The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1919-07-24
CLASS R~EcIPROCITY

Great complaint has been vented against the Non
partisan League because, il is alleged, the principles Of
the organization teach the farmers class prejudice, and
stir up the farmer against the business man.
~ As usual, such charges are not based upon facts, and,
as usual, the fault, if any, lies more at the doorsof the
business interests in the towns than at the door Of the
farmer.
Take the establishment Of farmer-owned newspapers.
The farmers Of each county have organized q stock
company for the purchase and operation of one news
paper-and in rare instances two-in one county. Al
other newspapers are at the command Of the business
interests. There is an average Of seven newspapers to
each county in the state. Does it denote class prejudice
when the farmers ask to own and print one newspaper
and leave the other six to the control Of the business
interests?
Yet the farmers, upon whom the towns and the bust
ness interests depend for their existence, when they
have established a newspaper usually find that their
publication is Stunned and boycotted by the business
interests. If it is given any support, it is because the
newspaper has such a circulation and is so strongly sup
ported by the farmers that the business man can not
stay out of it without losing business. The paper is
denounced as being controlled by the league and
every excuse is offered for preventing it's growth.
Yet, let a business man go out into the country and
start farming and he will find that his ~neighbors on
the farms about him have no class prejudice agaist him.
They will help him with advice and valuable counsel;
they will lend him machinery needed and help him with
his stock, regardless of whether he thinks Townley a
,CIVOA VI q 8ACdI T.aG|p 4 &IE&M-W#@#@= -
The farmer is not yet class conscious. His mind is
not narrowed. The money he dug from the rich land
has gone to build the town that is nearest him. He
knows that and when he puts his money into establish
ing a newspaper in that town-he imagines he is help
ing the town, because he is adding another business to
it and because he is building another connecting link
between the town and the farm. Yet the reception his
effort meets would tend to make him think that he
was the towns worst enemy and that the paper he
had established, was put there to insult and outrage the
feelings of the business men. = as ~
He is simple enough and American enough TO think
that there is such a thing in the world as reciprocity
that if he has patronized the business interests Of his
town for years, surely the latter will return the COM
pliment and patronize him. Instead he finds, to his as
constituent, a class prejudice in the town against him,
and that the reciprocity he looked for was only on idle
dream. ~rfS4Y{ 49,
= Instead Of reciprocity he finds reputation. Then he
starts to think, and if his thoughts are dark and bit
ter, and he feels that he is being initiated against be-
cause he is a farmer and becauseof his political beliefs
The injustice of the thing stirs him, and from then on
there grows in him that something which no, League
principles ever taught, but which the business interests
have made him know-class prejudice. .#a.. !" 4: