The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1918-06-13

SAAS H~H> AAA00
with the government in the
cause Of America for the
period Of the war
THE MEN WHO MET AT MINOT.
Courier News: One of the stock tricks of
latter-day politicians as it must have been with
the earliest of the whole tribe of tricksters, is
to invoke the names of the great and good who
are gone to bolster up their spurious claims to
public favor.
No matter to these knights of deceit that the
man whose name is employed would scorn and
spurn them, nor that they themselves would
be his most violent traducers, were he still liv-
ing: The fact that he is dead provides them
forth his name and wear his words, which thus
worn become piteous rags, Invested of the
strength and splendOr of their original intent.
Abraham Lincoln, of all the great men gone
from this nation, is most prosecuted in men,
DRY by the profane and perfidious gentry known
as politicians. Lincoln, who living loved the
common people, being dead has been boldly
taken over by those whose purpose is the COM
mon peoples exploitation. Once more the wolf
has taken unto himself sleeps clothing, and.
walks abroad seeking whom he may devour.
North Dakota furnishes a recent illustration
of this lamentable circumstance in that there
met at Minot May l a group of men whose bust
ness it was to devise ways and means of chok-
ing the growth of democracy in North Dakota
of compromising some opiate of words, called a
platform. which would send government Of the
people, by the people and for the people into a
permanent trance. It was the further business
Of this meeting to select candidates who would
be certain to employ a stretcher to carry out
the wishes of the voters.
And this group of men who met at Minot
called themselves the Lincoln Republican league.
What happened to it? It is no more. So
The men who met at Minot, calling them
selves the Lincoln Republican league. alias
Good Government league, alias Independent
Voters league, alias Old Gang, are now the In
dependent Voters association.
And wherefore this dual abandonment at one
and the same time of the author of the enamel
patton proclamation and the grand old party?
Because the Old Gang-never mind the Coo
Goo alias or any of the other aliases-the Old
Gang was thru with both Lincoln and the Re-
publican party. Both had survived their poll
tical usefulness.
The reason for the Old Gangs abrupt good
bye to a name that served it for a season, altho
not we'll, is that the Old Gang in North Dakota
is about to do a most remarkable political trans
formation stunt. .
Weary unto death of it's vicissitudes as an
Old Gang worm, even as an humble humping
caterpillar, it has woven about itself a clever
cocoon, which it desires to call the Independ-
ent Voters association.
In this drowsy envelope, dreaming of the dear
dead days when it was anything but a worm
downtrodden. the Old Gang waits-for what?
Why, for the agony of the primaries to pass,
for the coming of June 26, when it shall emerge
from the chrysalis, no longer an Old Gang
worm, whose every wiggle is a pain, no longer
concerned with what becomes of the Republi-
can party in North Dakota nor elsewhere, not
any more compelled to admire Abraham Lincoln
with every breath, but a bright new Democratic
moth, with a voracious appetite for political
cabbage, and no qualms of conscience at all as
to the color of votes.
Yes, the Lincoln Republican league has en-
tered into the long, long sleep. The profaners
have no furthr use either for Father Abraham
or the G. O. P.
They are waiting, only waiting, until after
the votes are counted which will tell them that
John Steen is not the Republican nominee for
governor by several times 'steen thousand.
Then the men who met at Minot will vent
certain wild, shrill patriotic shrieks, and leap
nimbly aboard a shiny donkey drawn band-wa-
gon, which will probably be driven by S. J.
Doyle as Democratic nominee for gubernator-
!, ial honOrs. It's canopy shall be of flags, and it's
spokes shall be wound with bunting of red,
white and blue.
And the strange bewildered moth called the
along until the frosts Of early November end
its feeble lease of life.
It will be noted that the Minot platform is
Z, profoundly silent as to those famous Townley
- elm clubs" Was this an unfortunate over
sight, or is the Hanna-Bacon aggregation of
political misfts attempting to sidestep one of
the burning questions Of the hour and, accord
ing 70 the Minot Messenger, one Of the princi-
pal Issues Of the campaign
TUn ~ 49, r7~--~&