Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1918-03-18

contemplate falsehoods encouraged
disrespect for honest and patriotic
men in public positions. These self
appointed leaders, with whom you are
associated have been and now are
endeavoring to get farmers to oppose
businessmen and employees to oppose
employers. They state, in your party
principles, that the great thing the
farmers need today to win is to stick
by your organization to cooperate with
wage workers organizations in the
! cities and together win control Of the
powers of the state government and
then the national government.
"You, who sign yourself as the exc
connected with the Peoples Peace
council, which through proclama-
ton of August %, 1917, was barred
from holding meetings in the state and
thereafter in Wisconsin and Illinois,
but which was invited to North Dakota
by its governor, who was elected
through the efforts of your league.
The cheering and the applauding Of
the unpatriotic utterances of Senator
La Toilette at your last convention put
a stamp of disloyalty on it that can
never be erased. Your present pub
licity agent lost the position he held
at that time because he supported La
Follette's unpatriotic ideas and after
his discharge by his employer, he was
employed by your Nonpartisan league.
Another of your leaders, Joseph Gil
bert, called director and manager,
1 believe, had been convicted by jury
because of his disloyal utterances.
He, together with Mr.. Manahan, attor-
ney for your organization, unpatrioti-
cally used strike situation here to
advance the political interests of the
league.
these two men have maliciously
slandered publics spirited members of
the Public Safety commission in an
effort to bring together the farmers
and wage-earners for the political pur
poses of your political party's self
constituted leaders, who are neither
real farmers nor real laborers, but
selfseeking demagogues whom the
actual farmers and the actual labOring
men of our state will sooner or later
find are nothing but pretended friends
wolves parading in sleeps clothing.
you, who appear to be the execu
tive secretary of this organization.
were the attorney who defended the
murderers in the !. w. w. trouble on
the range two years ago and who has
assisted the I. w. w. organization
which has publicly announced that it
is it's intention ultimately to take the
farms from the farmers, whose head
quarters since the commencement of
the war have been raided by the fed
eral government and whose members
are now taking refuge in such organi-
cations as the National Nonpartisan
league.
"How, under such circumstances,
the farmers OF Minnesota, who have
been threatened with the loss of their
farms, and have time and again been
compelled to appeal to peace officers
for protection against members of this
10 CT nj
now join league with promoters
whose sympathies have been with this
lawbreaking bolsheviki element in our
society, is we'll nigh incomprehensible.
The only explanation that can be given
is the fact that some of the leaders and
organizers of the Nonpartisan league
are evidently not yet known as we'll
to the farmers and laborers of our
state as they are to those who have
had more experience with them.
another reason for declining your
invitation, Is the possibility Of constru-
ing my presence at your partisan cam
paign rally, by some, as an indorse-
ment of your propaganda. 1t is, OF
course, the duty Of the governor to be
fair to all classes, and to oppose any
program which is apt to result in a
division of our state into classes.
Such arraying of class against class
would be welcomed by the enemies OF
our republic, for such course will
tend to defeat our nation in this war,
and will eventually mean the dissolu-
ton of our form of government and
the undermining of the economic and
political freedom Of our people. He
who, in normal times, needlessly ar
rays class against class, is most often
the ambitious demagogue, but any in
dividual who will do so when our ma
ton is in life and death struggle is
or unknowingly traitor
to his state and tc his country