The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, October 27, 1919, Page 6

" _time by the Leader to show the methods used in the past by un- Tlonpartisan 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 3, 1879. 2 LIVER S. MORRIS, Editor [s] E. B. Fussell, A. B. Gilbert and C. W. Vonier, Associate Editors. B. O. Foss, Art Editor. Subscription, one year, in advance, $2.50; six Advertising rates on application. i i lease do not make checks, drafts nor money orders payable to indi- months, $1.50. a 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 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 columms. THOSE $16 CHECKS ; HE Nonpartisan league, the farmers’ state administration. in North Dakota, the North Dakota industrial program now - I being carried out, an independent press with millions of cir- culation in 13 states doing battle for the people against graft and privilege—all these things and much more are the result of $16 post-dated checks signed by farmers for dues in their organization. Wonders—almost the impossible—have been accomplished by these pledges of the farmers to pay $16. But what has been accomplish- ed is small in comparison with what CAN be accomplished—with what actually is about to be accomplished during the next year or two. The League to date has captured politically only ONE state; a dozen others are on the verge of having their governments and legislatures restored to the people—and all through the means of those $16 pledges of the farmers. e S No wonder enemies of the League sought to strike a death blow to the entire organized farmers’ movement by destroying, in the recent North Dakota bank plot, the value of the League post- dated checks. The charge that these checks are practically ‘worth- A SOLID : FOUNDBTION P 3, RAERS § g Q): Y0 aripg g mflfi e — e Abtgrar LDMERICAN FARMER less as bankable paper, and the attempt to wreck the farmers’ and independent banks which have handled them, is the grossest insult yet to the farmers. Their promises to pay $16, which the League has used as security to borrow money to keep the organization and its publications running, have always been ‘redeemed. Of the millions of dollars borrowed on this security during the last four years, not a cent but has been repaid by the farmers’ organization when due. The farmers universally have made good their checks to the League. Yet the big financial interests and beneficiaries of political and economic evils which the farmers seek to- eradicate, - now say, through their tools in North Dakota, that a farmers’ promise to his organization—his signature at the bottom of a small money pledge—is not good, and that banks shall not deal in this paper. This is equivalent to telling League farmers that they are liars and cheats. - To this insult the farmers are making their reply.” League national headquarters at St. Paul and state headquarters in North Dakota have been deluged with letters of farmers offering to take ° up their pledges for League dues at once. The plot to prevent the ““financing oi;‘ the League will fail and its instigators will be rebuked. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF ANY present readers of the Leader are familiar with the series of articles we published early in 1916 reviewing the ' fight made on the Equity Co-Operative exchange prior to the advent of the League in North Dakota. "Phe story of the Equity, a-farmers’ terminal market company, was told at that scrupulous and relentless enemies of farmers’ organizations, which - we thought would serve as a warning of what might be attempted . against the League. - : : : S .= 1t has been over three years since we told the story of the ‘Equity. Today the League is called upon fo go through with the rdeal we then predicted. = - <L atiorey; general ey GGy TN T L T 7 EDITORIAL SECTI Tl Gl bd) 5.0 T e G i) it Yt s Yo g% vy the attempt to declare the Equity insolvent, appoint a receiver and force a dissolution of the corporation. Another attorney gen- _eral is'now being used in the attempt to close a farmers’ bank in North Dakota which has helped finance the League, and to prevent any banks from making loans to the farmers on notes issued to pay League dues. Former Attorney General Linde attempted to e obtain access to the Equity’s books by a ruse, just as present Attorney General Langer .used a ruse to get at the books of the Scandinavian-American bank at Fargo. As-in the case of his pre- - decessor, Langer has succeeded in filling newspapers all over the country with one-sided accounts of charges against the farmers’ organization and 'leaders. . A FEW YEARS AGD IFAQMERS emns, e LOW, OF NO. DANOTA i the machinery of the state government, the courts and the laws : to wreck farmers’ institutions. The hand of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce back of former Attorney General Linde in the Equity case was eventually - finally and conclusively proved by documentary evidence.c' The farmers know the big interests are likewise back of Attorney Gen- eral Langer’s present fight on the League, and we believe, as in the Equity case, the undisputed proof of it will be forthcoming. The courts, after it had cost the farmers immense sums for legal defense, finally did the Equity justice.” Defeated and broken, Linde was turned out of office. We recall these facts reluctantly, for Linde is dead, driven to an early grave largely on account of the wreck of his ‘political career. We believe he sincerely re- pented his betrayal of the farmers of North Dakota and suffered intensely under the odium of co-operating with sinister big inter- ests against the people. necessary to point out at this time the parallel between the present fight on the League and the former fight on the Equity. " As long as special privilege exists it will fight with any weapon it can lay its hands upon, when menaced by organized movements of the people. It has corrupted and debauched courts, press and public officials in the past. It will continue to do so in the future when and where it deems it necessary, till it is destroyed. Langer, - consciously or unconsciously, is the tool of special . privilege. *His case is the more shameless because he was elected by these same - farmers of North Dakota he is mow attacking with all the fury and fanaticism of an apostate. The very $16 post-dated checks given by farmers for League dues, which he now says are worthless and for handling which he would wreck farmers’ banks, are what raised him to the position and power he now misuses. : . FAIR TO ORGANIZED FARMERS farnr publication in the country and perhaps the largest in ' THE Farm Journal of Philadelphia, Pa., probably the oldest circulation, has a-slogan, “A Good Living and Ten Per Cent,” another way of saying that the farmer is entitled to cost of produc- tion on his products, including interest on indebtedness and invest- ment, plus good wages for himself and family. And the Farm Journal, under the present editorship of Mr. Spillman, who was forced out of the department of agriculture by Bureaucrat Houston, is one of the few farm publications that. are really trying to make farming a safe and profitable business. 3 It is therefore pleasing to the 250,000 organized farmers of the West to see their movement included by the Farm Journal among those agencies in America which are ‘working for “a good number, gives the League credit for what it is doing. The number of American farm papers which have done that can be counted on the fingers of one hand, but this failure of the farm press as a whole to_ displease a few big advertisers and special interests by telling th facts about the League, is more than made up when the leadin farm . America opens its columns to a fair dis ccomplishments of the farmer. In both cases it was attempted t}o'use» We recall his sad end only because i} is livi_ng and 10 per cen ” for the man on the land. Under the.heading, S “Visiting the Nonpartisan League,”the Farm Journal,in its October A 1A o W L SN = i LA s TAN 1 £ v, o - <y ™ e iy in ) ¢ A% tarf Te b 43 i Sy 4