The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 14, 1919, Page 4

What Other Papers Say of Farmer Laws Second Installment of Interesting Press Comment on New North Dakota Legislation —The Only Constructive Legislature Attracts Nation-Wide Attention HE attempt of enemies of the Nonpartisan ledgue to prove that farmers of the Northwest are Bolsheviki, Socialists, pro- Germans, and so on, is falling flat. This is shown by what eastern newspaper men, sent to Bismarck, have written about the North Dakota legislature. One of the visiting newspaper men was Milton . Bronner, writer for the Scripps syndicate. In a series of articles printed in the Toledo (Ohio) News-Bee and 20 other Scripps papers, Bronner says that reactionaries in St. Paul and Minneapolis told him that in going to Bismarck he was going “right to the heart of Bolshevikiland.” But the first thing he found was that the railroad station was still standing, the trains still operating, the electric light plant running, the banks still doing business. Proceeding, Mr. Bronner writes: g The shops still belonged to the merchants. No bolshevism there. Not even socialism. When I arrived the legislature had not yet ad- journed. Perhaps a walk up the hill to the modest three-story brick capitol would show that these ter- rible: North Dakota farmers who organized the Nonpartisan league and capturéd the state were really Bolsheviki after all. I figured if they were Bolsheviki they would have no use for the great men of our past nor for our starry flag nor for the goldiers who fought to defend the nation in its various wars. And the first thing that met my eyes as I en- tered the main hall on the second floor of the capitol was a huge heroic bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln. And the door of the senate chamber was opened for me by young Ben Mooney, who gave his left arm to his country in the bloody battle of Cantigny. And on the house side the door was opened by two old men, H. A. Ball and Robert Kee, both of them Civil war veterans. This writer goes on to tell some- thing about the members of ‘the leg- islature and how they conducted busi- ness. He adds: I have seen the legislatures .of a great many states in session and I have watched the maunderings of both houses of congress, but I have never anywhere seen public business dispatched with such celerity and . decorum as by this farmer legisla- ture.. . * ‘% * 2 In brief, North Dakota, under the reign of the farmers who constitute the Nonpartisan league, is not a Bol- shevik commonwealth, but a sovereign, American state, in which victories are won, not by bullets, but by ballots, and in which, under the orderly processes of the law and the constitution the government has been restored to those who are the majority of the popula- tion—the farmers in the country and the industrial workers in the little cities and the mines. . The seat of government is really Bismarck, and not Minneapolis or Chicago, or Wall street, New York. NATION OF NEW YORK PRAISES FARMERS _ The Nation (New York) was an- other publication which sent its own correspondent, William MecDonald, to Bismarck to study the League farm- ers in action. Mr. McDonald says in his story: It needed little observation to con- vince me that the members of the Nonpartisan league who, as a result of the election last November, control all the state administrative oflices, all but one of the seats on the supreme court bench and a majority of the seats in each house of the legislature are neither visionary theorists nor wild-eyed radicals. Any one who imagines that they are such is either hopelessly }irejudiced or grossly mis- informed. have seldom- observed a state legislature whose controlling majority was so obviously sensible, moderate and intelligent. The ex- v T S S e tremist of every type, the voluble expounder of radical notions, or the reformer with his one all- sufficient remedy for social ills, was conspicuously absent. The proceedings of the senate and house were conducted with the usual formalities and the remarks of members, while serious and to the point, were brief. The persistent attacks of the opposition members, who lost no opportunity to impede or discredit the measures of the majority, did not disturb the general moderation of the ses- sions. Outside of the chambers there was the least possible formality—the executive officers, from the governor down, were easily accessible, and when I asked for copies of certain bills I was shown the file rooms and invited to rummage for myself. VICIOUS RECORD OF FARMER OPPOSITION The Nation article goes on to tell how the League originated and how it is carrying out its program. In conclusion the writer says: Will the League, for the moment strongly in the ascendant, endure? It will not endure in North Dakota if its enemies can prevent it. The news- paper attacks upon the League, both within and without the state, are violent in the extreme, while the mouthifgs of what League members aptly call “the kept press” are often so outrageous as to sug- gest a deliberate purpose to falsify and deceive. The record of threats, intimidation, mob rule and personal violence toward members of the League in Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana and other states is painful reading. The danger is that the League, prospering under persecution, may harden its heart and narrow its vision, that its revolt against ex- ploitation may degenerate into a revolt against every form of wealth and power except its own and that pride in its own accomplishment may blind it THE “MAKINGS” OF A MONOPOLY_ N 1// NS N N N MNNN MM ATIRAN N D v , \‘ N NN NN NN NN N % N AW N NN 7 NN NN —Drawn expressly for the Leader By Congressman John M. Baer The alliance between unscrupulous greed and the shrewd lawyer is the mak- ings of the monopolies in our necessaries of life. Congressman John M. Baer brings out this idea clearly by representing them as the two animals reputed to have these characteristics. But from what our monopolies have been doing, especially in the way of war. profiteering, it would appear that Mr. Baer is unfair -to the animals. his hogs know when they have had enough. PAGE FOUR AN As a Texas farmer put it, to the need of the education without which no com- munity may hope to govern itself well. If the Non- partisan league shall avoid these pitfalls there is good reason to believe that it will go on from strength to strength. G In the Literary Digest for March 29 there is a three-page article on the Nonpartisan league, in which arguments, for and against the organized farmers, are presented in a fair manner. The Digest says, in introduction: Less than four years ago, when the sense of economic grievance that rankled in the hearts of North Dakota’s farmers had been fanned to a flame by the refusal of the legislature to establish a state- owned terminal grain elevator, a man named Ar- thur C. Townley jumped into a small hired auto- mobile and began by a farm-to-farm-canvass the organization of the Nonpartisan league. For months the old-line politicians regarded this “fliv- ver campaign” as a joke, but today they see Mr. Townley’s league of farmers with a memgership of more than 200,000, a political organization in 13 states, representation in the United States con- gress and comg}etely in control of North Dakota’s government. Flickertail state—before it adjourned in February, the North Dakota legislature at Bismarck enacted a series of laws which friends and foes alike agree are revolutionary. Among other papers quoted by the Literary Di- gest is the Boston Globe, which said: ? A somewhat conservative Bostonian who often enthuses about middle westerners came home the other day with a glowing story of North Dakota. “They are Socialists out there, aren’t they?” in- quired a dubious friend. “Socialists? No! No!” he replied. “Socialists are improvident persons who are simply talkers spouting ideals. These are money-making farmers who are going ahead and doing things.” The Chicago Post also comments that the North Dakota programis not socialism, but “a revolution of the bourgeoisie,” or middle classes. The Utica (N. Y.) Press, speaking of the League, says: “The aim and purpose of the League are high and not impossible of realization.” Even the New York World, which has been a bitter enemy of the farm- ers on past occasions, sees nothing now in the League program, as carried out in North Dakota, to fear, and comments that “Our free states were designed to be great laboratories of political and social science.” FARM JOURNAL SEES PROMISE Turning from the magazines and is interesting to note what real farm papers think of the North Dakota situation. Northwest Farmstead, commenting on the work in North Dakota, Minnesota and South Dakota, says: We are asked to believe that these activities are socialistic, anarchistic, Bolsheviki and calculated to bankrupt those states and their farmers. How- ever, most of these plans are already in successful operation in other states and countries and Northwest Farm- stead declines to become alarmed. We shall watch their development with interest and with entire confi- dence that the farmiers of the North- west will profit in exgerience and with a lively hope that they will profit in actual money. The Evangelical Herald, a religious paper published at St. Louis, Mo., says: . Perhaps the most important polit- ical movement of the past four years has been the rise of the Nonpartisan league in the agricultural states of the Northwest. At the last election the League came into complete control of the government of North Dakota r oreover—and it is this that is at- . tracting the attention of the whole country to the - newspapers of general circulation, it