The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1917-08-14

"A nov IA41O poASy o"AAoo AiASO iAS~
tional prominence with the election OIL
MIR. John M. Baer to congress from
the First district of North Dakota
and as the Boston Herald and Other
Journals see it, "only a rash political
prophet would venture to talk of its
future" Mr.. Baer takes the seat In
the house of representatives made va
cant by the death of Henry G. Hedge
sen, republican, the press inform U.S.
and some editorial observers are par
ticularly disquieted that he ran on a
platform which contained the slogan
.This is no time to make an issue of
Americanism" 1t is recalled that he
was elected by the Farmers Nonparti.
san league of North Dakota, whose
first great victory was won in the
election last year, when, as was relat-
ed in The Literary Digest for January
20, it captured every elective state
Office except one and elected three
justices of the supreme court, who in
dorsed the program of state owned
utilities. With such difference. as
Is or 80 years may cause in political
thinking, remarks the Springfield Re-
publican, the Farmers Nonpartisan
league Is the heir of the old Farm
ers' Alliance that was the fOrerunner
of the Populist party" and this jour-
nal adds:
Gwen the Farmers Alliance of Sen
ator PETER and Congressman Jerry
Simpson had soCialistic projects on
its program, as one may see by read
ing the Ocala platform, celebrated in
its day as an agrarian pronunciamen-
to. Conditions transformed the Farm
ers' Alliance and the Populist party
into free silver propaganda, and the
defeat of the free silver movement
under Bryan killed populism in the
West. Evidently this new agrarian
movement in the Northwest, which
now has governor and congress-
man to its credit, starts in where pop
ulism minus free silver left off. In
view of the hostility of many of the
members of the new league to the
war in which the United States is
now engaged, the speakers of the Ma
tional Security league should be sent
in force to the DakOtas at the earli-
est opportunity"
The Boston Transcript is grieved
that North Dakota should become
*'the storm center for a sorry cOmbi-
nation OF old time grangerism, social
ism, |. w. W-ism, and form of pa
cifism with a distinctly German ba-
sis" 1t is not wholly surprised, for
it says the farmers of that state, who
are majority of the population,
have certainly suffered from that "pe-
Culiar organization of trade which
gives the farmer very small price
for his produce, while managing to
collect very large price from the
consumer, Failing to get redress
for their grievances from either the
republican or democratic party, they
organized themselves, and while no
one would blame them for trying to
run their own political affairs, their
singular accessibility to perilous So
cial and International ideas, entirely
outside of their economic grievance,
seems to indicate that they want to do
q good deal more than that" and this
journal adds:
For one thing, they have, as we
have seen, sternly condemned Am
ericanism.' And they seem to have
some basis for this in their blood.
North Dakota, by the last national
census, that of 1910, had a larger
percentage of foreign born population
than any other state. The two ele-
mGnts of foreign born, chiefly Swedes,
and of native whites with foreign
born Parents, were four-fifths of the
whole population of the state 1t is
we'll known that most of the Swedes
OF the Northwest, in those districts
where they constitute the majority
and have been but imperfectly Ameri-
canized. are in sympathy with the
Germans in this war This poison
has evidently entered into the veins
of the Farmers Nonpartisan league.
We must therefore regard the newly
elected congressman from the First
must earnestly hope that the influ-
ence of the struggles and sacrifices of
the war, in which North Dakota can
not help but take part, will have an
inspiring and Matchmaking effect,
and will tend to convince the non.
partisan opponents of the war, that
there is something in Americanism,
after all. The North Dakotans are