The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 23, 1919, Page 8

}i { { 154 II 138 Party Boéses'Combiné‘d to F ight Léague | LA i EEI N, ~ Johnson Tells How Republican and Democratic Leaders Dropped Differences to. Beat Farmers—Pattérson Asked $130,000 More to Continue Battle » INSTALLMENT 3 7| OW the Democratic and Repub- | lican bosses in Minnesota work- ed together against the Non- partisan lepgue was one of the revelations made by Clarence Johnson in continuing his in- terview with the Nonpartisan Leader. S Mr. Johnson last week told how the inner ring, composed of Charles Patterson and other representatives of big interests in Min- nesota, spent thousands of dollars in the campaign, and how hangers-on of all kinds dipped their fingers into the treasury of the anti-farmer clique, which had its headquarters at 1523 Merchants National Bank building. “Charles Patterson himself was a Democrat and powerful in his circle,” said Mr. John- son, “but, nevertheless, just be- fore the 1918 primary cam- paign there was considerable amount of conferring between . him and members of the Re- publican state committee. As a matter of fact, I visited the headquarters of the Republican state committee several times on errands for Mr. Patterson, while Gust Lindquist, private secretary to Governor Burn- - quist and chairman of the Re- publican committee, and Mag- nds Martinson, a member of the committee, were frequently in conference with Mr. Patter- son. In fact, they seemed to drop everything else and come to the Merchants National Bank building whenever Mr. Patterson telephoned them. “When Carl G. Malmberg filed his declaration of eandi- dacy for secretary of state at; the Republican primaries I was sent to Mr. Malmberg by Pat- terson. I was told to tell Mr. Malmberg that if he would withdraw he would be given an appointment at the capitol of sufficiept importance and with sufficient remuneration to am- ply repay him for his action. It was understood by me, of course, and I think also by Mr. Malmberg, that this appoint- ment was to come from the governor. Malmberg refused. An attempt also was made to have Andy Stephens of Crook- ston withdraw from the race for lieutenant governor, but he also refused. LINDBERGH PETITIONS POLITICAL TRICK “One of the ‘stunts’ en- gineered from the Patter- son offices during the cam- paign was the distribution of a large number of printed petitions, address- ed to congress, asking that body to investigate Mr. Lindbergh and the book he wrote. The petitions were never intended to be sent to congress; they were merely intended to in- fluence doubtful voters and create the impres- sion that Lindbergh was disloyal. As soon as the campaign was over the petitions that had been filled out were consig{l’ed to the furnace. “After the conclusion of the primary campaign, in-which Burnquist came out victorious as a result of the ‘patriotism’ propaganda, matters around the office were very quiet for a time. However, one of the things that was done was the preparation of a political map of Minnesota, showing the rela- tive strength of the Nonpartisan league and the old-guard politicians. “This work was under the, direction of Vance Chapman, who had obtained work with the Min- The committee, “representative of certain interests,” ciates, being as “paytriotic” as they are, really deserve, some kind of a poster too, like the And so the Leader has given tWem that kind. See the gentleman dig. 0,000 worth and the League is still here. Mr. If the League thrives while the committee is ile the committee spent the first, “finishing the many tackled when it tried to lick the world. Liberty loan posters. Sure he’ll finish the League! He has dug $50 Patterson has asked him to go down again. spending the next appropriation as it did wh League” is going to be a bigger job than Ger nesota Public Safety commission. He procured several large maps showing the townships in every county and then-placed push pins of various colors in each of these spots. Green-headed pins were used to represent precincts carried by Burnquist and yellow-headed pins for those carried by Lind- berg, the candidate of the Nonpartisan league. “Most of this work was done in the office of the secretary of. state, where we obtained our infor- mation from the returns filed there. When we had completed one of these maps we carried it from the capitol to Patterson’s office. The yellow-headed pins, by the way, were fairly bristling out over the map. - s . “After the map had been completed, several me | ‘ NOT A “VICTORY” LOAN | who saw it expressed approval. When Mr. Patter- ‘son went to Duluth to appear before the Kitchi Gammi club there, we shipped the map to him for his use, presumably to show the members of the club the ‘menace’ of the Nonpartisan league in Minnesota. The Kitchi Gammi club is to Duluth what the Minnesota club is to St. Paul and the Minneapolis club to Minneapolis—an organization of the wealthiest men of the city. e “Shortly after Mr. Patterson returned from- Du- luth, Fred L. Gray, Minneapolis insurance man, became one' of the regular visitors to - the office, I was informed that Mr. Gray was:the representa- tive of a group that was opposing the workmen’s compensation ‘act, which labor interests were then PAGE EIGHT _ compensation. meaning Mr. Patterson and his asso- - Minnesota Leader. advocating for introduction into the approaching legislature.” ; 3 At about this same time, according to an affidavit of a California college professor and newspaper man, insurance men all over the country were en- gaged in fighting such legislation, and an organi- zation of risk men, meeting in Detroit, had pledged $1,000,000 to fight the Nonpartisan league because of its plan for state hail insurance and workmen’s The affidavit of the California man was published, it will be recalled, in' last week’s issue of the Leader. : At about this time,” Mr. Johnson continued, “there was a growing dissatisfaction between the Patterson clique and what they termed the ‘Min- * neapolis crowd,’ over the meth- od of conducting the fall polit- ical fight. This Minneapolis group, the big men in the Re- publican party in the state, Fred Carpenter, A. A. D. Rahn and Ed Smith, it seemed, want- ed to direct the policies of the campaign. Besides this, there were numbers of insurance men in the small towns who wanted to have their say re- garding the policies and or- ganization of the party ma- chine. However, the two or- ganizations continued to work in close harmony. GOT MAILING LIST FROM TAX ROLLS “We sent out an immense amount of ‘literature.’” Mailing lists of voters were obtained in two ways. The several county auditors or other coun- ty officials were written to, re- questing a complete list of the personal property owners of their respective counties and in most cases, if not all, a check was mailed for the serv- ice. In addition there was a concern in St. Louis making it a business to furnish lists of residents of counties in differ- ent states. In some instances we took the names of the members of the America First association and: made a‘check mark opposite those names so as to more readily refer to them. These lists were turned over to H. M. 'Van Hoesen, editor of ‘On the Square,” and from the list he had a card in- dex made. These . lists. were destroyed in March of this year, as a new list is now be- ing made up. “The lists they are now making -and ‘using consist of names of members of _the America First association and the names of farmers supposed to be influential in their com- munities, obtained by Mr. Pat- terson as the result of letters written to bankers throughout the state. In addition, they have secured from Mr. Harga- dine, secretary of the America First association, a list of the members of the executive com- mittee and the county vice presidents of that association. “Before I destroyed- the card index names and during the time I had charge of the ‘On the Square’ offices, Mr. Hargadine sent down and secured from time to time the cards and had them or a part of them copied ‘for the use of the America First as- sociation. : “Each week it was a part of my duty to go to the St. Marie News company and secure 45 copies of the: Nonpartisan Leader. ' Later, after Mr. Pat- terson' had made a trip east, the order was in- creased to 65 copies, and also five copies: of :the The copies were mailed’to a selected list of men, presumably conSisting of sub- : scribers to the anti-League fund and. thoge whom J ' ey Heres Fos 2 B