New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1919-06-11

the heckler into a buffoon. heard
Townley give his maiden League effort
in Dakota, and have watched him grow
till he delivered his midnight master
piece on the capitok steps in Boise
Idaho, defying an organized mob c!
politicians. In those years of public
speaking he had learned the art of sing
ling out the leader Of the opposition
and placing around his neck a monkey
collar. In Dakota it was Jerry Bacon
and Thomas Parker Junkin that Town
ley made immortal as the agents OF
''Big Business"
So in his Boise speech it was natural
that he should single out the mob leaders
for ridicule This time it was Jess
Hawley, a lawyer representative of the
famous Idaho Power Trust, that stirred
up the mob to prevent Townley from
speaking. After the mob had become
toothless by the farmers pounding up
the leaders, this agent of the power
company was compelled to listen. "a
Townley first fitted the monkey collar
on him by comparing him to a spoiled
child sitting on the dinner table. His
mouth was full of sugar, his face was
smeared with jam, his hands were full
of butter, and his feet were in the gravy.
'tDon't blame the child, but censure
the parents" Then he drove home the
truth that the farmers were to blame
that Jess Hawley was lawless, because
the farmers let him think he could
about run that State. organized,
the power is yours" Townley declared;
3'but disorganized, the lawless lawyers
can bully you around like a spoiled
babe"
He hates the average newspapers for
the garbling and distortion of his speech
es, and their Misrepresentation of the
League. At the various meetings he
flags the editors and their owners.
<"Gentlemen Of the kept press" he burst
out at big ten thousand people con-
vention at St. Paul, while I am talk
ing now you fifteen reporters are send
ing out fifteen different lies over your
wires. You cannot help it, 1t is your
living. But you are prostituting your
talents and you lie like hell" The
hooting the crowd gave the reporters
and the cheering for Townley was sad
commentary on the journalistic world
of today. -....-
When the federal court last fall
through Judge Amidon declared that
all the League funds were accounted
for and there was no graft, Townley
was asked what would be the line of
the next attack. He quickly answered,
From the inside. We have beaten
them on an open attack at every angle.
They have accused us Of being carpet
baggers, free lovers, atheists, and rabid
Socialists. After the war commenced
we were called pro-German, spies, and
even traitors, but they failed to shake
our forces. The enemy will now honey,
palaver, and seduce some of our leaders
in the different States"
Townley's intuition is gift. He has
an uncanny way of running ahead of
your thoughts in conversation and know
ing what you are going to say. And
many move to checkmate clever
enemies has been made because he can
often outguess the opposition. In
gathering men around him who are loyal
and who prefer the cause of political
prestige, and of whom not one close
adviser has sold out, he has seldom made
a mistake in his choice of lieutenants
Quick to see through the average self
seeker, he is also as quick to size up a
political situation when snap Judgment
is necessary for success.
Reduced to poverty by the unscru-
pulous wheat pirates of the grain ex-
change in 1910, his sole ambition is to
deal a death blow to their system of
food gambling. Realizing the need of
an industrial democracy, he inspires his
audiences to that same need. Born
OF British Isles parentage, he dearly
loves the fight to free the farmer from
the false markets. With only high
school training, he yet has defeated some
OF the brainiest old-gang strategists OF
the grain States. A man of the people
he speaks their tongue, says what they
wish, and demands what they ask for
better land, chance for all, no special
privilege, and no corporate greed which
breeds anarchy. A real America is
Townley's ideal. He wants the Non
partisan League to stand as buffer
between the perils Of America
trenched privilege on the one side
poverty and anarchy on the other. This
is his vow that he has made publicly
many time before his League audiences