The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 26, 1919, Page 4

>-]TATE and county councils of defense which assumed dictatorial powers and ex- ercised legislative, execu- tive and even judicial pre- rogatives during the war, illegally and without au- thorization, were given a . severe rebuke when a Ne- braska court awarded damages to Royal V. Sheets in an action for false arrest and im- prisonment against members of the Antelope County (Neb.) Council of Defense. Sheets, a young Nebraska farmer and a candidate for state senator, held the indorse- ment of the Nonpartisan league of Nebraska. Young Royal Sheets, who is studying law and expects to receive his diploma next fall, is the son of D. S. Sheets, a pioneer League mem- ber of Nebraska. While campaigning for the state senatorship from his district, Sheets received a letter from the Antelope County Council of Defense, stating that all candidates were required, by the council, to take a stand in reference to the Nonpartisan league. i This, in effect, was a demand on Sheets to repudiate ; his connection with the League. f The candidate refused to pay any attention to the letter or the implied demand. When he received the letter he declared in the hearing of others that " | he knew that he was fully within his rights to run for office on any platform or with any indorsement that he might choose. b “I know what I'm doing,?” he told hearers, “and if the council of defense doesn’t like my principles i it can go to the devil.” i A few days later the sheriff of the county arrived f at Sheets’ home and placed him under arrest. He ; was taken to the county seat, where members of ¢ | the county council of defense grilled him for hours. | Among the declarations of the members of the ¢ | council was that the League program of public : . ownership of public utilities was “seditious in time of war.” : Sheets was held for four hours by the members of the county council of defense, which, when it found no excuse for detaining him longer, was forced to release him. . SHEETS ARRESTED ON . “WARRANT” OF COUNCIL :~ The authority for the sheriff to arrest him was © contained in a “warrant” signed by the secretary : of the Antelope County Council of Defense and i | reading as follows: » “State of Nebraska, County of Antelope—ss. {14 “You are commanded to bring before this ! body one Royal V. Sheets. } “ANTELOPE COUNTY COUNCIL OF DEFENSE, (Signed) “S. D. Thornton Jr., Secretary.” Sheets recently brought suit against the secre- The Farmer Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader. MERICAN Farmer Jumps Into $1,210 Salary Class,” ran the - headlines on a press associa- tion story sent broadcast from here early in April. What are the facts? No investigation showing the amount of money received by the average or typical Amer- i1 -ican farmer as wages or salary for his own labor /¢ in 1918 has been made, either by the department of agriculture or by any other scientific or gov- ernmental body. 7 But a study WAS made, and published as Bul- i letin 300 of the agricultural experiment station of i the University of Wisconsin, in March, 1919, which ] shows that the “labor income” of the average of § 60 farmers, on 60 farms in Verona township, in i f | "ages in the case. Nebraska Defense Council Is Rebuked League Candidate Recovers Damages Against County Board Which Arrested Him When He Refused to Repudiate Nonpartisan Indorsement Above — The home of D. S. Sheets, Antelope county, Neb. This house was the meeting place of League members for miles around. It was from the porch of Mr. Sheets’ home that League work was start- ed in that sec- tion of the state. Below—Royal V. Sheets, League candidate for state senator- ship in Nebras- ka, who recently recovered dam- ages for false arrest by the county council of defense. tary of the council and others of its members for false arrest. The council awarded nominal dam- This was all that Sheets was seeking, but he insisted upon a vindication of his stand and a rebuke to the council of defense which had caused his arrest. The defendants, members of the county council of defense, answered that in arresting and im- prisoning Sheets they were exercising war pow- ers, and that the Nonpartisan league was a dis- loyal organization, and that Mr. Sheets himself was disloyal by reason of his membership in the League and his advocacy of public ownership. At the end of a spectacular trial, at which stand- ing room was always at a premium, Judge A. Welch directed the jury to bring in a verdict for the plaintiff. In his instruc- tions Judge Welch said: “The council of defense was not authorized by law to order a warrant or direct a warrant to be issued for the arrest of any person to bring him before it for in- vestigation, and you are in- structed that under the un- disputed evidence in this case, the arrest and bringing before the council of defense of the plaintiff was unlawful, un- authorized by law and was instigated and caused by the defendants and others partici- pating with them and. con- stitutes an unlawful impris- onment occasioned thereby. “To constitute an arrest and imprisonment, it is not necessary that the party making the arrest should use violence or force toward the party ar- rested, or even touch his body. If he professes to have authority to make the arrest and commands the person by virtue of such pretended authority to go with him and the person obeys the order and they ride and walk together in the direc- tion pointed out by the person making the ar- rest and imprisonment within the meaning of the law, it is not necessary that the person be even confined in a prison or room. It is sufficient that he be restrained of his liberty without his consent.” The verdict brands as illegal many other arrests made last year by the Nebraska State Council of Defense and various county councils. : WITHIN FIVE VOTES OF ELECTION TO OFFICE Sheets, after his session with the county council, continued his campaign for the state senatorship and came within five votes of election. The action against Sheets is another example of what has occurred in several other states where the interests are fighting the League. In almost every case, the council of defense was actively an- tagonistic to the League, and made every effort to crush it out. George Creel, in a recent article in Everybody’s magazine, gave an.instance of this attitude as it was shown in Minnesota. The League in the state made a request for a series of patriotic meetings in the state, conducted by the committee on public information. The Minnesota Safety com- mission refused to permit these meetings, not be- cause they would have hampered the war work of the state, in fact the council admitted that these meetings would be a help, but because they had been arranged by the Nonpartisan league. The verdict in favor of Sheets is as welcome for the rebuke to the methods of organizations like the Antelope board, as for the. vindication of the League candidate. and His Average Income southern Wisconsin, averaged $408 for the five years: from 1913 to 1917. Some of these farms were very rich, some were poor; the farming was mixed, with dairy products, cattle and hogs as the chief sources of income. The average size of the farms was 148 acres, the average crop area was 80.7 acres, and the average investment $17,692. The receipts of the average of these 60 farms in 1913 were $1,961, and the direct expenses, includ- ing a small charge for depreciation, were $882, leaving a farm income of $1,079 for the year. In- terest on the farmer’s investment, figured at only 5 per cent, amounts to $865, leaving $214 as wages or salary to the farmer for his year’s work. For 1914 the average of these 60 farms showed an income of $935, and after deducting the inter- est charge it gave the farmer just $56 for his work. ' In 1915 the farmer got, on the average, $68. In 1916 his labor income amounted to $626, and in 1917 it had risen to $1,075. PAGE FOUR University of Wisconsin Estimate Fixes $408 as Five-Year Average on Sixty Farms of State—One in Twenty Shows Actual Loss But this was not the labor income of all, nor of nearly all, of these 60 hard-working farmers in the township. In 1917 there were nine farms which gave their owners and operators from $2,000 to $2,298 above the 5 per cent interest on the in- vestment, while three farms showed deficits in la- bor income from $131 to $534. Three others made less than $100 each. as labor income, and 19 more gave labor incomes less than $1,000. In 1913, 1914 and 1915 the number showing defi- cits were 22, 28 and 24, respectively. In 1916 there were nine that showed a net loss on the year’s work. 7 This report was made by Doctor H. C. Taylor, former head of the department of agricultural eco- nomics in the college of agriculture, University of Wisconsin, and S. W. Mendum of the same col- lege. Doctor Taylor is now the chief of the office of farm management of the.department of agri-