Denver labor bulletin., 1917-07-07
BY DANTE BARTON.

NEW 1Ohh, June Zo.-Ihe 1arm-
ers in the Northwest, organized in the
National Non-partisan League, are
adopting resolutions in mass meetings
thruout their states demanding that
the war be paid for by the taking over
of all forms and amounts of accumu-
lated wealth until the war is paid for.
Supporting the national policy of the
conscription of men to fight the war,
they declare that it is only democratic
and only tolerable to conscript for
war the munitions and food supplies
ice of national and world democracy.
A resolution addressed to President
Wilson is also being adopted urging
the immediate removal from the board
of the federal reserve bank of Min
neapolis of Chairman John H. Rich
and Governor Theodore Void, and
charging them with having falsely
declared that the farmers of the
Northwest were unpatriotic, with hav-
ing falsely declared that these farm
ers were opposing the sale of liberty
bonds, with having falsely declared
that the farmers were receiving the
highest price in history for their prod
ucts "when they well knew that the
spectators, taking advantage of the
present crisis, compelled the consum-
ers to pay them abnormal and unwar-
ranted profits" Chairman Rich and
Governor Wold are specifically charged
with using the reserve bank "to finance
the Minneapolis Chamber of Com
merce and other grain gamblers and
SPECTATORS" and with having slighted
"the Equity Cooperative Exchange,
the farmers elevators and other farm
ers' enterprises"
Farmers Are Aggressive.
r.rs-aarafaa nf ha
fight which these organized North
western farmers are making in the de-
clared interest Of workers and pro-
ducers and against the profit makers
Of the war are stated in published
speech which A. c. Townley Of st.
Paul, president of the National Non
partisan League. is making at these
| mass meetings of the farmers.
"Unless you do away with the gam
bier in food and the necessaries of
| life you will produce your wheat and
get 50 bushel for it and then you will
bond the nation and pay across the
water S5 or Sc a bushel for your own
wheat for your own boy" declares
President Townley.
THAT is the lineup now. 1t is
wrong. II is national suicide. 1t is
national suicide in times of peace; it
is multiplied national suicide in times
of war, and we are not so crazy as
| to believe we can succeed unless this
government shall do what every Eu-
ropean government already has done
take over, absolutely take over
TRANSPORTATION and distribution and
kick out the gamblers in clothing and
food and machinery and munitions and
armor plate and everything else that
! they are using now to make seven
times as much money as they made be-
fore the war-and God knows they
made plenty then.
Acme Of Patriotism.
Last Tuesday about ten million
young men went to the registration
booths and there pledged their lives
in the defense of their country's honor.
This is the acme of patriotism. No
blatant demagog approaches within a
million miles of the sacrifice these men
made last Tuesday when they went to
the registration booths. And it is
right that they should have done it.
Il want to say to you that the farm
ers of this nation are so patriotic that
even tho this government today be in
| the hands of absolute control of the
steel trust and the sugar trust and the
machine trust; even tho it is, we are
going to do our best by producing all
we can.
"You (those who profit from war;
must make this arrangement that
when we give our lives, all we have.
this nation will take first of your
profit and then of the property you
have got, if the profit is not enough.
and after the war is over we will give
back, as you give back of our lives,
as much as is left and no more"
Expressing their loyalty and will
lingness to support the government in
its every necessity" the farmers of
the League declare in their resolution
that they are opposed to waging war
for annexation, either on our part or
that of our allies, or demanding in
IDENTITIES as terms of peace" Giving
instances of the unparalleled profits
which private corporations in our
country have reaped as a direct result
of the war;" the resolutions conclude:
All Must Give Service.
patriotism demands service from
all according to their capacity. To
conscript men and exempt the blood
stained wealth coined from the suf-
ferings of humanity is repugnant to
the spirit of America and contrary to
the ideals of democracy.
1--WE declare freedom of speech to be
the bulwark of human liberty, and we