The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 2, 1918, Page 5

3. X y v e R P & “r,' 5 '.';. (- p e ey -from indignant Leaguers, who say, “! - WITH THE DAILY _ from Stanley, N. D., like this: ~ of all your lies and slander, I tell ’ RMERS throughout the West are wise to the fact that the big city papers all wear a cor- poration collar. Every day the editor of the Leader receives requests for information as to where an honest newspaper can be found. Every one. knows ! where dishonest ones are. Probably no paper is so much disliked by the farmers as is' that poor relative of the St. Paul Pioneer Press-Dispatch, the Farmers’ Dispatch. This is a weekly sheet that is made up of the stale leavings after the same corporation has got out two daily papers. No one connected with it has any interest in farming, and throughout its pages it. shows contempt for the tillers and toilers. The circulation of this substitute for a news- paper has been steadily decreasing. Farmer after farmer has written to have his subscription can- celed. The Leader knows this because many of the farmers who quit have sent a copy of their letter on to the Leader. Things have got so se- rious with the Farmers’ Dispatch that something had to be done to recoup its failing fortunes. Sample copies have been .aailed to every farmer whose name and address could be found. Subscrip- tions that expired have been continued in hope that farmers could be. intimidated into paying for another year. Personal letters have heen mailed. No dodge known to Big Biz to keep the people in line has been neglected. ‘ ASHAMED OF HAVING READ IT But in vain. The Leader prints herev ;. a few of the letters the Farmers’ Dispatch ! =+ received er again.” The first is from a farmer at ..:...:nay, N.. D., who wrote: ; Courtenay, N. D. Farmers’ Disig-tch: I am a subscriber-to your paper, have read it f: 10 years, but wish to stop - my subscription at once. 1 am a League member and you are agzainsi tnc Nonpartisan league, an organization of w_.ich { am proud to be a member. My subscription to your paper is paid until August, 1919. Please donate it to the Red Cross and send me a receipt. . MAX DONAT. .And here is what a Montana farmer did: . Devon, Mont. Ed :c= Nonpartisan Leader: . am inclosing a copy of a letter that I sent to sne so-called Farmers’ Dispatch. It doesn’t appear to me -that they are doing much for the farmers. I am "ashamed of myself for not stopping the Dis- patch long before now. Yours for more Nonpar- tisan League strength. : LLOYD F. BLAIR. Farmers’ Dispatch: Inclosed find 80 cents in stamps in payment for the Dispatch coming to me Ior four months since by subscription expired. I will not take another copy of the . Dispatch from the postoffice. You call your paper the Farmers’ Dis- patch.. Suppose you give it a more’ appropriate name. Just call it “The Slave of Big Biz.” It would sound better to most of the farmers, I think. I am a member of the Nonpartisan league and I am there to the finish. And I do not congsider myself un- patriotic, either. I also have all kinds of faith in the leaders’of the Nonpar- * tisan league. ; LLOYD F. BLAIR. SAME TROUBLE How would you feel to get a letter like that, and have it followed by one Farmers’ Dispatch: I read your letter requesting me to send 50 cents for the renewal of the paper that you call “The Farmers’ Dispatch,” but which should be called “The Anti- Farmers’ Dispatch.” As you are try- ing to hurt the farmers and their or- ganization in every way possible, and as I.am a member of the Nonpartisan league, which is going to win in spite’ SEE NO GOOD ' papers are all three owned by t! Swearing Off on the Old Gang Papers “Farmers’ Dispatch” Is Getting a Volley of Denunciation From Organized | Farmers, Who Advise It to Change Its Name | yon that 1 don’t want to read your bunk any longer. You are working for Big Biz and you can look to it for support, instead of toward the farmer. - CHARLES L. STANDLY. ‘A farmer who took the daily Dispatch is equally disgusted, to judge from this letter: : Odessa, N. D. Editor Nomnpartisan Leader:, Being a League member from the very start, I am getting disgusted reading the St. Paul Dispatch, which I have been taking for a number of years. It seems by the tone of such a paper we are all . disloyal to the United States. I claim to be as patriotic as any man, in or out of the League, and have heard a great many League speakers and not one has ever spoken a disloyal word. I am asking what daily paper I can get whereby I would not have to read such bunk as the St. Paul Dis- patch is printing about the loyal farmers’ organi- zation. JOHN O’NEIL. FARMER’S WIFE SAYS 80, TOO ‘Right on top of that knockout, another: : Menard, Mont. Editor Nonpartisan Leader: This is a copy of a letter I sent to the Farmers’ Dispatch today. This paper is always knocking the Nonpartisans. This county is getting stronger every day. I know of several that want to join the League. D. H. CALLENTINE. Farmers’ Dispatch: My subscription to your paper ran out last March, and I thought you would stop sending it but you still send it. We don’t want your paper at all. For a paper that upholds masked cowards who break into a man’s house, scatter his household goods, scratch his wife, and tar and feather him, we have no use whatever. Every copy of your paper eontains articles at- tacking the Nonpartisan league, and we are sick of it. The League is gefting stronger here every day, and it will win in spite of your knocking. Please don’t send the paper -any more. 5 - D. H. CALLENTINE. A farmer and his wife write in the next re- pudiation: * ) Malta, Mont. Editor Nonpartisan Leader: Inclosed find a clipping from the Farmers’ Dis- patch. Also a letter we sent.them as an answer. Now that we have ditched them we would like to know where we can get a weekly paper that is friendly to the League, and not too expensive. MR. AND MRS. P. H. PAULSON. Farmers’ Dispatch: This is to inform you not to send any more of your rotten stuff to our ad- dress, as it is not fit to be on any respectable fam- S THE “STUPID” TRIPLETS HEAR NO GOOD Is it any wonder people are disgusted with the St. Paul papers? When there ‘is need to thunder forth in defense of the people’s. rights, they are dumb. When the cause of progress is being argued, they refuse to listen; they are ers. F. C. Poyner of Yoder, Col., has deaf. When' all the common people are praising the program of the Non- partisan league, they see nothing but evil. Stupid, aren’t they? And *“Stupid” is their name. The farmers are laughing at their silly attacks. In the pic- “ture are the three farmer-hating papers in their customary “attitudes. The ge‘ same corporation. ' It is always safe to believe thé exact contrary of anything you see in their columns ~ ‘whenever the interests of the people are at stake.. - - PAGE FIVE - -clippings from the St. Paul Dispatch regarding— , honest paper. SPEAK 'NO GOOD. ily table. If you think you can gain the farmers’ support by running them down, I think you are badly mistaken. I think it is about time for all self-respecting farmers to detach. You may have to change the name of your paper in the near future to “The Farmers’ Detached.” MR. AND MRS. P. H. PAULSON. AN HONEST EDITOR AND A JUDGE WRITE Honest newspaper men are disgusted with the venality of this kept paper. J. W. Burke,- pub- lisher of the Roslyn Reporter, one of South Da- kota’s livest' newspapers, has sent a copy of a letter he wrote to the daily Dispatch in reply to an editorial lying about the League. A letter from a county judge of Sioux county, N. D., A. McG. Beede, shows how easy it is to show up the unreliability of the press. Another point in his letter illustrates the fact that many well-educated people are still the dupes of the kept press. This judge writes: , Fort Yates, N. D. Editor Nonpartisan Leader: This evening a mature, intelligent man, a col- lege graduate, said to me; “My, did you see how Gompers gives it to the laborers?” I said, “I thought he was handing one to the profit worship- ers, incidentally, and making one of the 30 or 40 most patriotic speeches ever made in the world, primarily.” Looking at the very short account of Gompers’ speech in the St. Paul Dispatch, which this man had in his hand, I saw that the Dispatch had really given the impression, in a short write-up, that Gompers had been bemauling the laborers to make them patriotic (as if they were not already patri- otism white hot) and not bemauling the profit- worshipers, who are patriotic first of all to profit and incidentally, it is ‘to be feared, to the nation. Then we read in another paper, which I had, the more full and truthful report of Gompers’ speech. This man was dumfounded. I then showed him various matters (and some from the Pioneer Press) and said, “Can you say that such statements are truly and fully patriotic to the country? If Town- ley was to make such statements I would black- | snake him myself!” I also showed this man the = | almost countless cases where these papers fail | to give the people a correct report of things, back- ing up my statements, in some cases, by state- ments in the Nation (New York), a well-known This man was surprised beyond measure. His principal mentor has been the St. Paul Dispatch. Is there any possible way to make newspapers tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that is, so far as they are . capable of doing this? A McG. BEEDE. SAME TROUBLE : WITH OTHER PAPERS Next comes a typical letter, indi- cating that St. Paul is not the only city cursed with Big Biz papers: Milette, S. D. Editor Nonpartisan- Leader: I have been a member of the Non- partisan league since the first of 1917 and, - consequently, a reader of the Leader. For years I have taken the Minneapolis Journal, but it has: turned so radically for Big Biz and prints so much slanderous and untrue stuff about the League, its organizers and members that I stopped it.' I wish to take a Twin Cities daily and " write you to find out which are neu- tral and fair to the farmers’ move- ment. -You are on the ground and know. T. E. AKERS. The Omaha Bee, edited by a’ stand- pat Republican boss, is another paper now receiving the wrath of the farm- sent a clipping proving the same bias in the case of -a little paper, the Di- { vide Tidings. The Churden (Iowa) Reporter has been likewise catalogéd by J. W. Hopton. Times are chang-- © ing and these editors haven’t awak- . ened‘to the fact. - St