The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 23, 1920, Page 8

A Problem for “.‘Art” ¢ Townley to Solve THE FARM WOMAN'S PAGE Mrs. H.A.P. Gets a Bundle of Letters Fiction and Fashion Trash Washington Woman Takes a Fling at Mrs. H. A, P.’s Literature andArt DITOR Nonpartisan Leader: One can easily see, by reading’ Mrs. H. A. P.’s letter; that' the “art and literature” she devotes her time to is not the class of art and literature that makes one fiction and fashion magazines. When we have eliminated the idlé rich of Mrs. H. A. P.’s kind; the rest of us will have a chance to study art and literature, and we will appreciate it enough to choose something that develops the mind, and not something that produces snobs, like Mrs. H. A.P. Mrs. H. A. P. should profit by the example of the kaiser and the czar and not bring her children up to be “rulers of men.” By the way, we are not sup- posed to have “rulers” in the United States.’ I sug- gest Mrs. H. A. P. read the Constitution, Lincoln’s Gettysburg . speech and. the Declaration of Inde- pendence as good literatufe. They are commonly read in the eighth grades of our country schools, but perhaps Mrs. H. A. P. hasn’t been through her eighth grade. The rich people of today have not accumulated their wealth as reward!for “brains and energy.” How-could they, when they have neither? They . have their money because they had a high ambition to graft. Nowadays we call “clever business men” highway robbers. She is 100 years behind her day. She speaks of “uplift work” among the poor, but I think it advisable for her &o uplift her character and ideals somewhat before attempting, anything in that nature. When the poor are nearly dead from hun- ger, cold and tyranny Mrs..H. A. P. probably helps them a little so they can live and slave a while longer for her. She should not call anything like that “charity.” ‘Who would train our future pres1dents and, goy- ernors if we had no leisure class? Why, the ‘com- mon people, of course. They have always trained those worth while anyway. From whose ranks did Christ, greatest of all, come? ' If we are going to have presidents and governors who car\, most for the interests of the rich we will have no better gov- ernment ‘than the old Europea.n natxons, where . wealth and nobility reigned supreme. This world of ours needs some common sense and work but I assure you it will not come from homes of people like Mrs. H. A. P. We wish she would come again and answer some of these questions (and sign her full name), but unless we are badly mistaken she has seon had enough. MAMIE ENGBRETSON Quincy, Wash. 5 A. C. TownleY’s Teacher “He Was a Good Scholar,” Says Educator, 2 Reviewing Early Days - +BY KATE L. GREGG Mrs. T. N. Robel of Rochester, Minn., likes to tell . of the days when A. C. Townley used to go to school to her. This happened years ago when Mrs. Robel was Miss Mary Telford, almost as young as the 16-year-old boy who was her oldest pupil. “In"after years when T used to meet him;” she says with a quaint little smile, “he always would ‘make out that he and I were schoolmates.”. “He was always a good boy in school, never giv- It was a- ing me the least: trouble m the “world. pleasure to teach him. He was'a wonderful student, studymg all the time; even then, ¥ can see now, lay- ing the foundation for the work’ that he was to do. Art never gallivanted around the country as the - \ ‘other boys used to'do; he was at home studying. “And in the farm seasons he was workmg hard‘ on the farm. “He got up early in the mornings and worked in the fields with the: team until it was nearly 9 o'clock; then a smaller brother took the horses home and’Arthur came on to school. In the evening it was the same, He went from the school= - house to the ‘field and worked all the time that he could. That was the kmd of hfe that he led——hard work, hard study. “I can remember that when ‘we studled the Civil’ broad-minded. It probably consists of - ““are long since : Mary Telford. But never, I venture, will he find' war he was even then thinking'along the lines of his development, puzzling his head over what would have happened: if the South had been commercial and the North had been entirely agricultural. “After he had finished ‘the regular school arith- metic, he worked through Robinson’s, the hardest.. one that we had in those days. And I remember that he got every problem but one.. That was @& problem in' exchange. He worked on'it for days, and I did 100, but it would never, never come out right. = And finally I said, “Art, I hate to say it, but I believe that answer in the book is wrong.” He looked at me in that queer way he has, you know, as if I were perhaps not much of a teacher, and went on: working. ' He was just that way. Anything that he started he wanted to finish. “And do you know, years afterward I came across a key to that old arithmetic and I found out that Arthur was right. The answer was. exactly as he figured it out. "And I have often thought that I would like to tell him that the problem as he solved it was corre(:t “Next tlme that you see him tell hlm Mrs. T. N. Robel of Rochester, Minn., when she was Miss Mary Telford, was A. €. Townley’s teacher.- She likes to tell of the: first big problem *“Art” solved. Itjwas in arithmetic. The problems-he is endeavoring to solve now are economic and indus- % trial, but she points out Townley still sticks with the same tenacity as when he " .solved the arithmetic problem. sl i that that answer was the rxght one and that the book was wrong. : e’ll remember and be'll be: glad “to know, . #One time 'when T was gomg ‘on the tram from Jamestown to Mandan I had a queer expenence. 1% got. to talking to a lady on the train about the Teagne and what it stands for and. all thafl. She « was against it but couldn’t give many reasons. When she ' couldn’t: argue against its program he - said that she ‘was against it on account of its Tead- . ers. ‘And then she started in and told me what an awful ‘man Townley was and how he had been bad from his very childhood. ‘Why she said, ‘he was a perfectly dreadful boy even in school and stole pen- ‘cils from the other cluldren and abused them some- - thing terrible.) / ¢ “And 1 sat up straight and gasped, ‘Why, where “f;\did you get =all of those perfectly ‘awful lies? I - was ]ns teacher and he was the best boy I ever saw.’ And then the-lady admitted that—well she didn’t really Imow. She had Just heard those stories.” SR e Mrs. Robel’s h it gettmg a bit gray—-the years A."C. Townley went to school . a warmer sympathizer and a stauneher adherem; ‘rthunmthxsoldteaeherofhls : febn ~ ;.mcn.men'r,,. Sl o \iy ve these wrong'ideas.’ ‘Mrs. H. A. P. Getsa Bundle 'Deluge of Letters Returning the Slap Are " Forwarded to :Phlladelphla ‘Woman pubhsh.mg' Mrs, H. A. P.’s half-baked economic ideas and criticism of the worth while even though you readers of this page have virtually buried us under an avalanche of answers to Mrs. H. A, P.— so many hundreds that we could not print’a hun- dredth ‘of them/ although we have made it' 2 point to read all of them, in order to mtelhgently select those best worthy. of ‘printing.” Not that we could " print even a fraction of the best ones; some we have published have been no better than, or ot as good, as others which came in later and' can not now be printed. But in lien of printing all the answers to Mrs. H. “A, P, we HAVE SENT HER THE ORIGINAL LETTERS you wrote! This was suggested by one of you and it was a good tip. It made a big bundle and it is our opinion that Mrs. H. A. P. won’t con- tinue to be among the IDLE rich, if she reads.them dll—it will ‘keep. her busy for Some time between times cutting coupons. On receiving the bundle she sent us'the following aclmowledgment. Sl D Editor: I didn’ stm?:d. up xm]r I got t(l’:‘ett b,:.n“nee uiéhil\'r‘: gsh e&m Idonenm of the letters you sent already, and that is ‘enough to demonstrate to me that your oeon!e IN . though’ mistaken, It is astoniching”'how such: erro; i i o T aC I et e s, € e " ‘and best clothed ‘of any i?:eo tll):ee :fi‘ld. !It ;fi%owsthoeg great_the menace of wrong thinking and agitation is, be- cause if so many women (and men too!) took the trouble to answer, a- letter appearing in:one: small publication, there must be millions of the same opinion'in the country at large. I see it is useless to try to reply further. I . know, you will ‘interpret that as admitting defeat, but T . concede nothing. My ‘big surpfiSe has been that apparent- - S0 many ' educated people, judzinz fmlll‘ks tbix‘r A.ml’ c Philadelphia, Pa. | We think Mrs. H. A. P. has mdeed admlwed de-~ feat.. She virtually admits she is in the hopeless minority, and in this country the. ma]onty rules, The ' edifor, in' closing the Mrs. H.| A. ‘P. incident, will take exception only to her statement that we are “one ‘small publication.” Because of the soli- darity and backing of you folks on the farms; the Leader considers itself A° BIG, STRONG PUBLI- CATION—at least the: Womans page parl: of the _ Leader has that opmion > WAKE UP, FARM WOMEN! Editor Nonpartxsan Leader: I'am a deeply in- terested pupil of the political situation of today, es- pecially in regard to women. I am also in favor of . ‘demoeracy. I am in favor of equal legal rxghts for women, as well as equal political rights. I am grieved indeed to hear that the ¢ensus man enumerates as unemployed “the farmer’s wife.” ‘Who then, pray tell me, is employed" ‘1 will admit, however, the :fizrme”s ‘wife received the pay of ‘the unemployed. I was asked while in Minot re- cently if I were a Nonpartisan, as I had a Nonparti- san pin on. 1 said, “Yes, but\you know I am a farmer’s wife and we want a square deal.” They ‘-said they were mot. T said, “This is the United States-of America, thank goodness, and everybody -*had a right to use his own judgment, but please “/read-both sides and make your choice, as I never could tolerate the idea of voting for a traitor.”. I en}lo said, “If the Nonpartisan league is no good d they are robbing the poor, deludéd farmer so bad, why don'’t a few of them kick? Why are the TN ‘A, so interested in the farmer Just now? Sim- “ply to: get his vote. If the League is no good, why fight it? If it is all right it can’t be killed: It will ~ grow, but if it-is not all’ right it will die a 'natural death; and J10 one man or group of men can keep it~ alive. » ‘With the ‘decision of the supreme court of _the. ‘United ‘States of America: at our back let us ‘show the other states what the farmers of North “Dakota can do besides “slopping their hogs.” = . .. Wake up, sisters of the farm. The alarm clock is ringing this day of all days in the year There is ~work of vital rmportance to do:: It is your sacred : _ duty as mothers, wives, sweethearts, to be on guard and help put this Nonpartisan league ticket through. ‘give us their views:and letu "Lstud ‘ and ‘be helpful to x}d i Des Lacs, N. D,r HE editor ‘believes ‘it was worth whxle X farmers’ movement. ‘We helieve it Will not more “of the farm sisters step forward and o