The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, December 9, 1918, Page 6

Y T A 'I%/////% z W 4 7 9, Y my, % vy g V/,////”/; % /%” ; 2" Gl pp onparfisan Teader . Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Week ama et e e e e RS Entered as secomd-class matter September 8, 1915, at the postoffice at St. Paul, Minnesota, under the Act of March 8, 1879, OLIVER 8. MORRIS, Editor 5 7 A. B. GILBERT, Associate Editor B. 0. FOSS, Art Editor 3 Advertising rates on .application. Subscription, one year, in advance, $2.50; six months, $1.50. ease do not make checks, drafts nor money orders payable to indi- viduals, Address all letters and make all remittances to The Nonpartisan Leader, Box 575, St. Paul, Minn. MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS THE S. C. BECKWITH SPECIAL AGENCY, York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. . Advertising Representatives, New 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, xm':%‘:‘ 21, WE GOT UNDER THEIR HIDE HE editorial we published some weeks ago about Successful Farming, the “farm” paper of Des Moines, Iowa, seems to I have got under the hide of Alson Secor, the editor. It will be remembered that we pointed out that Successful Farming orig- inally supported the League, even going so far as to send Mr. Secor himself to North Dakota to investigate it and to get material for the glowing account of the farmers’ movement which Successful Farming subsequently published. Then, when the League got too close to home for Successful Farming—when it started to organize in Iowa—this 25-cent a year. “farm” paper performed an agile right-about-face, and has since been publishing vile and untrue insinuations about the organized farmers. We do not blame Successful Farming. It lives by ad- vertising support solely. Its subscription price does not pay even for the ink it uses, and it very likely uses all the 25 cents a year its subscribers pay to promote circulation, so that its sole available revenue is from advertisers. These advertisers on the whole are opposed to the League and it was a matter of dollars and cents to Successful Farming. - Our editorial has caused hundreds- of farmers to write Mr. Secor protesting against the “flop” in policy regarding the League, and some dozen of these farmers have sent us copies of their letters and some copies of Mr. Secor’s reply. As a prize contribution to the wit and humor of the age we quote the following paragraph - from Mr. Secor’s letter to Fred Lorentson of Wylie, Minn. : : Your appeal in such a calm and earnest way for me to “heed my conscience now and set myself right with our subscribers” causes me to give rather an extended reply—longer than I could give in Sue- cessful Farming if I tried to comment on your letter. I am not sure that the farmers are yet ready to listen to reason. They have been spellbound by the. organizers who have worked. so diligently in the various states. They have had the wool pulled over their-eyes JUST AS I HAD TWO YEARS AGO WHEN I MADE A STUDY OF THE LEAGUE. A lot of things can be revealed in two years. Yes indeed, Mr. Secor—the position of advertisers, for in- stance, has been revealed to you in the last two years! Note the excuse for not printing Mr. Lorentson’s letter in Successful Farm- ing—he couldn’t give enough space to comment on it, but he can write Mr. Lorentson a three-page closely typewritten letter ex- . plaining how he (Secor) had ‘“the wool pulled over his eyes,” and denouncing the farmers for having the same thing done to them! This squirming by a dishonest editor of a cheap-john “farm” paper is pointed out to good advantage by Mr. Lorentson himself, who says: o e . I inclose a letter from the SuccessfulFarming editor. Couldn’t you publish it on your “amusement”. page? He calls the farmers - willing dupes in his letter, yet is surprised when we stop his paper. Note all the untrue statements in his letter. Surely his vision is still impaired by the “wool” the Leaguers pulled over his eyes when he League as published. Any one can indorse them .whp has an inter- est in popular government.” But, he adds, “I will expose this gigantic fraud (the League), but the time is not yet ripe.” Why not ripe? we ask. ; 3 WE WANT NO PRECEDENT V] VHIS matter of the final peace terms can be boiled down to a brief straightforward proposition. This is not the first war the world has suffered. The peace conference which meets very soon will not be the first peace conference in which the nations of the world have engaged. There have been hundreds of wars, hundreds of peace conferences. But none of the historic peace con- ferences settled much of anything. War followed the peace con- ferences of the past with considerable regularity. No Peace con- GeT out | I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF You { ference hitherto signed by the nations after war has really been a PEACE conference. Each one has merely been an ARMED TRUCE, resulting in a breathing spell to recuperate, and eventually in another war. : Therefore, in the humble opinion of most of us, precedent is the last thing we want to follow in the peace negotiations now coming. We want no more ARMED TRUCES. We want a real PEACE conference and a real final PEACE. Over the bloody fields of France a million dead cry out, “Never Again!” The war the world has passed through must be the LAST. Let our statesmen and rulers study the terms of past “treaties of peace” (such in name only). We think that, after studying them, they could not go far amiss by DOING JUST THE OPPOSITE of what has been done in the ‘past. - S No treaty of “peace” in the past has provided for a LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO ENFORCE PEACE." Therefore, if for no other reason, a league of nations seems good to us. No treaty of “peace” in the past has included a provision for GENERAL DISARMA- MENT OF NATIONS. Therefore, if for no other reason, general disarmament seems the proper thing. No treaty of “peace” in the past has specified that no nation shall continue or initiate uni- versal military training and “preparedness.” Let’s, therefore, give that proposition a trial. : he world now has an opportunity to end all wars. A dream, you say. Desirable but unattainable, you say. We answer, has it' ever been tried? How do you KNOW it is a DREAM? You know only one thing in regard to peace conferences and treaties of peace, so called. You know that in the past they have always resulted in another war, sooner or later—mostly sooner. That’s all you KNOW. WHY NOT TRY SOMETHING ELSE? What’s the ar- gument against giving a league of nations, general disarmament and abolition of universal military training a WE MUST STAND BY OUR PLEDGE HREE reasons, as near as we can figure it out, caused the United States government to differentiate between kaiser- A ism and the German people, and caused us, while fighting kaiserism, to attempt to get the support of the German people in that fight, as we ultimately did. We assured the German people we were not making war on them and had no desire to interfere with their institutions or government, so long as kaiserism, with . its power arbitrarily to plunge the world into war, was destroyed. .. First, we took this stand because in the light of reason and Justice it was the only one we could take. Second, it hastened the end of the war, because immediately we got the aid of the Gexman people in the fight on kaiserism the war would be over. -Third, the great liberal, radical and labor forces of our own country .woul(i not support a war for any but a just cause and would not support a war / —————\ R M — v 5~ T¢ = ! — Y e s» for imperialism or against the Germanpeople,althom .'fl}e‘se went to North Dakota—and he admits they did it! His_letter is a forces were willing to back a war agai t the had fas- foo suc e for theblnes, il o0 e o= tened itself upon the Germs Petmleg.mns eilncbus & = | S Mr. Secor’s contribution to the merriment would be incomplete .~ The institution of kaiseriém has : , without this touch: “I have no objection to. the principles of the businesg*inz'ppmpefvis;- or when it app +PAGE: SIX:v