The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1919-07-10
OUT OF BONDAGE

For forty years the Jewish nation travelled in the
desert between Egypt and the Holy Landv before
Joshua lead their timid feet across the Jordan. There
wore some slight agitation and a considerable propa-
gmda, covering a number of years, before the nation
wzs fit to move out from under the industrial slavery of
the Pharaohs. Yet who shall say that the forty years
Of desert life were not needed to harder and make in
dependent a race that had been held in slavery? Who
shall say that the poison of serpents that killed their
hundreds, that the overdose of quails that billed hum
dreds more, that the monotonous diet of mamma and
the lack of water now and then and the hungering for
the ~fesh-pots of Egypt and all the hardshlps and prl-
vations of those forty years, were not the foundation
stones upon which were afterwards to be built a great
and rich nation, which was more free and more demo-
cratic than anything that age had seen?
North Dakotans who have bound themselves into an
organization to travel up out of the industrial bondage
to the kings of commerce of Minnesota and the Rhar-
oahs of the east may find themselves repining at the
manner in which they are made to suffer, in their strug-
gle. They may complain of the poison that the SER
penis of Big Business have used in the campaign just
closed; of the overdose of evil meat that the agents
Of Big Business spread before the people to sicken
them; Of the monotony Of the unending fight against
an enemy that knows neither truth, honor nor decency;
of the lack of all that is just and fair and right in the
battle that the enemy has waged against them. Yet,
in. spite of all this and more, those who have set out
for industrial freedom have once again conquered and
the laws which they demanded have been approved. The
SN4 AHC0A VNAo Wv JNNo No~o
dawn of their hopes. We, who have journeyed but
three years, should glory in the swift achievement Of
our aim, and the more easily forget the sufferings we
have sustained.
There are those who may find cause for murmuring
at the ten or fifteen thousand majority by which the
laws were endorsed. They may think that insufficient.
But if they will see the manner of the fight waged
against them, they will have reason rather to return
thanks to the Guider Of the destiny of nation that out
Of the 100, 900 men of this state, so many refused to
bend the knee to the Golden Calf. The pure-minded
were told that the new movement intended the nation
alization of women and alibilinous "Bin" was passed
frmn door to door to prove it. It was useless to show
that the bill was introduced by an I. V. A. who came
to the legislature pretending to be a Lacquer, and that
the bill after introduction was not even considered. The
timid were frightened with tales of anarchy and So
cialism; the grasping were persuaded that their pro-
pertv was about to be taken from them by taxatlon;
the weak were terrorized by bul-dozing and a show of
insane fury; this church was told that the new regime
meant open immortality, that church was told that the
new laws meant death of it's own schools. The Father
Of Lies himself could not have invented and poured
upon any one spot on earth a more awful avalanche OF
falsehood and untruth. Yet, despite the wavering and
desertion of many, thus driven away, the laws are sus-
tanned and the farmers once more have victory in
scr1bed upon their banners.
We have won a great fight because men were not
lead astray but stood fast by their faith, and because
He. who rules the hearts of men and nations inspired
the North Dakotans with a new courage and a new
hope.