The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, July 14, 1919, Page 7

- people of a state voting on the question of adopting a lai# agé.inst : murder; and imagine opponents of the measure asking its defeat be- cause those who proposed the law and were urging its passage were Socialists or Bolshevists, or even crooks and grafters. Even if such charges were true, would they affect the merits of a statute against homicide? : : But the most dishonest argument of the opposition, and the one used oftenest in the futile attempt to wean the farmers away from . the League program, was the one in which it was claimed that the League program was “all right in principle,” but that “the legis- lature had attempted to carry it out in the wrong way.” The hired politicians and editors of the big interests adversely affected by the. industrial program actually went before the people arguing that of course “we want the League program, but we don’t want it carried out this way.” That is always the last desperate stand made by the losing side. They see no hope of changing the people’s mind on the big principles involved, so they pretend to be for the thing “in prin- ciple,” but resort to petty fault-finding and dishonest criticism of the details of the measures proposed to carry out the principle. The success of the organized farmers in North Dakota is pri- marily due to their ability to see through this camouflage of the opposition. The greatest agency in making it possible for the com- mon people to strip the disguise from their enemies is the inde- pendent press, daily and weekly, which has been built up in North ' Dakota since the farmers organized there. : THE TRIAL AT JACKSON OTHING is so evident in the trial of A. C. Townley, presi- dent of the Nonpartisan league, and Joseph Gilbert, former Minnesota organization manager, on a charge of conspiracy to violate the Minnesota sedition law, as the hostile attitude of the court to the defendants. A Judge E. C. Dean, presiding over the small-town court at Jack- son, Minn., where the trial is being held, has made ruling after rul- in%.upholding at every possible point the contentions of the prose- cution. e Only after the hardest kind of a fight by the defense did the judge permit the introduction of the entire speeches of A. C. Town- ley at New Ulm. An attempt was made by the prosecution to offer only isolated portions in these speeches, but the court at first over- ruled these objections, giving as his reasdn that “he didn’t want the records cluttered up with political speeches.” His denial to Mr. Townley of his statutory right to be represented in court by his . attorney only, and the attitude of the triers to a prospective juror who admitted prejudice are other indications of the spirit of the " Jackson court.- ~ The trial is not without its taint of Pattersonism. The county attorney; after denying connection with the anti-League clique in St. Paul, admitted to newspaper men later that while he hadn’t “looked Patterson up, Patterson had looked him up,” having asked :o r'r,l,eet him because of his “loyalty work in this part of the coun- f The trial is a sad commentary on the theoretical impartiality- of the law. A FLYER IN WOOL ing in wool is another exemplification of the high-minded pa- triotism of some of the best known flag-wavers in the country. The wool dealers of Boston, appointed government agents of the wool division of the war industries board, Mr. Campbell disclosed, made profits of from 100 to 200 per cent merely by changing the . designation of the product as it passed through their hands. These men bought wool “in the Trease,” or as it is clipped from g THE recent investigation by Milo D. Campbell of the profiteer- the sheep. They sold it to the government as “scoured” wool, al- though the wool was not changed, cleaned, scraped or anything be- tween the hands of the farmer and that of the government. The -farmer got 65 cents to 68 cents a pound for the wool; the govern- ment paid $1.30 to $1.85 for the same wool. A ; - Under their agreement with the war industries board, the deal- ers were to get a 5 per cent commission from the United States, and the local buyers were to get 114 cents a pound commission to be deducted from the price paid the farmer.: The cost of handling and the commission should not together have exceeded 5 cents a pound, it is estimated, whereas the difference between the price . paid by the government and that paid to the farmer ranged from 65 “cents to $1.17. - R ] Mr. Campbell, struck by this amazing disparity in the prices, - went to Charles J. Brand, then head of the bureau of markets, de- partment of agriculture, and in charge of the wool division, with his disclosures. Mr. Brand told him that he was looking into the .. matter and hoped for developments soon. : Since that time Mr. Brand has resigned to take a -pgsition_- with ' PAGE SEVEN the American Fruit Growers’ association, a subsidiary company of the United Fruit company. There has been nothing said officially thus far of the wool profiteering. The American people are still paying the exorbitant profits on this wogl that was sold to the government at advances of 100 to 200 per cent. What is the department of agriculture and congress going to do about it?" ; MOB LAW AND ITS MAKERS R work as a detective in the pay of the special interests is in | 4 l VHIS week’s installment of Ralph A. Moore’s account of his many ways the most important of the entire series. The outstanding feature of the article is the cold-blooded, prearranged plans to incite mobs against the Nonp_artisan league speakers in | Nebraska. Mob law at its best, if mob law has any degrees of goodness. or badness, is the lowest, most despicable form of judgment for . real or fancied offenses. Even when it grows out of righteous in- dignat_ion against some particularly flagrant offense it is intoler- &, 1)) ) e M08 LAW] able. But plotted and planned for political purposes, to frighten . voters or to créate public sentiment, its depravity is unspeakable and its inciters guilty of a monstrous crime. : ~And this was the way they planned, these business men and politicians of Nebraska, through their agents, to drive the League from Nebraska. That they did not succeed is not due to any lack of effort on their part. It is due to the staunch independence of the American farmer, with his virile sense of right and justice. It is the argument of the political bankrupt, who has no better justification than might for retaining control of the political forces of a community. The argument was used in Minnesota, too, and it ailed. It has failed in Nebraska. It has proved a boomerang for its proponents. : Mr. Moore’s story is an enlightenment on modern politicalA methods of the old guard. His future stories will contain more reve- lations of these methods. . : FORD AND HIS WAR PROFITS , ENRY FORD, Detroit automobile manufacturer, now prose- H cuting a suit against the Chicago Tribune, which in an edi- ‘torial called him an “anarchist,” has called expert account- ants from the government to help him fix his war profits, so that he r::'nay turn them back to the government, according to press re- ports the interests a dangerous procedure. Besides, it is quite possible RN AT LN RS AT AR D T RS T N O R TP RS S P i AT \AAC 'i‘his is unprecedented in business annals, and in the eyes of ° that it may prejudice his damage suit against the newspaper, for, from the standpoint of Wall street, such an action as giving back | war profits to the government is indeed “anarchy.” Mr. Ford also | is contesting the election of Truman H. Newberry to the United ! States senate. than in profit, which in Wall street is heresy. ° And it might be added that the “story,” one of the biggest In this, again, his action has placed his _fortupeg in | jeopardy. But very possibly Mr. Ford believes more in principle | for weeks, was buried under a small head in the controlled press | of the Twin Cities. Minneapolis Steel & Machinery company might follow suit. : : ACCOUNTING FOR IT 3 no difficulty at all in accounting for. the result of the referen- They must have feared that others, say the or the Big Five packers, | THE St. Paul Dispatch was one of the “newspapers” which had ! dum in North Dakota. The League, according to the Dis- ! patch, entertained the farmers with vaudeville performances and | thus got their minds off the issues and captured the vote. Here is » . 'y TOKE OFF : I !THOS}E‘ FOLSE /’?’ N A g;\ % %;i;fflskfes, YOO RE ¢ '] P 07 & KESL FOR: iy s what the Dispatch said the day it had to contradict its first reports and admit that the farmers had won: Imported speakers, dramatists and comedians were employed by the League to canvass the state as propagandists. They “made up” in blue jeans and straw hats, powdered their whiskers with hayseed andin- = vaded the rural sections like true camouflage artists and got by with it. = Fancy any one but an imbecile writing anything like that! And: yet the Dispatch published it as a part of what purported to be reporting the North Dakota result and the a ‘serious news story “reasons” therefor.