The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 24, 1919, Page 7

o W D ple of North Dakota adopted a constitutional provision prohibiting the manuffcture and sale of intoxicants. 'The enabling act of con- gress, permitting North Dakota to organize as a state, required “a majority of the legal votes cast” to adopt this provision. The prohibition amendment received a majority of those who voted upon it, but not a majority of the registered voters, or of those who voted for governor. When the enemies of prohibition attacked this vote, declaring prohibition not carried, the supreme court of North Dakota, over 28 years ago, held that “a majority of the legal votes cast” meant a majority of those voting upon the meas- ure, because there could be no “legal vote,” so far as prohibition was concerned, unless it was cast for or against the proposition. ‘In declaring the farmers’ amendments passed, the state can- vassing board and the present supreme court have acted in accord- ance with the constitution of the state as consistently interpreted during the last 30 years. The Nonpartison league is hardly respon- sible for the decision of the supreme court 28 years ago in the prohibition case, nor for the other decision to the same effect in 1908, seven years before the League was organized. ; This is all there is to the charge that “a supreme court servile to the Nonpartisan league” has overridden the laws and constitution. SANE WAR FINANCE Y FAR the best financial measure adopted by the United States government to finance the war is the Thrift and War Saving-stamp plan. Not-only does this plan-enable the small investor=to secuyre government securities bearing good interest in denominations under $5, but it safeguards the investment dgainst manipulations and fluctuationis of the investment markef. It is impossible for the investor in War Saving stamps to be victimized if he is comnelled to liquidate at any time for any reason. The gov- ernment stands ready, on a few days’ notice, to buy back savings stamps at par plus interest, which amounts to about 314 per cent a year. If the stamp purchaser waits until maturity of the stamps - before cashing in he gets 4 per cent. The advantages of War Saving stamps in encouraging thrift among people who can not save more than a few cents or a few dollars at a time are so well understood that it seems scarcely nec- essary for us to point them out. While the government has failed to adopt measures that would keep Liberty bonds at par, as Canada, for instance, has done in the case of its war bonds, the War Saving stamp fulfills this requirement. The evil of great government bond issues, especially issues purchased largely as a patriotic duty, is that they drop in market price, unless intelligent measures are taken to maintain them at par. The result is that poor people, who have invested for patriotic reasons, or-perhaps to avoid criticism, when they are forced to sell, as large numbers of them are, before the date of maturity, are compelled to accept losses which they can ill afford.. On the other hand, the wealthy can hold the securities until maturity and’ get par, or perhaps buy up the securities at a big discount from the poor.. Such conditions work to make the . poor poorer and the rich richer. s But with the War Saving stamps this is impossible. They can be cashed in at any time at par plus interest. They can not be speculated or gambled in. They are an ideal investment for persons wl'ith small incomes, and in fact were especially designed for that class. ; The government is urging the formation of thrift savings clubs throughout the country, and is making a special effort to promote the organization of such clubs the week of February 17-24. The Leader can conscientiously, and does, give its hearty indorsement to these thrift clubs. We would like to see clubs formed in every township throughout League territory. : MORE “HELL-BENT ANARCHY” | E ASSUME that nobody will accuse the Nonpartisan league of “running” the state of South Dakota, regardless of what may be said about the sister Dakota to the north. The League, it is true, elected a large group of farmers to the South Dakota legislature now in session, but‘all the measures they have introduced have been steam-rolled and sidetracked without debate. The South Dakota legislature even refused to hang a pic- ture of President Wilson in the house chamber, because the request came from a League member; although it has always been cus- tomary to have the president of the United States represented in this way during the sitting of the South Dakota lawmakers. Nor will the hired editors, with all their lying, go so far as to accuse the League with responsibility for the resolution passed by the South Dakota legislature demanding the return of the railroads at once to private hands! : So we think it is pretty clear that fhe League is NOT runniiig - South ‘Dakota. Nevertheless, the South Dakota voters at the last election,adopted a set ofconstitutiqnal amendments almost exactly the same as those adopted in North Dakota. South Dakota went “hell-bent into Townleyism,” to use a favorite expression of the St. Paul Dispatch. The state adopted amendments providing for state development of coal mines by a vote of 40,148 to 24,751; to permit the state to engage in internal improvements, 41,159 to 24,820; to develop natural resources, 33,353 to 27,480; to develop state waterpower, 40,5687 to 24,163; state-owned elevators, 40,406 to 25,107; state hail insurance, 41,013 to 25,450. How does it happen that the voters of a state go in for “social- ism,” “bolshevism” and “I. W. W.ism” by sweeping majorities of this kind, without Mr. Townley being responsible for it? Is it pos- BEFOIRE_ELECTION THIS 1S MY PLATFORM @ TOQ AND AFTER ELECTION \' g Pt sible that North Dakota is not the only “hell-bent” state in the Union? Can it be that “anarchy” is popular outside of North Dakota ? ' We might leave this conundrum for the hired editors to answer, but instead will hasten to add that the Republican party of South Dakota last year adopted all the League-program, as a means of showing the farmers there was no need .for the League,.and the Republican party (horrors! think of it!) put these amendments over while it was fighting the League candidates. Of course, the Re- publican party- does not intend to carry out these amendments. The party merely adopted the League program, like the Democratic party did in North Dakota, as camouflage. That accounts for the fact that the hired editors are not denouncing South Dakota as they are North Dakota. When the League program went over in North Dakota it meant business, but when it went over in South Dakota, fathered by League opponents, it was merely a hilarious joke of the politicians, and meant nothing except political trickery. % BANKERS SEE THE LIGHT . ANKERS who are not members of the little inner ring that controls the finances of the country are victims of that ring to just as great an extent as anybody else. The financial overlords have always been able to keep the bankers in the smaller towns and in the smaller banks in the big cities lined up with them, whereas the interests of the larger part of these bankers are with their customers, the common people, rather than with the Morgans, Rockefellers and their lesser lights who run the money market. The-money kings have kept bankers in line by the cry that. all banking reform is “an attack on business” and on banking in gen- eral, and it has been a common thing to see country town bankers giding with a money trust which in fact has oppressed them as -much as anybody else. The new Bank of North Dakota, the state people’s bank to be created by the North Dakota legislature, already has gained in- numerable adherents among the small-town bankers. It seems that many of them have been waiting for an opportunity to get out from under the domination and oppression of the financial overlords, and for an opportunity to deal with a central state bank, run by the people. Thus we find G. W. Conn, cashier and heavy stockholder of the First State bank of Amidon, N. D., giving the following interview to the Bismarck (N. D.) Capital Daily Press: I am willing to take my chances with a bank operated for the benefit of the people, where we can carry our surplus and where it will all be available for use when we need it. We have in the past sent out all of our surblus (to Twin Cities and Chicago banks) and have had to take what we cou'd get at the hands of the financial in- stitutions with which we have had to deal, and it is plain to me that we can expect better treatment and better dealing at the hands of our own central sfate bank. The Capital Daily Press also published an interview with C. F. Lindsey, president of a bank at Regan, N. D., who gave the Bank of North Dakota plan his hearty indorsement, and added: : One of the worst things that the country banks of North Dakota have always had to contend with has been the domination of the Twin Cities financial powers, and by creating this new North Dakota central bank we can keep the money of the state at home, to be used for the benefit of North Dakota and not to build up the big industrial centers outside of the state. : - The two bankers quoted by the Capital Daily Press are not fhe vo‘nly bankers in North Dakota who welcome the new central state bank being established by the League farmers. There are hun- dreds of them who feel the same. : ; ' PAGE SEVEN e N N R S T A ST A TR N, s S0 £ e B B 0 5 e A A S 8 S A 4 i 55t P e