The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1920-05-07
THE WEEK
Farmers Strong in Nebraska
France Excited on Caillaux Case
A Drive for Chinese Labor
'C0mrade" Olson, Official Revo-
lutiOnist
Anti-Farmer BlOwhards
Wanted


forces, considering the short length
Of time in which efforts have been
made there to overcome corrupt par
tiSan control of the state.
Returns show that Is candidates for
the state legislature and six for the
senate, bearing the League indorse-
ment. were nominated chiefly on the
REPUBLICAN, ticket. George c. Porter.
inorsed by the farmers for attorney
general. failed to get the Republican
nomination for that office, but the
fact that he carried the largest city,
Omaha. by 1000 majority is the best
proof in the world that Nebraska la
Dor has caught the spirit Of alliance
with the NonpartiSan league farmers.
Nominees on the two old party
tickets for the governorship arc men
of decidedly reactionary views and
records. and the farmer-labor forces
have. therefore. an excellent chance
Of electing IN independent candidate.
League members undoubtedly had
much to do with the victory of Hiram
johnson over General Wood and Gen
cral Pershing, although as an organi-
cation they had taken no position on
the presidential race. Majorities in
the strong League counties saved X.
B. Howell as national Republican
committeeman. who was opposed by a
reactionary banker. Howell is gen
eral manager of Omaha's municipal
water, gas, ice and milk plants.
On May 1 delegates from all the
independent progressive elements Of
the state will meet at Grand Island
to put Il complete independent state
ticket in the field.
France, and to less extent Eur
ope. is more excited about the case
of Joseph Caillaux than VIC arc. Our
papers give us only enough circum-
stances of the case to convey the inn
preston which those who control our
press want us to have.
After being told for months that
CalllauN was !: notorious traitor with
every chance in the world of rccciv-
ing the only medicine for treason
the brick wall at Sunrise-we learn
that the French senate refused by an
overwhelming vote to convict him of
treason. But it did find him guilty
Of communicating with the enemy"
His sentence is Punishment for five
years and loss of citizenship.
The former head of the French
cabinet undoubtedly tried to secure
peace in 1916 after the war had gone
on for two years. This was the time
of the Austrian offer which Clemen-
ceau turned down on the policy that
the war should so on to the point Of
complete defeat for the enemy. Gail
laux may not have been moved so
much from the desire to save France
from the consequent exhaustion she
now has as an ambition to get back
in the saddle as the great peacemak-
cr. But this is matter of little
moment. 1t was one of those games
in which the losers must expect great
loss. A year later the Russians had
been broken and France, which fol-
lowed Clemenceau instead of Call
laux, faced an irretrievable disaster
like Waterloo had it not been for
Americas entry into the war.
The thing that makes the excite
ment in France is that few can main
tain that if honorable peace all
around could have been made in 1916
two years more of war were worth
while.
Efforts to lift the ban of Chinese
coolie labor are proceeding at rap
ut pace. Not much is said of the mat
ter in the general press, to prevent
inc development of an organized o?-
position. But under the leadership
Of our great trust officials civic and
commerce associations all over the
country are being put on record for
it and clever methods are being used
to influence farmer organizations in
the same direction.
The excuse assigned is shortage of
common labor, but the real reason is
the desire of the great interests to
make greater progts than can now be
made by paying our own workmen
to do the work these coolies would do.
From their point of view there are
no arguments against the move, but
from the point of the view of the
people as a whole there is no argu-
ment for it.
No nation in the world has vet
been able to better itself by acquir-
ing servant class. Think, for IN
stance, of the enormous evil the
importation of an alien race from
Africa has caused us. Financially it
may have benefited as many as 3OO,-
900 plantation owners of the old
South, but imagination is unable to
picture its harmful effect on 3,OOO,-
900 white people there whose poverty
compelled them to compete for work |
with slave labor.
If the country belongs to and is |
run for the few, importation of COO
lies, Mexicans and Hindus is in Or !
der; it the country belongs to and is
run for all of US, we should leave
these other peoples where they are.
The nation that acquires alien SER
wants slaughters its own honest work.
ers, destroys morality and makes
work a disgraceful occupation. p.
Those who are surprised at the
amount of wild radicalism reported
n our leading papers should consider
The case of "Comrade" O. Alfred o.
son Of Rockford, Ill. He was a pure
revolutionist of the bourgeois-kiliing,
direct-action type and
le did not hesitate to tell the world
Who he was and what he thought.
In the days of his unenlightenment