarant V=) Write for “Independent Plan” Learn how the Independent frees the road from farmerto factory of non—essennal expenses the Indepen- dent Plan to save farmers 15% to25% on zaachinery. & 18140 Corn Binders $175.00 g'.:’ Rees £ 2950 Grain Binders 195,00 Sulky Plows, o 65.00 Walking Plows 19.00 Independen d sof —and subtracts from the dl’me‘ youpay. Read | Wiedfur, m '3;““‘:3‘11';..“%3%“1,”. Hahtest duft. how 15% t025% is save buy. Bar cgto tg)erete, durable, Can he gutomatically ‘Write for free The price of'a postal emso heavy high carbon steel, per- fecfly .F‘ullyanamnte !ll Tom 775, 4 horse evener, a cut, weiht 800, wmm catalog listing all eizes. Add freight. Brauclm are near you, endent Harvester Company - Ltd ain Street Plano Illinois Unlted States Minneapolis Fargo Great Falls Bxllmgn Aberdeen Sioux Falls Marshfield La Crosse ison Peoria Mount Vernon Lincola Kansas City Wichita Oklahoma City ’Hollingsworth-Penn Hdw. Co., Dist., Sherman, Ter. will keep many dollars in your pocket. collars o3 wheels. DEALERS! }"u‘gg:fle; buys through you. We el t when a desler fails to_order ex-:mn ;ux:m“ for farme ers who want to save 15% to 25% ‘Write for dealer offer. 1702 xsimn,mm vt it s i AR ST 3T dangered, so it set about to fight, by fair means or foul, like some enraged wild animal which finds its victim about to be torn from it. Politicians recalled the proverb which asserts that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” = Why not accuse the farmers who dared to organize of being pro-German, of opposing en- listments, of doing everything possi- ble to retard the war? It did not matter that there was not a scintilla of truth upon which to base the accu- sations; nothing is quicker to arouse than a prejudice based upon partisan- ship, especially when men’s minds are inflamed with war; and so they set about their diabolical campaign with malicious intensity and efficiency. Controlled and literally owned by the emissaries of corrupt big business, who had placed them in office and kept them there to enjoy their sinecures, state officials began to cause the ar- rest of Nonpartisan league organizers - all over the state of Minnesota. As the day for the primary election drew., near, these arrests became more fre- quent, for the courts could mot possi- bly dispose of the cases until after the election, while in the meantime the farmers’ opponents could howl “pro- German” and “disloyalty” until they were black in the face and the public, not knowing the other side and the true side, would be swayed and in- fluenced until enough votes could be polled (or counted as polled, by fraud) to defeat the farmer candidates. VINDICATED BY THE HIGHEST COURT Then, to add insult to gnJury, League leaders were arrested for circulating the patriotic resolutions adopted at the St. Paul conference -held six months before; resolutions which had been sent to the department of justice and never questioned by the officials there; resolutions which were not even longer circulated, because they were no longer new; resolutions which no amount of distortion could ‘make to read unpatriotic, but on which the passion of the prejudiced mind could be fed just the same. It was impos- sible to have these cases heard in the. courts before election day; legal ma- chinery grinds slowly, and so 'the League was compelled to go before . the-voters of Minnesota, the middle of June, charged with being unpatriotic and with no chance to be heard in its own defense. The result was that cor- rupt big business succeeded in defeat- ing the \League’s candidates for gov- ernor and the other state offices, al- though the farmers were successful in nominating enough members to in- sure control of both houses of the Minnesota legislature next winter. Now comes the great vindication. Hardly were the stuffed ballot boxes emptied before the Minnesota supreme court decided the case which involved the patriotism of the League, its leaders, its members and its resolu- tions. This decision of the supreme court is a magnificent vindication of the League, its leaders, its members and its principles; it is an excoriating denunciation of the League’s enemies - which raised the “pro-German” and the “disloyalty” cry. The Minnesota supreme court finds that the League’s literature and resolutions are not only not disloyal, but they are intensely loyal. AS NEBRASKA, SO WITH IOWA But this is not all. In pursuance of its policy to extend the advantage to be won by organizing to the farm- ers of other states, the Nonpartisan league moved into Nebraska, where ' injustices as great as those under which the farmers of North Dakota and Minnesota labored, have been in existence for many years, Political bosses and corrupt big business once ' more found their citadels assaulted; . - they grabbed up the weapon nearest