The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 10, 1919, Page 6

4 7//////% 'Z/I / r//to Nonpartisén Teader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Week Entered as second-class matter September 8, 1915, at the postoffice at St. Paul, Minnesota, under the Act of March 3, 1879. OLIVER S. MORRIS, Editor E. B. Fussell and A. B. Gilbert, Associate Editors B. O. Foss, Art Editor Advertising rates on applicatior.. Subscription, one year, in advance, $2.50; six months, $1.50. Please do not make checks, drafts nor money orders, payable to indi- viduals. Address all letters and make all remittances to The Nonpartisan Leader, Box 676, St. Paul, Minn. ’ MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS S. C. BECKWITH SPECIAL c@gENCY, Advertising Representatives, New 1ty. THE S. York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas 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, WATCHING THE FARM PRESS HE vigilance with which farmers all over the country "are I watching the farm papers for “poison” does credit to the intelligence of farm paper readers. ceiving letters, many of which we publish, similar to one now on We are continually re- our desk from Frank Palmer of Grafton, Ohio. Mr. Palmer sub- mits to us the following gem from Better Farming, an advertising medium called a farm journal, published at Chicago: 35 The farmer doesn’t need an organization to demand and enforce his rights. That is why the Farmers’ alliance was a fleeting shadow on the political dial, and that is why the so-called Nonpartisan league is already almost dying at its birth. 7 4 Fancy such statements as that in a publication pretending to be a friend of farmers and calling itself a “farm journal.” The sentiment expressed might have been written by J. Ogden Armour. The farmer doesn’t need an organization to enforce his rights? Certainly not. Let the plumbers, the millers, the packers, the car- REAL HE'S LEARNING : |G BUSINESS- Fapm TO SORT THEM! CBON'IB'ROLLED FARM_PAPERS. penters, the bankers, the lawyers and the bootblacks organize, but the farmers—never! Let the merchants have their United States - Chamber of Commerce, the lawyers their American Bar association, the bankers their American Bankers’ association, but who imagines that the poor rube farmer has sense enough to organize and stand up for his rights! Down with the Granges, the Farmers’ unions,_ * the Gleaners, the Equity and the League! Fakes all! The old Farmers’ alliance accomplished more progressive leg- islation of benefit to the farmers and common people than any other organization in the history of the country. It broke up finally and passed away, but we wish some of those fine old fighting Alliance men still living would write to the edifor of Better Farming and tell him a few of the important reforms that are the direct out- growth of the farmers’ political movement of the late ’80s and early '90s. The old Alliance is dead—yes. But its work lives on the statute books of a score of states and of the United States itself. And best of all, its soul goes marching on! And now we are just about to get government ownership of railroads, the last of the great Farmers’ alliance measures remaining yet to be en- acted. The Alliance was before its time in a lot of things—too progressive for the decade in which it flourished—but the impetus it gave to progressive measures, political and economic, will never die. ~ v : ; And the League? Our Chicago editor says it is already almost dying at its birth! He evidently hasn’t been reading the news very carefully of late—especially about the complete enactment of the League program now occurring in North Dakota! THE BANK OF NORTH DAKOTA ganized farmers and hold it up to ridicule, when all other arguments fail, fall back on-a sneer. “Well,” they say, “anyway, you can’t sell the bonds you intend to issue to establish state grain elevators, warehouses, etc.” By this they mean that the financial combine will boycott any bonds the state may issue to carry out the farmers’ program. Since the present legislature has i/ THE financial interests which oppose the program of the or- been busy in North Dakota actually carrying out the farmers’ pro- - %//;' r’///m 2 e % gram there, these sneers in the Twin Cities big business press have beeh more frequent. i ; “Anyway, nobody will buy your state bonds to start these en- terprises,” is the doleful refrain. Now it would be sufficient answer to that to say: J “If the program can not be carried out because of a financial boycott by big business, why should YOU worry? Isn’t that what you want—a failure for the farmers’ program? And if it is bound to fail through inability to sell state bonds, why kick so much about the farmers trying to carry out their program ?” _ Of course this threat of the financial interests to prevent the carrying out of the North Dakota farmers’ program may be an idle threat—a boast of intrenched money kings who think they can control the universe, including North Dakota. But the big point is that IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHATEVER whether the threat is idle or not. The North Dakota farmers will be inde- wHY, You POOR WHY SROULD v You WoRRY N.O. : l N FARMER, : D) DR o Sob 30y CoNT FeROG R AMas pendent of the financial system and money kings in carrying out their program. Why? Simply because of a law the farmers’ leg- islature has framed which provides in part as follows: Be it enacted by the legislative assembly of the state of North Dakota: - Section 1. For the purpose of encouraging and promoting agri- culture, commerce and industry, the state of North Dakota shall en- gage in the business of banking, and for that purpose shall, and does hereby, establish a system of banking owned, controlled and operated by it, under the name of the Bank of North Dakota. - And there you have it! The people of North Dakota are creat- ing a bank of their own that will finance all their state projects and, besides that, will be a state rural credit bank to loan money at cost to farmers on land and crops! The Bank of North Dakota opens for business on the day ‘that the state issues and deposits with it $2,000,000 .in state bonds. That is the bank’s capital. At the outset the bank’s deposits will be from $10,000,000 to $30,000,000. That money is also the people’s money. It belongs to cities, towns, counties, school districts and other political subdivisions of the state and at present is deposited in private banks. The law provides that all this PEOPLE’S MONEY % ‘must be deposited in the PEOPLE’S OWN BANK. Again, North Dakota private banks at present carry from $10,000,000 to $40,000,000 in reserve in St. Paul and Minneapolis banks alone. The use of all this money is lost to the state. The North Dakota banks themselves can borrow back only a fraction of it, and at high rates. North Dakota private banks, under the new law, can deposit their reserves in the Bank of North Dakota under advantageous conditions. ' At the outset scores of farmers’ banks will transfer their reserves to the Bank of North Dakota, and other private banks will find it advantageous to follow suit. All this is aside from the use of the money of private depositors’ which the state bank will have. If necessary to make the plan a success, every League farmer in the state—and there are nearly 50,000 of them—will transfer his account to the new state bank! Consider that the state of North Dakota guarantees every cent of deposits with the entire resources of the state! Consider that its loaning of money to producers on state warehouse receipts will olve the problem 6f short-ferm loans to farmers at low interest! Consider that the Bank of North Dakota will be the most powerful _financial institution in the Northwest! Do you think the farmers of North Dakota are worrying about the sneers of the press about being unable to finance their state enterprises? : 5 = : The Leader doesn’t think so. Do you? "THE 1919 WHEAT PRICE guaranteed wheat price for the 1919 crop. Farmers are promised by the government the same price as prevailed for the 1918 crop—that is, $2.26 at Chicago. The winter wheat sowed P RESIDENT WILSON by proclamation has already fixed tine last fall was Sowed in consideration of this guarantee of price. & - Farmers put in thousands of acres of wheat last fall for harvest next summer which would have been sowed to other crops, except