The Raymer enterprise., 1919-01-30

devoting them honestly to the achiey,
ment OF the objects Of his party.
THE record is full, and has been
honestly kept, and ii shows an hon.
est purpose to give an account OF an
honest stewardship.
The sTownley bankruptcy case has
been used by enemies of the farmers
in an effort to injure the League
The facts of the ease are these:
Five years ago. long before the
League was even thought of, A. c.
Townley and his brother, c. S. Town
ley were flax farmers at Beach, N.
D. They determined to try the scien-
tiiic farming that was urged then as
a sure means by which any farmer
could become wealthy. They deter
mined to raise flax on large scale,
using all known labor-saving ma
chinery. They contracted for land
and bought tractors on time. The
owners of the land and the tractor
agencies backe dthem, taking the
same chance that the Townleys did
of failure.
For two years the Townleys got
good crops and sold their fax at a
profit. They bought more land and
more tractors. The Townleys were
pointed out by banks railroads. ma
chinery dealers~and other interests as
examples OF what could be done by
scientific farming and A. c. Town
ley was called the flax king"
Frost and Market Gambling
Then the brothers met the same
adverse conditions that, sooner or la
ter, meet every farmer. First came
the earliest snowstorm known in that
section OF North Dakota. At the
same time grain gamblers were busy
beating down the price of fax. The
price had been above Sc, it was
beaten down so that when the time
came to market the Townley crop the
price was less than 81, A. c. Town
ley was sure that, In spite of the ad-
verse conditions. the price was bound
to go up. He went to his creditors,
3sking additional time to hold his
flax, an doffering to settle all claims
at 100 cents on the dollar. They
denied him this time. Nothing was
left to him but to give up all the
property that he had won through
years OF hard work. He left Beach
with only the. clothes on his hack,
whit his property In the hands OF his
creditors, to seek Job by which he
could make enough money to support
himself.
Mr.. Townley did not have sufii-
cient money at this time to go thru
bankruptcy. After he left Beach.
the price of fax went up, eventual
ly. reaching the 81 mark. II he had
been allowed sufficient time he would
have been able to meet every claim
OF his creditors.
Nothin -gwas heard of the claims
against the Townleys until a couple
OF years ago, by which time the Non
partisan league had become a pow
er. Then attempts were made to
take League property and attach Lea
que funds on the claim that they
belonged to Mr.. Townley Stories were
set in circulation to the effect that
Mr.. Townley and his wife had many
thousands Of dollars hidden, money
that had been obtained from the far
mers.
Mr.. Townley decided to stop the
persecution of the League and 10 de-
mand a showdown. He instituted
schedule OF his own assets and in
vited creditors to present their
claims.
An oil company, which had claim
for 5000 retained Francis Murphy OF
Mnot. noted as one of the bitterest
League haters in North Dakota, as
It's attorney. and started a legal fight
that has lasted for more than year
and has cost thousands of dollars
What were the real interests behind
this fight was never disclosed In
court
Murphy demanded 10 see all the
books Of the Nopartisan league and
the Nonpartisan Publishing company
claiming that II would be shown that
Townley had received and hidden
vast sums o fmoney. Although 1t be-
came apparent that the investigation
was a political one. and that the
fact was so stated by Judge Amidon.
the books were thrown open to the
court. They We're examined thor
oughly by expert accountants while
detectives were trailing the Town
leys and others. 1he net result is
a finding. in the words of Judge AM
idon. that "the record is full and has
been honestly kept and II shows an
honest purpose to give an account