The nonpartisan leader. [volume], May 31, 1920, Image 8

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

Image provided by: State Historical Society of North Dakota

                
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Waiting for the JLeague
Montana Woman Hopes for State Sugar
Factory
DITOR Nonpartisan Leader: I am
interested in the success of the Farm
Woman's page and I wish to help it
along all I can. I am hoping the
League will win this state this fall,
as I wish to experience its benefits
myself. The present regime has failed to make
living any easier. Prices of foodstuffs and clothing
keep rising, while many farm products have de
creased in price. So I, for one, say give the
League a trial at any rate and see if it can't do
better.
I hope one of the first things the League ac
complishes in this state when it gets in power will
be to establish a state sugar factory. It would
surely lower the cost of sugar and probably pay
the farmers a better price for sugar beets too.
Can someone else give any information along
this line?
In answer to the editor's question in a recent
Leader, I would state that we favor the guarantee
of the price for wheat now, although we could have
gotten along without it during the war.
In a "Montana Loyalist" I noticed a statement
that there always have been poor people and rich
and there always will be. Is that true There
always have been, I will admit, but can we be sure
that there always will be? The world is supposed
to be progressing toward bigger and better things.
Surely, some day, it will get big enough to elim
inate the too-rich and the too-poor. At least, give
us the right to hope for it.
Teigen, Mont. MRS. W. F. ARCHER.
Answers "F. G. B.
9 9
Editor Nonpartisan Leader: While I am no writ
er, yet I can't help but try in my most humble way
to answer "F. G. B.," who wrote in a recent Leader,
"If I Were My Wife." Alas—if I were my husband!
Isn't it a shame that we farmers' wives
have not enough to do without talking the
hammer and saw in hand and be cabinet
builders and carpenters or declare war with
the head of the family to have what con
veniences or comforts we need? I have
lived on a farm for eight years now and
all this time have had to coax for water in
the house. F. G. B. would recommend, no
doubt, for me to take a shovel and dig a
well, install my water plant and call hubby
to see what I had done with my own hands!
Now, my dear, just you get up and fix
that screen door, put that water in the
house and quit grumbling about the cost of
living. Put in those lights and if I am at
all able to prophesy you will be repaid 100
times with what money can not buy, a
woman's love. Or, if you may be one of
those who have already done these things
for that little woman—take that big brother of
yours and see that he does likewise.
Loveland, Col. J. E. W.
COLONEL PATTERSON'S CONFESSION
Editor Nonpartisan Leader: Would it not be a
good plan for all Nonpartisan, labor and real farm
papers to carry, in every issue, in a prominent first
page place, your quotation in the Leader of No
vember 3, 1919, page 6, from a book, "Confessions
of a Drone," written by one of the owners of the
Chicago Tribune, Colonel Joseph Medill Patterson,
in 1905? In that book Colonel Patterson says: "Be
it remembered that whenever the first person pro
noun is used it is used to represent the type and not
the individual. I have an income of between $10,000
and $20,000 per year. I spend all of it, I produce noth
ing, am doing no work," and the rest of it. It
would seem that if the whole quotation were kept
continually before the eyes of the "worker bees,"
who must gather the 'iioney," it would help to
keep them from going to sleep or "day dreaming"
again—it is so clear and simple. It ought also to
be printed in dodger fJhn and sent to those 1,280,
000 members of the farm bureau, who adopted a
resolution denouncing the attempt to ally the agri
culturists of America with "the radicals of the
Mrs. Peter E. Pierson,
Vice President
THE FARM WOMAN'S PAGE OF NEWS AND OPINION
industrial world." It might wake up some of them.
Richland, Mont. "PEGGY."
Colonel Patterson said, in addition to what
"Peggy" quotes:
"It takes to support me just about 20 times as
much as it takes to support an average Working
man or farmer. And the funny thing about it is
that these workingmen and farmers work hard
all the year around, while I don't work at all.
"The work of the working people and nothing
else produces wealth, which by some hocus-pocus
arrangement is transferred to me, leaving them
bare. While they support me in splendid style,
what do I do for them? Let the candid upholder
of the present order answer, for I am not aware
of doing anything for them.
"The reason the whole capitalistic class doesn't
give away money and go to work is because it
doesn't want to. And as long as the
working jclass is satisfied the present
arrangement will continue.
"But whenever the working class wants to dis
continue the present arangement it can do so. It
h^s the great majority."
A Live Women's Club
Grass Lake Leaguers Will Get Help From
Wives on Election Day
Here are the officers of Grass Lake Women's
Nonpartisan club No. 8, one of the live local wom
en's clubs in the state of Minnesota. All live at
or near Braham, Isanti county. This club was or
ganized on March 15, 1920, with 15 members. It
now has a roll of 28 members and they meet twice,
a month and find each meeting more interesting,
and instructive.
Writing of the work of the club, Mrs. Engberg
says:
"We have taken up our first course of study, the
Outlines of Civil Government for Minnesota. We
find it very interesting as well as necessary,
as
Mrs. J. A. Mansmitfa,
President
most of us farmers' wives never had a chance to
study things of that kind.
"We urge women of every community to get
busy and start a women's club and then we are
sure they will not forget to be at the polls on elec
tion day, and thus help the men to elect officials
who will be fair to all the common people."
FLORISTS PROFITEER
Taking advantage of the custom prescribing the
wearing of carnations Sunday, May 9, in observ
ance of "Mothers' Day," florists throughout the
Northwest marked up their prices on carnations
100 per cent a few days in advance of that date.
In the Twin Cities carnations which had been $1.50
per dozen were marked up to $3, and similar ad
vances were made elsewhere.
RENVILLE COUNTY LEADS STATE
Renville county, Minn., is the first county in the
state to establish county organization of Women's
Nonpartisan clubs. Five active clubs have been
established in the county, .largely through the activ
ity of Mrs. Pearl Baker, wife of a Renville lawyer
and a firm believer in the League program. A
county federation is now being organized.
Mrs. Amanda Ensrberg,
Secretary-treasurer
Women Must Unite
Doctor Shipstead's Address to Women (Jjpr
Workers of Minneapolis
OCTOR HENRIK SHIPSTEAD, in
dorsed by the Nonpartisan league and
organized labor for governor of Min
nesota, recently addressed an organi
zation meeting of the women car
workers' union in Minneapolis. It was
attended by about 3(7 women, nearly all of them
more than 50 years of age, employed in cleaning
passenger "and Pullman cars. They found it nec
essary to organize and present their demands col
lectively to get a living wage.
Addressing them, Doctor Shipstead said:
"I hope some day we will get enougfi democracy
in this country so that women, 50 years and over,
who have already given their service to society in
bearing children and rearing families, will not have
to Jabor in their old age scrubbing railroad cars,
and then, after working through a long day, have
to meet at night to demand a living wage. Women
like yoh should be able to sit around your family
hearths in peace., You have already done as much
work as should be demanded of you.
"I hope that day of real democracy will come,
and I hope it will come soon. But it can be brought
about only through political action. The people
of Minnesota and of the nation have in the power
of the ballot the strongest power in America today.
Use it, and like the Vikings of old you will not
have to ask aid of a friend or beg mercy of an
enemy."
Minimum Wages in N. D.
The workmen's compensation bureau of North
Dakota, after a series of hearings in which employ
ers, employes and the general public were given
equal representation, and after investigating care
fully the cost of living for a working girl or woman
in each industry, has fixed the following minimum
wage scales for women workers in that state:
Waitresses—$17.50 per week with board
furnished by employer, $10.50 per week
with board and lodging furnished by em
ployer, $8 per week.
Chambermaids and kitchen workers—
$16.70 per week with board, $9.70 per week.
with board and lodging $7.20 per week. In
these classes two apprenticeship periods
are established. During the first two months
beginners must, be paid at least $14 per
week and during the next two months at
least $16 per week, after which the speci
fied minimum wage for an experienced
worker is effective.
Office workers—$20 per week for experi—
enced worker. For the first three months
of apprenticeship the minimum wage Is to be
$14, for next three months $16, for the third
three months, $18, at the end of which time
the $20 minimum applies.
Laundry workers—$16.50 per week for experi
enced workers ($16 if employe's laundry work is
done by employer). During the first four months
an apprentice is to be paid $12, during the next
four- months $14, at the end of which time the
$16.50 minimum applies.
In considering each class of employes separately
the compensation commission took into considera
tion the fact that office workers and other em
ployes in constant touch with the public are re
quired by their employers to spend more money for
dress than employes not in touch with the public.
MRS. TOWNLEY JOINS CLUBS
Mrs. F. Townley of Parkers Prairie, Minn., is
one of the lateest members of the Women's Non
partisan clubs. Mrs. Townley is the mother of A.
C. Townley, president of the Nonpartisan league,
and is just as keenly interested as her son in the
emancipation of the farmers.
MEMORIAL FOR GIRL HEROINE
The Courier-News of Fargo, N. D., is collecting
a fund to build a memorial for Hazel Miner, the
heroic North Dakota girl who lost her life in a
recent blizzard while saving the lives of her com
panions.
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