The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, January 20, 1919, Page 6

I s SR ST i e e 14 i 3 § ) i . itors, a very serious penitentiary offense. T SEEMS as though we were always writing editorials about big victories for the Nonpartisan league. Every little while we find ourselves discussing some new catastrophe of the League opposition. Time in every instance has vindicated the or- ganized farmers and proved the falsity of the contemptible or ri- diculous charges which the desperation of-the opposition has in- vented. This time it is the final settlement, by the United States courts, of the Townley Bros. bankruptcy case. Mr. Townley and his brother, as well as the League, have won a sweeping vic- tory, details of which the newspapers have not dared to give. Readers of the Leader are familiar with the facts in connec- tion with the farming operations of Mr. Townley in North Dakota LEAGUE HOUSE OF CARDS, ENEMY, 60 \ e I /////A]'_“l_ : Ffigy I @ B il several years before the Nonpartisan league was ever even thought of. Mr. Townley and his brother, farming under the firm name of Townley Bros., failed. They were growing flax on a large scale and had a partial crop failure. They might.have pulled out if they could have held what flax they harvested for a few months, during which time flax increased in price from about $1 to=$2 a bushel. But they were forced to sell by creditors at a time when- market manipulators had hammered down the price to a point where it hardly covered cost of harvesting. ~ Mr. Townley and his brother were forced to give up all their land, machinery, stock and everything else they owned, and left the farm absolutely penniless. The creditors took everything they had, and in addition claimed the firm still owed them something like $65,000. Subsequently Townley Bros. sought relief in the federal bankruptcy courts. They asked the discharge of their debts, just like thousands of big business men are doing all the time, in order to get a new start. The matter was of eourse a per- sonal one with Mr. Townley and his brother. The old farm failure did not concern the Nonpartisan league or Mr. Townley in his of- ficial capacity as president of the organization. It was a personal “matter with Mr. Townley. : this bankruptcy case to build up a most remarkable struc- ture of charges and insinuations against Mr. Townley and the League, for political purposes. The case, instead of a private one such as are decided every day by the federal courts in connec- tion with the failures of innumerable business men, became a great political case through the contemptible tactics of the creditors. N EVERTHELESS, the opposition to the League seized upon The latter permitted political enemies of the League to take charge - of the matter. These League opponents objected to Mr. Townley being discharged of the old alleged debts growing out of the Town- ley Bros. farm venture, and they kept the case in the ecourts for a year and a half, to enable it to be used, so they thought, with telling effect against the organized farmers. , It was charged in great headlines and long articles. in the newspapers that Mr. Townley was=concealing assets from his cred- It was charged that he was secretly profiting from League funds, and was in fact wealthy, with- sums of money estimated at millions éonéealed or held for him in the name of others; all stolen from the League farmers. It was said he personally owned the League publications, under a secret arrangement, that these properties were worth half a mil- lion dollars and that they ought to be turned over to Mr. Townley’s lic, and a private bankruptcy case that ought to have been settled and closed in a couple of months, was kept in the courts for a year and a half for political purposes;: ~ V{%fi / o ‘creditors to pay his personal debts. = Every sort of charge that ! ‘malice could invent was. heralded by the newspapers before the pub- TN W WA Y N w % The So-Called Townley Bankruptey Case T CAN not have been possible that Mr. Townley’s creditors ex- pected to seize the League’s funds and the League’s publica- tions .to pay these old private debts of Townley Bros., con- tracted years before the League was organized. The only motive that seems reasonable is the one that we have given.” They wanted to drag the case out as long as possible, keeping it open during the primary and election campaigns last year, to discredit the League and its leader, by making it the excuse for the outrageous charge that Mr. Townley was robbing the League and the farmers. A federal judge, appointed by the president of the United States, presided at the hearings in the case. creditors to examine the League’s books, even though he, probably, and certainly everybody else, knew this examination was for the . purpose of giving political opponents of the organized farmers a chance to discover the League’s political secrets, if there were any. The creditors hired detectives, who shadowed Mr. Townley and his wife. The most intimate personal affairs of Mr. and Mrs. Town- ley were dragged into court and smeared over the front pages of the opposition press. The League’s opponents got access to the books and gave out things for publication connected in no way with the bankruptcy case. They thought publishing those matters would - reflect discredit on the organization and its candidates and program. And now the federal court has decided the matter. The de-. cision is that the charges made against the Lieague and Mr. Tt}wn-‘ tis - ley are false—the crudest kind of contemptible insinuations. decided by the court that Mr. Townley has not concealed any us- _ sets; that the only money he has drawn from the League has been his salary and traveling expenses; that he does not own the League publications; that the creditors have no right to take League funds or League publication property to pay the old debts of Townley Bros.; that Mr. Townley has no property or funds, taken frem the League or obtained elsewhere; that the League’s books and accounts are properly kept; that all the League’s funds are properly accounted for, and that no part of them, outside of salary and per- sonal traveling expenses, have gone to Mr. Townley ; that Mr. Town- ley has no financial interest in the League or its publications. WONDER WHAT \T meAns? N ADDITION, the court in his decision recognizes the political nature of the case.’ He shows that the creditors prosecuted the case with the zeal of political opponents, not simply as . creditors honestly seeking legitimate assets of a man asking to be -discharged legally of old debis. In our last issue we published the ! 7 words of the judge. He stated the facts and conclusions much bet-. ter than the editer of the Leader can. Read his decision yourself, if you have not already done so. \ ! Thus another tissue of falsehoods constructed by the political\' enemies of the organized farmers has been shown up in its true light. In every instance time has vindicated the Nonpartisan league of the cheap and contemptible charges brought against it and its leaders. As a plain matter of fact, the charges in this case were S0 apparently baseless] so flimsy and incredible, that no hon- est man would ever have made them, and no honest newspaper would ever have published them, without also publishing the state- ‘ment of Mr. Townley’s and the League’s lawyers which, beyond all - possible ground for doubt, showed the impossibility of the whole = contemptible business. Yet the press refused publicity to the League’s and Mr. Town- ley’s side, and doubtless thousands of people believe charges so ridiculous that the newspapers themselves must have laughed when they published them as facts. And thousands of these deceived people will not know the truth, because, after giving great head- lines and columns on the front page to the theory of the case given out by the League’s enemies, none of ‘the big city papers have yet published the decision of the judge. They have contented them- selves with brief and inconspicuous announcements that the matter is settled and the court has decided that Mr. Townley has only a . few'dollars assets. . - The news associations, which h-ahd.led‘,thbl:xsands of words ~about the charges of the creditors, have sent practically nothing ‘over the wires telling whaltl;the judge thought of these charges The American newspapers Ve again run true to form. He permitted the -