The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 8, 1919, Page 6

T T e A ST T n feader 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 M'arch 3, 1879. P . OLIVER S. MORRIS, Editor 4 E. B. Fussell, A. B. Gilbert and C. W. Vonier, Associate Editors. - B. O. Foss, Art Editor. 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 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. : Quack, fraudulent and irresponsible firms are not knowingiy 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. THE RAILROAD SITUATION HERE is an old saying to the effect that a person can hot I have his cake and eat it too, but apparently the railroad presidents and stockholders, who are trying to advise con- gress what to do in railroad matters, never heard of this saying, or do not believe it applies to them. Before the house interstate commerce committee at Washing- ton the other day, Judge Robert S. Lovett, president of the Union Pacific system, said: If the railroads were turned back to their owners today under existing conditions it is not too ‘much to say that half of the roads would go into bankruptey and the dividend-paying roads would have to reduce their dividend payments. . 2 And Judge Lovett went on to propose that besides handing th railroads back, congress vote a subsidy as well! Oh, ho! The newspapers have been telling all along that the BoNUS 700 ° deficit that the roads have been piling up during the past year or so has been due to public ownership. But it seems that the rail- road heads admit now that under private management the roads will still show a deficit and the “owners” must be given money for taking the roads back and running them.- In other words, the rail- road heads think they can get their roads back and be guaranteed a revenue from the government at the same time. The only alter- native, according to Judge Lovett, is another raise in railroad rates, though the newspapers have also been assuring us that the rates that we are paying now were due entirely to the “wasteful” char- acter of public ownership. But now it seems that if the roads are tott;e returned to private ownership, rates will have to be higher yet! Higher railroad rates will mean another increase in the cost of living which will bring demands for increased wages and the vicious system of raising the ante will be set to work again. Or, to look at it from the other angle, if the railroads are to be paid for taking the lines back the money will have to be raised by in- creased taxes, which will fall largely upon imports, thereby in- creasing the cost of living, and results will be the same. . Although the Plumb plan for management of the railroads may be capable of improvements, it is the only workable plan be- fore congress today. HYSTERIA IN PRINT AVE you an anti-Bolshevist paper in your home? H,don’t worry. There’ll be one there soon enough. It’s being done quite a bit this season. It’s such a fascinating subject, and you’ve no idea how easy it is! There doesn’t seem to be any closed season whatever for these magazines. They spring up like the flowers in May—and last about as long. There are only three ingredients necessary: The price, the desire and a typewriter. It is possible to get along without the typewriter. . Of course, an anti-Bolshevist newspaper doesn’t discuss bol- shevism, except to tack the label on everything in sight. Is there a strike? Bolshevism! Is a conservative defeated for office? Bolshe- ] PAGE SIX If not,. common‘doesn’t even enter into consideration. “This rule by majority is all very well, my dear, but think of what happens when the farmers and the workers find out that they constitute a majority and act accordingly! Just look at North Dakota! Do you know that some of the men who have been mak- ing just oodles of money there in farm mortgages, some of our very best people, too, will have to find some other place for their money ? Plain bolshevism!” b There is no necessity recognized by these papers to discuss causes or remedies for what the editors are pleasd to call UNREST. Causes and remedies are beyond their ken. It is easier to discuss the facts, and sometimes things that are not facts, present specious arguments and attack anybody and everybody who is not satisfied with the established order of things. The anti-Bolshevist magazine is hysteria in print. TRADING WITH THE “ENEMY” OW that the blockade of Germany has been lifted and trade N with that nation has been officially resumed, business - terests in this country are scrambling for the trade of the late enemy. Solemn vows never to use “made-in-Germany” goods are being forgotten conveniently. The righteous indignation over Germany’s activities is fast disappearing. American cotton, American machin- ery, American food, everything that American merchants can sell, is being sent over to Germany post-haste. It is good that this should be so. Germany has been beaten and punished for the crimes she has committed. Germany will continue to pay for long years in money and in loss of prestige for what she has done to the world. But there is little value in-a heritage of hatred to a nation. The evil that German imperialists visited on Europe should not and will not be speedily forgotten, but the senseless venom against a people should not be nurtured. Hatred and suspicion will be used, however, in America for political purposes. It is too good a weapon to drop for the political “patriots.” They will continue their loose chatter about “pro- Germanism” long after the issue has been dropped. They will do - that on one side. On the other side they will be peddling their goods to the late enemy. The American dollar makes moral contortionists of many men. THE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS REPEAL : ASSAGE of the daylight savings repeal over the veto of the president has proved the value of organization to farmers. Only because the farmers, through their associations, have been able to make themselves heard, was the law repealed by con- gressmen, who want votes in 1920. The law, in its two seasons of practice, has proved a hardship to workers, who found that the new time worked against farm efficiency at a time when farm efficiency was needed as never be- fore. They found that they had to do their work, because of cli- matic conditions, under the old time, and do their business under the new time because the business men had turned their clocks ahead. As a rule, it failed to help the city worker greatly. ‘The only real gainer was the “tired business man,” who could get out on the golf links for an extra hour every day during the summer. But the daylight savings law would:never have been repealed'-v had it not been for the organized voice of the farmers. Individual protests by the farmers would never have availed. The opposition to the repeal was organized, too, but not as strongly. : If the farmers, through organization, were able to obtain the repeal of this obnoxious act, what is there to prevent them from getting other needed legislation through organization that will put real farmer representatives in congress and in legislatures? o 7 B . iy, 1 ; . % . o 7 ] el vism! Is there a protest against the cost of living? . Bolshevism! fegi® : A favorite subject of these magazines is the Nonpa_rtlsa}n @ | » league. The fact that bolshevism and the League have nothing in by