The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 3, 1920, Page 3

. VOL. 10, NO. 18 -organizations, are demanding ac- ‘interests evidently want to reserve ‘brought by flunky politicians in IN THE INTEREST OF A SQUAR EAL FOR THE FARMERS Enmmd u seeond-clm matter at the postoffice at Minneapo! nn,, under the act ol March d 1819 Publicnt.lon lddress 427 Sixth aven Minn, Address all remittances to The Nonpnrflam Leader, Box 2075, Minneapolis, Minn, Cewmnat] Tonsartisan Tader Lo Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Week VER S. MORRIS, Editor. A MAGAZINE THAT DARES TO PRINT THE TRUTH Ono yenr ln ndvnnce 82 50 slx mom.hs $1.50. Clas- Special Agency, advertising represen- tatives, New _York, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City. MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, MAY 3, 1920 WHOLE NUMBER 241 LAW AND ORDER SOON S THE 1918 reign of terror to be repeated this year? Leader correspondents in the last week have reported the arrest ; of Rev. Ray McKaig when he attempted to make a League “speech in Idaho, the kidnaping of a Kansas Leaguer by a mob with ropes and tar and feathers, and the deportation of a 67-year-old .League organizer by a group of Montana “business men.” The farmers have been patient under abuse and violence, but “there is a limit to all patience. - While northwestern states con- tinue to be cursed with spineless public officials it is to be ex- pected that mobs will continue to flout law and order. But a ‘change is coming. Several states this fall will elect governors indorsed by the people. Then the mobbists of the last few years may expect to get what is due them. CONGRESS AND CO-OPERATION HY has not congress passed the Capper-Hersman bill le- ‘)s; galizing co-operative marketing? Why does it remain buried in committee with the prospect of it remaining there as the time for adjournment ap- proaches? The politicians have assured us that co-operation is a great thing. They are particularly sure of it when they think of the Nonparti- san league program, which de- mands a little state ownership as well as protection to co-operation. But yet they have neglected to le- galize co-operative action and now when the farmers of the country, conservative as well as progressive ‘tion, the old tricks of killing bills are being used. The situation is a confirmation of the belief that in spite of what the special interests may say for publication, co-operation is just as objectionable to them as public ownership, insofar as it promises to be successful. "It is the chance to profiteer and not the method by which profiteering is abolished that counts with the farmers’ enemies. Temporarily . the League is bearing many of the blows that ~used to be showered on co-opera- . ‘tion because the League program offers an immediate vital thrust at profiteering in marketing the farm- ers’ crops. But the great special the power to -swoop down on co-op- erative groups whenever it seems- good policy to do so. Three different milk producers’ associations have had to bear the expenses of suits the last year, and officers of an as- -sociation of market gardeners in Ohio have been convicted and fined. The fact that the supreme court practically nullified the Sher- man anti-trust law in the recent _decision favoring the steel -trust’ makes the injustice being done the farmers the more obvious. : OUR COVER THIS WEEK ARTOON IST MORRIS, in drawing the cover for this week’s Leader, has remembered the ancient Grecian myth of the narrow.ocean strait, watched by two guardians, Scylla and Charybdis. Lucky, mdeed was the mariner who could pass be- tween these two. Secylla and Charybdis, in reality, were two rocky cliffs, rather than the glants of the myth, and as such Mor- ris has represented them. Like many another myth, the story of Scylla and Charybdls | CONGRESS—“CAN’T YOU SEE I'M BUSY?” I vy Ail ’;”j»’lx [ —Drawn expressly for the Leader by W. C. Morris. Congressman Sinclair and the Leader have repeatedly pointed out what would happen as the resuilt of the failure of congress to act for the relief of the drouth-stricken farmers of the Northwest. It will be impossible to put in a normal wheat crop this season. With our own production less than normal we can not export anything like what is needed for starving Europe: It is too late now for congress to act. The department of agriculture’s figures, which ordinarily overestimate rather than underestimate, forecast an immense decrease in the 1920 wheat crop. Millions cry for bread in Europe, and the investigations of the American Red Cross show that the situation in the drouth- stricken sections of the United States is little better. or hundreds of thousands die of hunger in the coming year the blame will rest squarely upon the so-called “leaders” of congress who preferred to play politics rather than do their duty. has its analogy in modern life. The selfish politicians had no fear of the farmers nor of the city workers so long as they were un- organized or so long as the two classes could be set against each other. But organized, and close together, they appear to him as menacing rocks in the way of his personal ambition. If we were to have drawn this week’s cover, we would have made one alteration. Instead of the narrow and dangerous pas- sage that is now open to the politician, we would have shown the strait closed altogether. ¥For the farmer and the laborer are coming closer together every day, and by November next the gap between them will be closed, we hope, forever. GENERAL WOOD EYOND opposing the part of General Wood’s platform B which calls for universal military training, we have had little to say concerning his candidacy. Neither the Non- partisan league or the Leader made an attack upon him, nor have we indorsed any other candidate for the Republican nomination for president. General Wood’s at- tack on the League;, therefore, is unprovoked. It indicates he has gone out of his way to attack the organized farmers, and the only conclusion that can be made is that he has deliberately taken steps to drive away any support he might have gotten among the members of the League and their friends. General Wood does not want the support of the liberal western farm- ers. That is now plain. He said in a speech at Cairo, Ill.: I have nothing but sympathy for the honest but misled farmers who have affiliated with the Nonpartisan league. My complaint against them is directed against the unprincipled leaders of whom they are the dupes. * * * We must see to it that those who seek to spread their false doctrines, which call for the over- throw of American institutions, do not attain their purpose. This is the same old line of bunk that those opposed to the League and its program have al- ways peddled. They are not honest enough to come out against the farmers and their program, but center their attack on “leaders.” In taking this stand General Wood, like the others who have used the same tactics in fighting the organ- ized farmers, has had to assume that the farmers are poor, deluded fools. Otherwise the “false leader- ship” could not be accounted for. Well, if General Wood does not want the support. of Republican members of the Nonpartisan league he won’t be embarrassed by having it forced upon him. It may be that the unprecedented sums he is paying to buy the nomination will get him by without liberal farmer support. It may be, too, that he can garner enough dele- gates at Chicago by posing as an enemy of militarism in the West and calling his opponent “Colonel Lowden,” while getting the money of eastern m111tarlsts for his campaign fund. And it may be that his “stunt” in South Dakota of getting out a fake i issue of a Nonpartisan league paper and 1nsert1ng his propaganda in it, and similar political tricks, will land him in the seat of Washmg- ton and Lincoln. And then again, it may not' If thousands Liberalism is trust of the people, tempered by prudence; conservatism is distrust of the people, tempered by fear.— W. E. GLADSTONE. PAGE THREE