The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 24, 1919, Page 8

b 7 A Farmer’s Wife Nebraska Woman Wants to Keep Men Hustling and a Page in the Leader McGraw, Neb. ~ IDITOR Nonpartisan Leader: I | am a farmer’s wife, if you please, not a “farmerette,” and I like being one, strange as that may seem to some. I've just got through slopping the pig, and it would be impossible for me to tell how much I enjoyed seeing that nice pig eat his breakfast. A flock of little snowbirds flew down to the pen after I started away, to find something for their breakfasts. 3 We are being blessed by a nice, quiet snowstorm and already the winter wheat is nearly covered by a soft, white protecting blanket, and that is very satisfying to the heart of a farmer’s wife. The ladies in town this morning, though, are not so well satisfied. I expect they are saying, “Oh, dear, it had to go and snow again and make things all nasty and muddy to track in on my new rugs.” But we farmers’ wives are smiling and saying: “Glory, see it come down, Jim, isn’t that fine for winter wheat ?” I am an ardent admirer of the Nonpartisan Leader and I read with special eagerness what you have to say about the Women’s auxiliary. Of course, being a woman myself, I naturally would be more interested in that than the men would. I am glad the silent partners are going to have a chance. ‘to speak too. I mean “speak right out in meetin’,” - because you can be sure she “spoke some” at home, and John and Jim and the rest of the farmers don’t do much of anything unless “wifie” approves. This is true, I believe, among farm folks more than among any other class of people. The farmer and his wife come nearer being real partners than the banker and his wife, or the lawyer and his wife, at least so it seems to me. - I was thinking about criticizing some of your cartoons. I must pro- test against the farmer being drawn with such a prominent paunch. One would almost think he was a bank- er. I recognized him as a real sure-enough “hog-slopper” by his grin. I would like to ask the car- toonist whatever Mr. Farmer had been doing with his pitchfork (in the cartoon in the November 8 is- sue) to bend it so; it looks worse than my broom handle did after I got through using it to induce the old milk cow to make a hurried exit out of the yard the other morning. Mrs. Farmer looks pretty good, but I think she’s rather foolish to assure Hiram that he can’t lose her. Of course, I realize that she is the Women’s auxiliary, but even so, she ought to tell the League that they meant to go *way ahead and make the men swallow their dust if they didn’t keep hustling. It seems to me that would be bet- ter than assuring the men folks they couldn’t lose them. Keep right on, though, Mr. Cartoonist, your pictures are one of the best fea- tures of the paper. And please, Mr. Editor, couldn’t ‘you arrange to give the women one page of your paper each week all to ourselves, where we may write and discuss our problems and plans to get together? A page of mutual benefit to the women—or rather, the farm ladies. We’d like to have . a kind of meetin’ place, so to speak, where we_can run in (by letter, of course), and tell all the rest of the women the little easy short cuts we’ve discovered in doing our housework and hear how they do, and well, just be neighborly—that’s it. How about it, Mr. Editor, do we .get the page, or do we not? (You do—THE EDITOR.) My husband is a Nonpartisan lid, Poems for Modern People.” THE PROFITEER He hovers o’er the struggling world, And like some vulture old and grim He seizes his unconscious prey; All nations must pay toll to him. His bloody hands he seeks to hide And failing turns to subterfuge; He raises dust to hide his tracks And cover up his profits huge. Z leaguer and thinks the day is soon coming when old Mr. Farmer is going to make the bankers and the trusts sit up and howl. And I think as he does, with this difference: I believe the day has already come, and I think it’s going to be a long day. My man has gone to the polling place to cast his vote and the silent partner (huh!) is at home to kind o’ keep things moving. I’m sending some poetry. Here’s to the League, three cheers! Long may it live and grow. ; Now that the farmers have leagued together There’ll be something doing, we know. United they stand, so brawny and tough, Hark, hear ’em calling the profiteers’ bluff. One, two, three, up and ready! See ’em lean in the collar so strong and steady. Look out you capitalists, look out you trusts, ‘When men like these get to pulling together Something does come or else something busts. So here’s to the League, three cheers! Oh, you farmer who feeds ’em all, Get into step with the League, United we can not fall. MRS. JAMES JESSUP. The editor of the Leader enjoys receiving letters of this sort from farmers’ wives. As Mrs. Jessup points out, the wife of the farmer, perhaps more than the wife of any city dweller, is truly the part- ner of her husband. His problems are hers; she suffers as much as does her husband from the eco- nomic wrongs under which the farmer is forced to do business. The Women’s auxiliary of the League is an expression of this thought of Mrs. Jessup’s. Farm women in many states are taking up the plan. Already there has been suggestions for starting an Auxiliary in Nebraska and in Idaho. The women will soon have the ballot in all these states, and then it will be truly up to the women to save the. League. They must vote as conscientiously as their sisters in the city, as the wives of the banker and the lawyer, of the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.—THE EDITOR. Mrs. Borner’s poems are published under the title of “Modern Included in-the volume are several humorous verses, many others on the Nonpartisan league, a num- ber of League songs and some miscellaneous verse. ‘|- printed some of those which the editor of the Leader believes are representative: Ain’t it fun to sit and watch The corn while it is poppin’? Turnin’ into snowy flakes That look like fairies hoppin’ Here and there and everywhere, And you must keep a-stirrin’ Until the corn is all popped out Or soon it will be burnin’. I never will forget the time When I was sparkin’ Lizzie; Her curly hair and laughing eyes Just made a fellow dizzy. I was a very bashful boy, And though my heart was burnin’ With love for her I said no word But just sat- there a-yearnin’. Now Lizzie was a-poppin’ corn, And said, while two eyes glistened, “That corn is sayin’ somethin’, John, You’d hear it if you listened.” “Pop! Pop!” came from beneath the I up and popped the question; s She answered, “Yes,” and whispered low, “That corn taught you a lesson.” PAGE EIGHT Here are re- MRS. FLORENCE _BORNER No use is he to any man, : He gotges when and where he will; - A king he sits upon his throne, Humanity must pay the bill. With sternest mien and iron hand He rules o’er all the universe, He is the tyrant of the land 7 And to humanity a curse. 2 7 7 7 v S, Von n % . .y 7 The ‘“‘League Poet” North Dakota Farm Woman Is First to Give Voice to Movement in Verse HEN the Nonpartisan league was organized, it was inevitable that sooner or later it should find its voice. A protest as general and widespread was bound to bring out utterances like those of Mrs. Florence Borner, regarded as the “League poet.” It was entirely fitting, too, that this voice, like the inspiration that launch- ed the League, should come from the farm. Telling of herself, Mrs. Borner says in a letter to the Leader: “I am just a farmer’s wife, no different from mil-- lions of other farmers’ wives. Our home is located near Arnold, N. D., 10 miles northeast of Bismarck. I have two sons, Paul, aged nine, and Noel, who is six. I am 28 years old and I have always loved to write verse.” 3 She tells how even when a child she got into trouble by writing verses, not always complimen- tary, about her teachers and about neighborhood old maids. She always saw, she said, the funny side of life, and her verses now show evidence of that lightness of spirit. “Living on a farm,” she writes, “I am conver- sant, of course, with the economic conditions under which the farmers live. Since the League was or- ganized I have been greatly interested in its suc- cess.” g Mrs. Borner’s work has been a great help to the organization of the League and it has been recog- nized as such in letters written the author from President A. C. Townley, Governor Frazier and other League leaders. Regarding the publication of her book she said: “I am publishing this book to help the League, as I am a firm believer in propaganda of this sort. : Many persons are partial to verse and when it teaches a constructive lesson, it can be made instructive as well as interesting. “When I decided to publish some of my verse, I considered it best to make it half League and farmer vérse and the rest patriotic and humorous. I have included all of my League verse. In the poem, “The Modern Hiawatha,” I have given to the best of my ability the story of the Nonpartisan league. Of course, many of the characters are largely imaginary. “The book is the first, as far as I have been able to learn, to give voice to the spirit of democracy as it is being interpreted by the League. i “Of course,’Y am a member of the Auxiliary and I am very much interested in this forward move- ment. The women of our state will soon have the ballot and I feel that it is absolutely necessary that they organize themselves as the men have. I feel that the fate of the League hangs in no small measure on the woman’s vote. . “As other states come to learn more about our success, they, too, will demand that the League send organizers there, and I believe it would be a good plan to organize the men and women at the same time. 4 “Mr. Borner was one of the first members of the League in the state, known then as one of the ‘six-dollar suckers’ But he’ll stick. A new day is dawning for the farmers and workers. Its light already is shining in North Dakota and I am suré that some day soon ‘it will shine all over the United States.” o The volume may be obtained through the educational department of the National Nonpartisan league, Box 495, St. Paul. Price, $1.