The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 16, 1918, Page 11

.good farming as few men have been ~given to see them. If ever there was >a man entitled to the respect of his neighbors and the praise of his friends, it is Wes Randell. Yet he was made to suffer the humiliation and ignominy of arrest simply be- cause he had incurred the ill will of one of the sycophants of the Greater Towa association, and was dragged 80 miles, to another county seat, to an- swer to a charge for which the pen- alty is sometimes death. ? “The crime for which Wes Randell was arrested was this:. In private conversation with Robert” Shanahan, secretary of the Oskaloosa Commer- cial club (which organization is close- ly affiliated with the Greater Towa as- sociation),- he suggested that there was not time upon the well-filled pro- - gram of a farmers’ neighborhood club meeting for Mr. Shanahan to make a speech. Angered beyond all' reason, Mr. Shanahan caused an information to be filed against Wes Randell, be- fore the United States commissioner at Ottumwa, charging him with se- dition. The affair is plainly a part of the state-wide conspiracy on the part of the Greater Iowa association and its allied . civic bodies—the chambers of commerce of a hun- dred or more towns and cities—to humble and de- grade the farmer at every turn, to ignore him politically, and to arrest, intimidate, terrorize and severely punish every farmer who dares to as- -sert that he hgve a choice in public affairs or be anything more, for all time to come, than a mere -echo of their opinions. . “Whatever Mr. Shanahan’s purpose in going to Cedar, he made it clear that he proposed to de- liver his speech, no matter how long the program. ‘already prepared and no matter whether he was invited to speak or not. When Wes Randell mod- estly suggested that the program was long, and “that it might be better for a special meeting to he arranged - (proffering’ the schoolhouse, free of charge, on any date Mr. Shanahan might set) he 2l was forthwith accused of being opposed to the ! Thrift and War Savings stamps, of being opposed “ -to the government, of being opposed to the war. - When Mr. Shanahan arose to speak (which he did at' the very beginning of the meeting, consuming the greater part of the two hours for which a pro- gram had been arranged by the club) he launched - forth into a most violent, bitter and unjustified at- ‘tack upon Wes Randell, his neighbors and the whole township. The audience sat aghast! They ‘could hardly believe their ears! = Mr. Shanahan announced that the whole township was yellow, _that it was a hotbed of pro-Germanism, that one of the most rampant of the pro-Germans had at- tempted to prevent his speaking. ARRESTED FOR FAILING TO APPLAUD HOG WASH s “When the day set for the trial arrived and Wes Randell, accompanied by a score of farmer friends and witnesses, arrived too, the United States com- League. had found absolutely no ground for the charge ever having been filed. He is said to have told Wes ‘Randell that ‘if Bob Shanahan ever appeared at ‘the Cedar school again to kick him out.’ ‘There are plenty of farmers around Cedar willing and anxious to do it, too.. Randell’s bondsmen were dismissed; “him—it ‘'was all a part of the plot to pillory men who have. the bravery:to defy the Greater Iowa association and its tools—the various commercial clubs of the state.” (R 2" About the time of the persecution of Farmer Tt ‘the other two: well-known, reputable citizens of: owa, were arrested at Osceola for. discussing pri- just heard in a speech by the assistant sécretary f the Greater Iowa association. Haled before a ngaroo’ court at midnight, they were /insulted by this gang of well-dressed toughs and threatened © with “necktie parties” and tar and feathers. Among " the county, wh ted to put’ the men in jail. attc refused to sanction such high- "Of this Mr. Pierce writes: = . urt,” which assembled at midnight ‘and eeded -to hale the three men before it ' : son th ‘their. ftre:son;” What kind of men are they? ers struck for fairer working conditions. club boasted at that time that he had forced the men back to their toil by in- ducing the merchants to go on a strictly cash basis and starve the em- ployes into submission. You bet they can’t starve the farmers. missioner lost no time in dismissing the case. He - there had never been anything to the charge against * " “‘Randell, three men, one a Boston newspaper man, tely together ‘the: gross misstatements they had - .- _the men present at this “court” was the sheriff of One of the tile factories at Mason City, Iowa. This and the cement plants comprise the principal industries of the city. The corporations owning these plants are the backbone of the Greater Iowa association, which is fighting the himself prosecuting attorney, judge and jury and executioner of the ‘kangaroo court’ The charge against the trio was most serious; in subsequent conversation ‘Judge’ Talbott acknowledged to a Homestead representative that he himself was a_ witness of the crime; they had failed to applaud a single utterance of Mr. Moss of the Greater Iowa association; they had sat silent throughout his en- tire harangue. For this, and for their subsequent - private conversation in the hotel office, they. were arrested, at midnight, forced to appear before the self-appointed ‘court,’ having no power whatever to arrest or try them, and were threatened with such dire punishment as seems impossible even to imag- ine under the circumstances!” ANONYMOUS LETTERS AND THREATS Editor Pierce finds that anonymous letters are being made use of as a means of bluffing farmers, letters by men and organizations too cowardly to use theirjown fiames and at the same time pretend- ing' to 'have authority. The following letter of " ‘threats and lies about the League is typical of what many Jowa farmers have received: TO MEMBERS OF NONPARTISAN LEAGUE Each party who joins this League will find his name in the hands of the proper authorities. The head of this L e and six of his main men are under arrest for disloyalty. - They are the rankest kind of Socialidts. By joining this League you are encouraging disloyalty and may get into serious trou- ble. * The solicitor who saw you made $8 on you. That other $8 the men in the office got. "All you got is a bunch of lies. They are grafters and you .must get out of it as fast as you can. You do not want to encourage socialism, do you? They may tell you that they are formed' just to help the farmer. They are all Sqcialists. The: head of it is a Socielist and That is just to get your money. They . The socialistic idea is that the state shall own all property. This means your farm and per- sonal . property, too. They may tell you not. But'all you have zll do is to yr&n.d th"e)ir gatfom The fellow who saw you you anything to get your money. We are formed to warn the farmer of the danger in join- ing such an organization. -Get out of it as fast as you can. FARMERS' ASSOCIATION OF SIOUX CITY.. The_name of this association, at most an asso- ciation of “sidewalk farmers,” was signed on the BOYCOTTED FOR -+ - RELIGIOUS BELIEFS A;:other case cited by Mr. Pierce where mob rule - was_substituted for law and order, was that of a Swiss- family in: northern Iowa, whose religious tenets were opposed to physical resistance of any kind. Through failure to understand the situation, the members of this family thought that their re- scribing to Liberty bonds. i “The result,” says the Homestead, “was that a ‘social-and business: boycott was instituted against the entire family (itself a statutory crime in Iowa); a yellow monument was erected in the center of ‘the town, near which' they lived, with the names of ligion would: prevent them from voluntarily - sub- all the members of the family inscribed on it; local merchants refused to: have ‘business: dealings with . them, and the bank in which they were stockhold- .ers:compelled them to sell their stock. : They were . absolutely shunned and cut off from the world and . “yet they-did not recant, any more than the martyrs -of old repented: under the thumbscrew 'and the . stake, Things went from bad to worse and the - wiser, more conservative heads of the community Well, before the war, the tilework- The secretary of the commercial They tell you it is - _ banking: e : the form of deposits. The banker wuses this from the New Northwest of Missoula, 'og what ig: ‘ ern district watches for checks given by farmers: _:to the League and before cashing them takes a car ~ and drives “’_n, purchased of the family, the' gates were opened at night and the cattle | scattered - through the country. = As ,_ an indication of what lawful methods ' 1 would have accomplished, a lawyer . | sent out to the community by the Iowa Homestead was able to smooth eut the entire difficulty and to get a contri- | bution. of $1,100 from the family for . | the Red Cross to make up. for their - | failure to purchase bonds previously. Yet when this lawyer went to La- fayette Young, chairman of the state " council of defense, that public official had told him that if he went into that * community on a mission of harmony the people there had his entire per- | mission to ride him out of town on | a rail. ' But: the effects. of official justifica- tion and backing of mob rule are not wiped out so easily. In this same community each. bit of small-town gossip and rumor was regarded by some hotheads as an excuse for mob violence. The citizens began to settle private grudges and old scores by - ! starting these rumors. Not only were innocent people submitted to personal. ) violence and yellow paint, but on two different occasions house-burning parties started out but were frustrated by fortunate thunder- storms. What is the duty of a patriot? is there. any higher loyalty than is found in this declaration of Iowa’s greatest farm paper: The Iowa Homestead proposes to devote itself—heart, soul and pocketbook—to bring- ing law and order. To ‘this end, it hereby re- quests all readers to report to it, without de- lay, any incident in line with those set forth herewith, wherein any farmer is terrorized or . made to suffer any physical or material in- jury.~. The Homestead will investigate every case reported and, when the facts are found to . warrant it, will put the matter in the hands of the best attorney that money can hire, with in- structions to him to probe to the bottom and bring the guilty parties (no matter who they are, or how prominent they may be in the st‘ate) to bar without delay. Before anarchy gains too firm a grip, before our state stands pilloried before all the others as an abede of lawlessness, THE REIGN OF TERROR IN IOWA MUST END!- How Some Banks Fight the Farmer O WHAT desperate lengths will the special interests go to defeat the or- ganized farmers? Here is a letter, which standing by itself does not have much’ significance, but taken in-con- — nection with other information re- veals the :last hope of hampering the move for better marketing. It was written from Creighton, Neb., -and follows: ? . “Am sending back my certificate of membership as I do not care to join the League just at present. I was to Wausa yesterday and the bankers. all talked against it, so I think I will wait a while yet.” It is best not to give the farmer’s name; al- though he is the only one so far to have been in- ! fluenced by this crafty propaganda.. The thing for | a farmer to do when he is ganged by his bankér is to remember what Tom L. Johnson wrote in his book, “My Story.” Johnson was a millionaire steel manufacturer and street railway magnate. He served as mayor of Cleveland and as an Ohio rep- resentative in congress. This is what he said about e L ST DM R D SR S UGS o e — R R T AR “The peoplé’s money goes into the banks in money - to capitalize public service corporations which are operated for private profit instead of for the ‘benefit of the people. How incongruous that : the people’s own savings should be used by privi- .~ | lege to oppress them!” 5 Hold that in mind and then read this account occurring in Montana: . - . _“One director of a northern Montana bank isv.'fi‘é‘"tj: in sympathy with the attitude of the banks towards the Nonpartisan league, ' Each banker in the north- ediately 1o his place to persuade @ danverous organization : imm he 3