The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1918-02-01
That Is the Charge Made
Against Non-Partisans
POWER GIVEN GOVERNOR
Discovery Made In North Dakota
BY Bismarck Tribune; What
Bill Contains
From Thursday Daily.

kato home guard is plotted in Nom
partisan league bill now drawn up
and which, according to a Non parti-
san league member of the admins
tration, will be introduced early in
the special session, says The Bismarck
Tribune.
This bill gives the governor absO-
lutte power to create and disband home
guard units and provides that such
companies shall be at all times at the
disposal of the governor, to be used
by him in manning trains when neces-
sary, in mining coal, in seeding or
harvesting, and that the compensa-
ton for such services shall be 81 per
day, to be paid by the railway or min
ing company or the farmer who
profits from the labor of the home
guardsmen.
Under the provisions of this bill,
the governor would have authority to
call upon the home guard for the
protection of peace council meetings,
Kate Richard O'Hare lectures, /. w.
w. gatherings or any thing else of
this nature which might meet the ap-
prevail of the governor or of Com
rades Townley, Bowen, Thomson,
LeSueur, ct al.
They Think it Great Joke.
The bill is regarded by Non-parti-
san league chieftains as great joke
at the expense of the home guard
companies, of which BIT have been
organized in this state. The plan of
the league leaders is said to be to
make the service so diStaSteful to
these units that they will voluntarily
disband Then, with the farmers left
absolutely at the mercy of the l. W.
w. and with Governor Fraziers' proc
lamation forbidding peace officers to
arrest and search suspicious char
acters or to break up their congre-
cations the situation will be such that
the league believes it can coerce the
farmers into accepting the contract
with the Agriculture Workers union
which was so unanimously objected
last year.
Townley is now making a great
play for the organized labor vote. If
he could compel the farmers of North
Dakota to contract with the Agricul-
tural Workers auxiliary to the l. W.
w. to use nothing but union farm la
Dor, binding themselves to accept
union rates of pay and rules govern
ing such labor Townley could go be-
fore organized labor elsewhere. he is
said to believe, and point to this as
great victory for organized labor,
brought about by the National Non
partisan league.
MIGHT Block Terrorism.
cuffioio RI oOponoJ tho
farmer to accept the obnoxious In
dustrial Workers of the World as
business partners would be impossi-
BILE with we'll organized and armed
home guard units existing as they
now do in 317 North Dakota towns.
The plan, therefore, is to break up
and discredit these organizations. and
this the league believes it can do by
passing a bill requiring them to labor
as the governor may direct for a
compensation of 81 a day.
1t has been a part of the policy of
home guard companies, especially in
the smaller towns, to aid the farmer
in harvest emergencies without ask
ing anything for their labor, and the
guardsman had anticipated a much
greater demand than ever before
for such assistance next fall. The
league bill, however, would require
professional men and business men
and bankers and farmers and labor
ing men who form the personnel of
these home guard companies to give
up their business or occupation on
any whim of the governor and to
serve for one dollar day wherever
the governor might choose to send
them on any pretext and to remain
there as long as the governor or Chief
Townley might ask.
There is no probability that such
measure will pass the senate, but it
will serve to show approximately TO-
600 North Dakota guardsmen where
they and their patriotism stand with
comrade Townley.