The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1919-12-24
LANCER CONDEMNS TERRORIST TACTICS
PRACTICED BY TOWNLEY GANGSTERS IN
RECENT SPECIAL LEGISLATIVE SESSION

Officials - Predicts Downfall
of Red Radicalism When the
People Are Given Opportunity
to Speak at Polls
Valley City, N. D., Dec. 24-Address-
ing an audience so large that it was
necessary to clear out e. j. Pegg's gar
age to afford an auditorium with suf-
fcient space to accommodate every
one, Attorney General William Lam
ger last night condemned as terror
ism" the action Of the league majority
enacting Senate Bill No. 20, making it
felony for any state official to un-
justly criticise the leagues industrial
program, and he declared that all the
laws of this kind which legislature
dominated by Townley might choose
to pass would not serve to prevent him
and other state officials from telling
the truth.
The attorney general referred to an
editorial which appeared in the Bis
marck league newspaper during the
last regular session, in which it was
promised that TRAITORS" who did not
vote with the majority on all league
questions would be bounded from the
state, and he declared "the bill which
they passed at the special session to
terrify state officials is only another
step in their campaign of terrorism.
They thought that the people of North
Dakota had elected some state officials
whom they could force to kneel at the
footstool of the czar. They will find
! how badly mistaken they are"
DECLARES LEAGUERS COWARDS
The attorney general branded as
towards Senator Noltimier and Repre-
sentative Olson league members from
Barnes county, whom he had invited
to attend the meeting, accompanied by
stenOgraphers to take down his every
word in order that they might have a
basis for the prosecution of the speak
er under the provisions of Senate Bill
No. 20.
'They were afraid to impeach me !;
afraid to give me hearing: afraid to
have the truth brought out before the
people of this state" said the attor-
ney general. "These men, writhing
, under the lash Of A. G. Townley and
his political tools; these men, afraid
to call their souls their own; these
men, not representing you or their
constituents, but representing the au-
tocratic will of their master, passed
resolution after resolution at Bismarck
resolutions which if they did mot
know were false, few moments in
vestigation would have convinced them
of their absolut, farsity.
'I asked Senator Noltimier to be
here tonight, and I say to him now
that if there is one word of truth in
those allegations you made when you
asked me to resign, I ask you to step
up here on this platform and present
your proof to the people of this state.
ask you to show that I sold out to
the Standard Oil Co.; I ask you to
show that the Minneapolis chamber of
commerce has any connection, directly
or indirectly, with the office of the at
one single case where the state of
North Dakota has not been ably and
energetically represented; I ask you
to show one place where I have be-
trayed the farmers of North Dakota,
and, Senator Noltimier, you know that
you can't do it."
DEMANDS EXPLANATION
LANCER demanded that Noltimier eX-
plain his vote on - GC'inton news
paper bill and upon other Aou. ue
measures, and especially to tell his
constituents why he voted to deprive
Miss Minnie J. Nelson, woman from
his own county, of her powers as state
superintendent of public instruction.
God save u.s. cried the attorney gen.
eral, "from a condition which enables
a bunch of political pirates to debase
the womanhOod of North Dakota as
typifed by Miss Nelson. The state
of North Dakota is in a bad way, in
deed, and I say that Townley and his
socialistic outfit can pass law after
law, they can pass resolution after
resolution; their newspapers can villi-
fy and threaten and lie until Dooms-
day, but they can't cruelty the spirit
of North Dakota. And next June, my
friends, we are going out on election
day and we are going to redeem the
state of North Dakota. We are going
to fight in such way as the man
hood and womanhood of North Dakota
never fought before. There are enough
of us inside the league to purge the
league of its leadership and to give
North Dakota that kind of farmers
government to which it is entitled"
The attorney general declared that
had Miss Nelson been permitted by
the Townleyites to retain the duties of
the office to which the people of North
Dakota elected her there would have
been no books dealing with free love
openly displayed in the travelling Ii
brary boxes of the state library COM
mission. Towner county, he declared,
had pointed the way, and the league
press of that county admitted that one
of the principal factors in the recent
Nonpartisan defeat there was the
\ treatment which Miss Nelson had re-
ceived from Governor Frazier, Chair
man Totten of the board of administra-
ton and Neil G. Macdonald, the for
mer state superintendent of public in
struction whom Miss Nelson so thor
'oughly trounced in the general election
Hast year.