The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1917-03-22
WHY DO THEY OPPOSE IT?

WHY DO THEY OPPOSE 1T?
BY no means all the business men of North Dakota are oppos.
ing the Nonpartisan League. But it is a fact that practically all
the opposition does come from those who are making their living
off the farmers, and not off the farms.
Reduced to it's last analysis, it is difficult to understand this
opposition.
With only few exceptions, this opposition is not actuated by
sordid motives, but is grounded on the conviction that the League
program is inimical to the business man.
But, is it?
The belief that the farmers are suckers" because they have
paid a Sc membership fee to this organization should hardly be
sufficient for a statewide campaign for the purpose of destroying
the league. .~ ,... ="
1t would be difficult to find a dozen farmers in the entire state
who do not feel that they have long ago had their monevs worth.
while it would be equally difficult to find a business man who has
not been genuinely "stung" during the last two years by some
fake proposition or other, representing a far bigger outlay of
cash.
Is it then because the members of the Nonpartisan League and
their friends, representing about eighty per cent of the voters
and taxpayers of the state, would plunge North Dakota into fin
ancial ruin and bankruptcy?
Perhaps that is the real reason that actuates most of those
who are opposing the farmers program. But how untenable is
not that position? The farmers as a class are far more conser-
VatlVe than the business man. They are by no means anxious
to burden the state with taxes, most of which they would them
selves have to pay. They are not politicians, as a rule, and gener-
ally delegate this activity to the man in town. They have all their
interests in the state and would be hit the hardest by a financial
disaster
Why, then, are the farmers so insistent on carrying out the
program of the League?
Because they have been devoting a good deal of study during
the last two years of the economic conditions Of the state. They
have found that while they devoted all their attentions to pro-
duction' they have left the marketing question entirely to the fell
lows who have been making most of the money on North Dakota
farming, by merely exploiting the producer.
They are commencing to see that it will avail them little to
raise big crops as long as they have no voice in the marketing of
these crops, but must stand as mendicants, accepting gratefully
what is offered.
That is really what the North Dakota farmers are trying to
remedy.
And that is what the North Dakota business man, who is op-
posing the league, is trying to prevent.
While the farmer has given the problem profound study, the.
business man has, in many instances, satisfied himself by digest
ing abuse heaped upon the league through a subsidized press or by
politicians who, under the new order of things, find themselves
out of a job.
The fact that the Bethlehem Steel Company has put in a bid
for castings for the navy at $%42,000,O00 which naval officers say
could be manufactured at the national gun factory, if it had the
plant, for $18,O00O00, is probably a mere inadvertence Mr..
Schwab has assured us over and over again that for
patriotic purposes he is willing to do business at cost, and what
is a little difference of $%24,ooo,ooo between friends and fellow
patriots ?-Fargo S%earchHght.