The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 26, 1919, Page 6

////// '///// U ] %y, % %////1; ‘I%///I/// @M % " % Z T Nonpartisan Pader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Week Entered as second-class matter September 38, 1915, at the postoffice at St. Paul, Minnesota, under the Act of March 3, 1879. OLIVER 8. MORRIS, Editor . E. B. Fussell and A. B. Gilbert, Associate Editors B. O. Foss, Art Editor Advertising rates on application. Subscription, one year, in advance, $2.50; six months, $1.560. 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 575, St. Paul, Minn. MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS THE S. C. BECKWITH SPECIAL AGENCY, Advertising Representatives, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. 2 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, o _ MILLET—FRIEND OF THE WORKER HIS week’s cover of the Leader is a reproduction of “The I Gleaners,” one of the most famous paintings of one of the most famous artists of the last century—Jean Francois Millet. Millet was famous as more than an artist. Great as were his paintings, he is chiefly remembered not because of his art but be- cause of his sympathies with the life of the common people, par- ticularly the peasant farmers of France, of whom he was one. Millet was born in a little Normandy village in 1814. His fam- ily was so poor that his studies often had to be stopped so that he could work in the fields. Lacking money to buy drawing material, he made his first sketches with pieces of charcoal. When he went to Paris later to become a painter, he had to eke his living out by painting signs for tradesmen and midwives. : 3 Millet’s paintings, while he lived, failed to become popular. : He insisted on painting peasants at their work. His pictures showed the hard life of the French farmers. “The Gleaners” is a case in point. So poor are the French peasants that after the wheat is . mowed and raked, women follow behind the rakers, picking up with their hands every stray grain of wheat or wisp of straw that the i ©. rake may have passed. : : Millet was poor and in debt throughout his life. “The Glean- " ers,” probably his best piece of work, brought him only $400. ~To- ' day it is doubtful if it could be bought for $400,000. Millet could have made himself rich if he had consented to do the style of art that was most popular at the time—landscapes, portraits of men and women of wealth or nude studies. His critics - urged that if he insisted on painting pictures of working people, | .- he ought to make them gay and lively. But Millet insisted on 1 | painting a true picture of the life of the worker. In a letter he said: Sometimes, in places where the land is sterild, you see figures hoeing and digging. From time to time one raises himself and straightens his back, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “Thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy brow.” Is this the gay, jovial work some people would have us believe in? But, neverthe- less, to me it is true humanity and great poetry. It is because Millet, in his pictures, told the truth about the ' lot of the working people of France that he is today remembered - |, ‘a8 a great man, while the critics who carped at him during his . . lifetime are forgotten. s ABOUT THE CHAUTAUQUA I3 INCE the April 14 issue of the Nonpartisan Leader was print- Wl g ed, exposing an attempt of Minnesota and North Dakota busi- SR ness interests to use the chautauqua circuit in North Dakota, | | this office has been deluged with letters of inquiry from all parts ‘of the West, inquiring about this and that chautauqua system, and whether they were subsidized to fight the League. In answer to these letters the Leader can state that the only circuit referred to as subsidized to fight the organized farmers was the Community Life circuit of North Dakota. According to an- nouncement in the Billboard, a New York theatrical magazine, the Community Life circuit was organized for the express purpose of attacking the Nonpartisan league. Fred.P. High, editor of the i “Lyceum and Chautauqua’” section of the Billboard, quoted Norman i -1 Black, editor of the Fargo Forum, as his authority for this state- i 'ment, and gave in some detail facts about how the circuit is financ- i/l %ed, three-fourths of the expense being met by North Dakota re- . %tailers and one-fourth by jobbers of St. Paul, Minneapolis and ii! 1, Duluth. 2 Lo : L :: Besides the information contained in the Billboard, which the i sNonpartisan Leader handed on to its readers, the Leader had re- ; éceived complaints from League members in North Dakota that PAGE SIX . speakers and agents of the Community Life circuit were attack- .. ing the League. : & Since the article was printed in the Leader, A‘lexanQer Ka:rr, head of the Community Life circuit, has disclaimed any intention | - of using the circuit to fight the League. Mr. Karr makes no denial : of the facts, printed in the Leader, that the expense of the enter- tainment is being met by North Dakota retail merchants and Min- nesota jobbers and that traveling men have been instructed to boost the plan. He insists, however, that the circuit will stick in the future to its announced purpose of boosting the “buy-at-home” movement and community building and will not enter politics. The money to finance the circuit was collected on this basis, Mr. Karr states. One advance agent of the circuit, who was known to be using - his position to attack the League, has been discharged, according to Mr. Karr, and a lecturer, complained of as attacking the League in his speeches, though still on the circuit, has promised not to repeat his offense. : : Sk : It is only fair to Mr. Karr to say, moreover, that in the last two ° or three weeks no complaints have come from North Dakota that speakers on the Community Life circuit are attacking the Nonpar- tisan league. \ : 3 The Leader and the Nonpartisan league have no fight; with the buy-at-home and community building movements. If the League program is carried out, farmers of North Dakota will have money:- enough so that they can afford to buy at home, instead of being com«:: pelled to patronize mail order houses and the local communities will- be bound to share in the prosperity of the farmers. - i If Mr. Karr’s chautauqua circuit will confine its activities®to . promoting the buy-at-home movement, the Leader has no_fault to find with it. We are hopeful that since the Billboard article has been brought to the attention of North Dakota farmers, the speak- ers on Mr. Karr’s circuit will give no further grounds for offense. We hope North Dakota farmers who attend Community Life.chau- tauqua events will watch speakers carefully and see what is being done—whether the circuit is being operated for the purposes given by Mr. Karr, or whether it is being operated to fight the League. * ; SPLITTING THE WORKERS NDER the heading, “The Farmer and Union Labor; How - the Fundamental Ideals of Two Great Classes Differ,” the Ohio Farmer, a weekly paper published at Cleveland and supported by packer and other corporation advertisements, makes an attempt to create distrust of industrial workers among the < farmers. ' . : The paper is playing the interests’ game of playing off one group of producers against the other, seeking to convince each that the other threatens its well-being and thus preventing their co-operation. The Ohio Farmer asserts that only a long period of depression or the “demands and arrogance of union labor” can justify organization of the farmer. : The Ohio Farmer probably is one of those papers which pleads against stirring class hatred. That is, it warns the farmers against ill-feeling toward the interests which fleece them. But the stirring’ up of artificial jealousies among two classes of producers is a matter®' in which the Ohio Farmer can concur with a right good will. The; Ohio Farmer and the real farmer know that the worker in the city: and the worker on the farm are both viétims of the same system. The middleman gets his bit by low prices to the farmer and high prices to the middleman. If he can prevent them from getting to- gether, he can continue getting his bit. ' % The efforts of the Ohio Farmer and others of its kind will fail, because the workers of the nation are realizing their common in- terest and acting upon it. Inasmuch as most good things are produced by labor, it fol- lows that all such things of right belong to those whose labor produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world that some who have labored and others have with- out labor enjoyed a large pro- portion of the fruits. This is wrong and should not con- tinue. To secure to each la- borer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as pos- sible, is a worthy object of any good government. —Lincoln.