The nonpartisan leader. [volume], November 29, 1917, Image 7

About The nonpartisan leader. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1915-1921

Image provided by: State Historical Society of North Dakota

                
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166IZ.
ITonleastbutterpartially
at least to return to farmers who had crop losses the amount of their
premiums.
This was an open, honest effort by the North Dakota officials to
get justice for the farmers. Immediately, however, the Twin City
banks brought suit against North Dakota banks to collect the certifi
cates. The Twin City banks did not intend to lose "theirs," no matter
what the fanners lost. This was bad enough, especially as the Twin
City suit was used by the anti-farmer press to circulate more misrepre
sentations about the North Dakota farmers' administration, which
Was trying to protect the policy holders.
But the worst part of the deal was the attempt of the North Da
kota Bankers' association to put the farmer officials in bad and to de
feat the plan to hold up the certificates till the farmers could get
justice. The Bankers' association attorney wrote a so-called legal
opinion on the matter. Was it an opinion to give aid and encourage
ment to the farmer officials of North Dakota, who were attempting to
get justice for the farmers IT WAS NOT. It was an opinion to givo
aid and comfort to the foreign insurance company and foreign banks
who were fighting the attorney general and state bank examiner in
their efforts to get justice for policy holders.
Let us admit, for argument's sake, that the opinion is sound. Even
If that is true, what occasion was there for heralding it broadcast in
the gang press, to discredit, for political reasons, the farmers' admin
istration, and hurt the chances of success of the attorney general's
and bank examiner's plan to protect policy holders? Let the Bankers'
association explain that.
MAKE AMERICA STRONG
OME people profess to believe that during the war all efforts to
improve the condition of the people of the United States should
cease. "All such efforts to improve conditions cause dissension
and interfere with the war, according to such reasoners.
For their benefit we print herewith an extract from the speech of
Monteville Flower of the government bureau of public information,
delivered at the loyalty meeting at St. Paul. None of the Twin City
papers printed this part of Mr. Flower's speech—in fact, they rather
pointedly overlooked it. Discussing why Germany thought it would
be safe to throw down the the gage of battle to England, Mr.
Flower said:
"Germany knew that the land system of England had completely
destroyed the old yeomanry which made England great. For when
this war began 90 per cent of the agricultural land of England was
cultivated by tenants and the tenant did not have that love of country
and power of patriotism that springs in the breast of the man foit
owns the soil where his children's feet have trod.
"Germany knew that industrial England in her cities and mines
had industrial conditions so terrible that the average laborer was weak
and poor, without the blaze and the power of patriotism, and that it
would take along time to get them to join an army and still longer to
train the forces that would make them a power in a conflict with the
German fatherland.''
It is conditions just such as this that the Leader hopes to see
^voided in the United States.
FOOD GAMBLING LIMITED
MUST be tough on the butter board and egg gamblers who hare
at .been "hog tied," as it were, by new regulations
the and egg exchanges. Formerly they could go onto
(the floor at the "call," hammer down the price of a certain grade of
butter by concerted bidding at absurdly low prices, scoop up the offer
ings, and store them away until values ripened to a point where they
Satisfied avarice.
It's different now. Of course the arrangement is voluntary, but
it takes some of the gambling tang out of selling butter and eggs. The
food administration has induced the various exchanges to adopt some
sane rules—rules so simple and good that to quote them will make
the grain gamblers look foolish when they revive their demands for
grain gambling at Minneapolis and Chicago. It ought to be a good
object lesson as to how grain can be put on the market without the
necessity of letting a howling horde of gamesters shout themselves
hoarse over several million bushels of grain that never existed.
On the butter boards nothing bat real butter can be offered. No
butter sold on "call" can be resold at the same session. Cruel, for it
THE
prevents the crazy fluctuation of several cents within a half hour,
when a man gets a corner on a certain grade. All butter sold on call
must be of the grade offered, and actual delivery be made and no on®
can "bid" a price on any grade not offered by someone else nor for
any greater amount than is offered—another valuable gambling oppor
tunity lost. No one can buy butter or eggs on the exchange except for
sale in his business, nor can he buy more than is reasonably needed to
supply his trade.
How simple and sensible it sounds! The whole business of' buying
and selling butter and eggs is made a more business-like transaction,
as it should be, and in a measure the products will be priced according
to supply and demand. Of course they will not respond fully to this
supposed "law," for they are held by monopolists who can hold it for
a price, but the added stimulus to fictitious prices is removed.
But is this also to be "for the war only"? Why should crooked
trading be permitted during peace times any more than war times?
THOSE LOYALTY MEETINGS
cheap politicians, the hired editors and the apologists and
lobbyists for Big Business in Minnesota will not get all the
satisfaction they planned to get out of the recent Minneapolis*
St. Paul loyalty conferences. These meetings were originally planned,
to use the words of the Duluth Tribune, a friend of the League's ene
mies, to open "a campaign to combat the traitorous and seditious in
fluences" of the Nonpartisan league. The contemptible insinuation
that the farmers and their League in Minnesota are seditious was an
invention of the politicians and Big Interests that fear the united
strength of the farmers in politics. The insult was intolerable and the
plan of the politicians has failed.
The Leader believes that it is entitled to some credit for heading
off the proposed insult to the country and to the flag. The use of the
words "loyalty" and "patriotism" to mask the political machinations
of the reptile press and politicians of Minnesota was the last straw,
and there can be no doubt that the publicity the Leader gave to the
original plans was one of the factors that changed the complexion of
the meetings, at least in their open manifestations. The other factor
was the apparent refusal of the United States government to stand for
the original bold and contemptible scheme. George Creel, chairman of
the United States committee on public information, who picked the
government's speakers for the loyalty meetings, chose progressive
men, much to the humiliation of the hired editors, who showed their
disapproval in thinly veiled criticism of Mr. Creel and in an ail-too*
apparent suppression of most of the important things the government's
representatives said.
It is true that the bunch of two-by-four politicians back of the
near-defunct fake "Minnesota Nonpartisan league" (organized to
fight the real League, the National Nonpartisan league) hovered
around making what capital they could out of the meetings. It is true
that the occasion of the meetings and the presence of many out-of-town
people in the city was seized upon by some of the politicians to start
political booms for a few discredited office holders or hope-to-be office
holders. It is also true that the part of the original plan to form a
permanent organization out of the loyalty convention delegates was
carried out—this permanent organization, from all indications, to be
used to fight the farmers in the coming election. At least, it will be
used for that purpose if the hired editors and the political lackeys of
•Big Business in Minnesota can by hook or crook—mostly by crook
carry out their plans.
But, on the whole, the enemies of the League will get little comfort
out of the loyalty meetings, which proved to be real loyalty meetings
in more than one respect. -The meetings were not "a final, crushing
blow" to the Nonpartisan league, as the Duluth Tribune reported it
was the intention to make them.
/Sei
©thing
1
TOWNLEY'S SPEECH TO LABOR
"^HE fact that the American Federation of Labor invited President
Townley of the Nonpartisan league to speak at its national con
vention at Buffalo, which was also addressed by President Wil
son, has been a bitter pill for the hired editors of the Northwest. Mr
Townley's warm welcome by the labor delegates shows the growing
sentiment for a closer co-operation of union labor and the organized
farmers in solving political and economic problems. That "gets the
goat" of interests that would keep the farmers and union labor apart*
PA3E SEVEN