The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 18, 1919, Page 6

f “ ’/%//I//% %f/x / 0;%/# | The Tonpartisan Teader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Week Entered as second-class matter September 8, 1915, at the postoffice at St. Paul, Minnesota, under the Act of March 8, 1879. ; OLIVER 8. MORRIS, Editor E. B. Fussell, A. B. Gilbert and C. W. Vonier, Associate Editors. B. O. Foss, Art Editor. e e e (TR TR SN e Advertising rates on application. Subscription, one year, in advance, $2.50; six months, $1.50. Please do not make checks, drafts nor money orders payable to indi- viduals. Address all letters and make all remittances to The Nonpartisan Lead Box 575, St. Paul, Minn. Sep o MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS THE S. C, BECKWITH SPECIAL AGENCY, Advertising R ti York, Chicago, §t. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. '~ o o o1 Representatives, New 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, INDUSTRY AND HIGH . PRICES T IS coming to be recognized more and more that the remedy for the high cost of living is not necessarily reducing the price of raw food products. The theory of modern business is to buy for as little as possible and sell for as much as possible. Under a fair competitive system, this would be entirely feasible, and the institution of healthy competition would tend to keep prices to consumers at the lowest possible level and to producers at the high- est. However, monopoly, able to fix prices without any fear of competition, abuses the system. ’ Workers are finding that no matter how wages jump, the price of necessities keeps just a little farther ahead. In Washington the other' day, W. G. Lee, president of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, declared that an increase in wages was not the proper solution of the present economic hardships, because it would be followed by new increases in prices. Until all classes get together to stop profiteering, he séid, BIMERICAIY FLOUR N . ENGLIAND the only thing was for every man to get all the wages he can, and then concluded his declaration with the assertion: : “I am not a red card man, but I am coming close to it if this thing keeps up.” - He declared that flour made from $2.26 wheat is being sold in America at $14 a barrel and in England at $5.11. It is not the scanty profits of the farmers that must be cut. It is entirely possible to pay a decént price for the raw material and sell the finished product at a decent price. It always has been tt{;ufi that American goods could be purchased cheaper overseas than at home. i If the government steps in it must see to it that the burden is not shifted-from the shoulders of the workers to the already burdened shoulders of the farmers. There are other shoulders, which although unused to bearing such burdens, are better able to stand them than either of these two classes. Those are the shoulders of the profiteer. Of course he’ll protest, but it will be good for his soul. THE LEAGUE AND HONEST GOVERNMENT on its front cover, pictures of the capitols in the various states in which the League is organized. We started with the North Dakota capitol at Bismarck, a solid, substantial-looking brick building, not planned for beauty in any sense of the word. Yet that capitol today is more in the eyes of the world than the capitol of any other state. - "Many of the other capitols, with their lofty domes soaring into the sky, from the standpoint of the artist or architect, are far ahead of the North Dakota capitol. Yet it is a peculiar fact that nearly every one of the structures, pleasing as it is to the eye, has the taint of graft hanging around it. The Texas state capitol, a splendid building, is worth perhaps $8,000,000 or $10,000,000 as it stands today at Austin. It was constructed by a syndicate of American and English capitalists, and as payment the state of Texas granted the builders 3,500,000 acres of state land, con- servatively estimated to be worth today not less than $30 an acre, or more than $100,000,000. Several well-known English families, THE Nonpartisan Leader has been showing, for some weeks, et b i b 7% Y "y, / Ve SECT il - %]// V%”‘ connected with the British nobility,' are today living in idle luxfiry as the result of the Texas graft, while hundreds of thousands of - tenant farmers of. Texas vainly seek land on which they can farm and make a decent living. The Idaho state capitol at Boise also is a handsome structure. But from its imitation marble to its veneered furniture everything about it represents substitution and graft. One of the principal grafters, the former state treas- urer, still is in the penitentiary on account of his part in this and other fraudulent transactions. . The same story of graft, with slight local variations, might be told of nearly every state capitol in the series. The chance to handle enormous sums of the people’s money, in state after state, ISN'T IT A BERUTIFUL s STRGCTORE has led professional politicians to line their own pockets, -and those of their friends, the dishonest business men, with stolen wealth. We said before the eyes of the world were on the North Dakota capitol. Many of these eyes are unfriendly ones. Let the farmer officials at Bismarck make but the slightest slip—the press of the world would the next day hand the fact on to readers, exagger- ated and distorted, in an attempt to discredit the people’s adminis- tration. . It is a fact worthy of attention that in the two and one-half years that the League government has been in power in Bismarck, not one case of dishonesty or graft has been cited. There is no dan- ger of any graft or dishonesty being brought to light in the future. The capitol of North Dakota, under the present system, is different from the other capitols. . ; Real representatives of the people, not professional politicians, are in the places of power. - The statehouse at Bismarck has become the people’s headquarters for the state of North Dakota. ; Hasten the day when the other state capitols will be people’s headquarters for their own states! “A DAY OF DELIGHT” ; HE mail of the Nonpartisan Leader grows heavier every day. Most of it consists of letters from farmers, but every . day, when the office boy staggers up the stairs, we can be sure that out of the mail sack will drop several pounds of packer propaganda. Ordinarily it goes unopened into the wastebasket. We can’t hire editors enough to read the stuff. But one day recently we glanced, over a long file of letters by Louis F. Swift, explaining how kindly they felt to the farmers, and some circulars from Armours about how friendly they are to their workmen, and 80 on and so on. And then we came across a story about the Chi- _ cago Shorthorn Cattle club meeting with President Thomas E. Wilson at Edellyn farm, by Ashleigh C. Halliwell. “A day of delight,” the story started out, “is a day at Edellyn farm” with the “master, Thomas E. Wilson,” and some of his hired men in the background. Mr. Wilson is the millionaire packer, one of the infamous “Big Five,” but never let it be thought that he . is a plutocrat. Oh, dear no, sighs Ashleigh C. Halliwell.” “Great as has been his success as a captain of industry there is nothing that pleases him so well as to be able to spend as much time as possible in the development of his home place, Edellyn farm, near TLEH WAS SERUED Lake Forest, Ill.,, the name-being a happy of his son Edward and his daughter Helen.” . \ . Reading further we discover that a few days ago members of the Chicago Shorthorn Cattle club and a few guests “enjoyed - the hospitality” of Edellyn farm. Farmer Wilson put on a judging contest for the benefit of his farmer visitors and we learn that Jess. Andrew won the first prize, “a silver-mounted rain stick,” ' which undoubtedly will come in handy next time Mr. Andrew has to drive his cows in during a rain storm. The second prize, - adsilver-mounted pocket knife, went to Reid Carpenter.. The third. prize, a silver ash tray, was awarded J. A. Bellows. : Then there were speeches. Dean C. F. Curtis, one of Farmer Wilson’s guests, paid his respects to the big packer, declaring: i “Your organization is a great omne centering in Chicago and branching out into the surrounding country.” (How did he discover combination of those PAGE 8KK -5 v