The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, March 3, 1919, Page 7

3 At = o 2 JA Py &S f"’fl I ! L] 5 -ai{; 2 12 -~ T P g _of its greatest works in forcing the bus'ingss'-world'to recognize that the farmer is interested in something more than in growing " ‘more wheat and pigs—that he is primarily interested at this time in getting a square deal on what he already produces. Thus we find a so-called “agricultural commission” of the American Bankers’ association announcing it will study farm mar- keting and alligd problems. A recent press bulletin sent to the Leader for publication by the bankers’ association says: The keynote of this meeting (at Washington, D. C., February 26 and 27) will be the formulation of bankers’ plans so they may perform the greatest possible service to the nation and work in -closest co- .operation with the department of agriculture and other agencies deal- ing directly with rural matters. Up to this time, the work of the bank- ers’ committees has been largely devoted to agricultural production. That is, our principal work has had to do with increasing the number of farm demonstration agents, the introduction and distribution of thoroughbred livestock, the organization of boys’ and girls’ agricul- tural and baby beef clubs, but I think we should branch out now and go more largely into matters of marketing, warehouse construction and the organization-of co-operative marketing associations. In short, we think the bankers should bring their ability to bear on the matter of the marketing of farm products. The bankers are especially inter- - ested in farm tenancy and should attempt some concerted action look- ing to the purchase of farms by present farm tenants and to long-time leases on terms that will conserve the soil. These matters are of vital importance to the nation but have received but scant consideration as yet by our bankers. " All hail to this new awakening of business men, brought about by the farmers asserting themselves through organization! PUTTING TEETH IN THE CONSTITUTION -T' IS a sad commentary on America, with her boasted constitu- I tions and bills of right, that it has become necessary to intro-. duce in the various legislatures of the states bills reaffirming the political rights we won 140 years ago and making provision for their enforcement. The fathers of the Great Republic, who thought they were safeguarding the liberties of the people for all time, may well turn in their graves at the spectacle. : . Frank P. Walsh, former joint chairman with ex-President Taft of the war labor board, is author of the measure referred to. It has been introduced in the Minnesota house and senate by Representa- tive G. L. Siegel and Senator Michael Boylan, labor members, and CuR CONSTITUTIONA! RIGHTS L " will be introduced in all the legislatures now sitting. The bill re- peats the familiar guarantees of personal liberty now written in the constitutions of the United States and of every state. “The liberty of the press shall forever remain inviolate.” “All persons may freely speak, write and publish their sentiments on all sub- jects.” “The right of peaceful assemblage shall not be infringed.” To these Mr. Walsh adds the right of all persons or groups to or- ganize and the right of the members of such organizations to choose their own leaders and representatives. No person shall be hindered or discriminated against in his employment because of his mem- bership in any organization. ) ; 3 7 All this is a mere repetition of rights which for over a century the people of every civilized nation, with one or two exceptions, have possessed in theory. But the Walsh bill makes these rights something more than theoratical. It makes them actual, by the fol- lowing clauses: : Any person convicted of a violation of the civil richts enumer- ated in the bill can be punished by a fine of not less than $500 nor __more than $5,000, or by.imprisonment in the county jail for not less than 90 days nor more than one yesr, or by both the fine and the imprisonment. : Any two or .more persons agreeing or conspiring together to violate any of the civil rights enumerated in the bill will be guilty of criminal conspiracy and upoh conviction will be liable to a fine of not less than $500 nor more than $5,000, or by imprisonment in the county jail for not less than 90 days nor more than a year, or both the fine and imprisonment. / A person convicted of violating the bill will also be liable to ¢iyil . damages. Public officials violating the measure also will be disquali- fied from holding any office for- 10 years. % In all trials juries are to be the judges of both law and facts. ° . Farmers of Minnesota during the reign of terror last year had every one of their political rights infringed or abrogated. La- bor unionists and liberals in various parts of the country have had the same expeérience. There was an orgy of deportation, suppres- sion, intimidation and oppression, which even yet is not ended, and " there was no way for outraged citizens to protect themselves. The Constitution was with them, but there was no way of enforcing the Constitution. The Walsh bill provides the necessary machinery of enforcement. fre SR : ‘This bill will be sidetracked or defeated in the Minnesota leg- . islature, and probably in most all of the other states where it will SRR i R S o e be introduced. But by that act the legislatures will place them- selves definitely -on record as opposed to political liberty and as concurring in acts and conspiracies to withhold constitutional rights to citizens. i tion already in theory provides. The bill merely provides a way for enforcing existing constitutional provisions. To sidetrack or de- feat the bill is plainly to admit that our constitutional guarantees of individual liberty are mere high-sounding phrases, intended to give citizens a false security which does not in practice exist. FRAZIER AT CHICAGO NE of the most significant things in the news in many a O day was the report of the great labor convention in Chi- cago last week, addressed by Governor Frazier of North Dakota. The new Chicago Labor party, the leadér in the move for a national Labor party which already includes labor in New York SPEC INTERESTS and a number of other cities, pledged itself, by its enthusiastic re- ception of the farmer governor, by the statements of its leaders and with the general approval of its delegates, to co-operate with {‘armers’ organizations in politics, especially with the Nonpartisan eague. The 6,000 workers at the big meeting wore white ribbon badges with the words: ‘“Labor Party—Welcome Governor Frazier.” The League governor told of the work the organized farmers of his state are doing at the present session of the legislature, and ex- tended the hand of fellowship on behalf of the farmers to the new. Labor party. When Mr. Frazier mentioned the fight the big finan- cial interests and their newspapers are making on the proposed state-owned and operated central bank in North Dakota, prominent labor leaders indicated that, if need be to make the bank a success,. labor unions of Illinois would be willing to discuss the proposition of depositing labor union money with the new state institution. Where now are the interests which want to keep the farmer and the city unionist apart politically, because one is a “capitalist” and the other a “wage-worker”? Where now are the musty old college professors who still talk of the farmer as a “producer” and the city worker as a “consumer,” with nothing in common? ‘Where now are the special-interest politicians who would keep both or- ganized farmers and organized workers out of politics, because such a movement would be a “class movement” ? The Chicago labor convention was an answer to many things. For instance, it was a sufficient answer to the fight the Chicago Tribune has been making both on organized labor and on the Non- partisan league. NORTH DAKOTA CREDIT GOOD . league, who declared that the League program was “running North Dakota into bankruptcy” and that the state would P ESSIMISTIC predictions of-opponents of the Nonpartisan never be able to sell the bonds necessary to float its industries, are proving about as far from the truth as most of League enemies’ statements. The fact is that eastern banks and bond houses are fairly tumbling over themselves to get the opportunity of bidding on the North Dakota bond issues. Before the bills providing for the bond issues had been passed by either house of the North Dakota legis- lature J. C. Mayer & Co., Cincinnati; William R. Compton Co., Chi- cago; the National City bank, Chicago; A. B. Leach & Co., Inc,, THIS WONT DESTROY THE MONUMENT. NORTH | DLAHOTA £/ FINANCIAL NN R . i STANDING: oy -Chicago, and- other nationally known bond houses, had written Governor Frazier requesting a chance to get their bids in. Some of them made thinly disguised requests to have the bonds sold to them at private sale. : 4 ‘ Under the Bank of North Dakota plan, the state of North Da- kota will not be wholly at the mercy of any combinatiorr of bond buyers. The state can finance most of its industrial program with its own money, if it is necessary. X But the general desire on the part of eastern bond houses to handle the North Dakota bonds is worth noticing. It shows that the anti-League press, for all its vicious lies, has not been able to shake the credit of North Dakota in the eastern money markets. The eastern financiers, opposed to League plans as they are, are showing, by their very anxiety to get North Dakota bonds, that they know the North Dakota plan will succeed. e : There is nothing in the bill except what our Constitu-