The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1920-04-29

To lecture under tie auspices and the
business me who "came across
would like to have q word with Jack
but he thoughtlessly failed to leave
his address. The woman who is the
mother Of his child and q girl who
claims that he violated the Mann white
slave act are also looking for him.
The big business organizations
which hired these men to fight the
organized farmer movement will have
some difficulty in convincing ordinary
citizens that the attacks these broken
tools made upon the Nonpartisan Lea
que we're well founded and in good
faith. The ugly charges Of disloyalty
and lack of patriotism which these
creatures hurled at the farmers of
North Dakota and Minnesota will no
longer make an appeal to those whom
the l. v. A.'"heroes", aroused by their
flag waving. 1t is hard to forgive the
farmers enemies for STOPPING to such
loathsome practices.
A shameful spectacle it is! Bryant
who went about the country with re-
cruiting parties thruout the war and
who never saw a battlefield and Rich
ter who appropriated the money in
tended for the entertainment Of his
comrades while the boys he had train
ed as scout master were under fire in
France capitalize the post war feeling
Of loyal Americans and in the name
of the returned service men denounce
as unAmerican those farmers and
city workers who are trying to free
themselves from the oppression and
exploitation of special privilege. Many
of the men whom these slackers de-
nounced are themselves veterans of
the world war and the rest parted
with their sons and brothers just as
did the citizens of other parts. of the
United States. (
Slackers like Bryant and Richter
were extolled by the kept press for
Fighting the League just as they
fought the Huns" and patriotic citi-
zens were denounced as having
stabbed the soldiers in the back"
Bryant and Richter did their dirty
work not as ordinary citizens but as
returned soldiers and in the name of
e~x-service men. To those who were in
France and who know what fearful
things were endured by the soldiers
of all nations, this shameless exploit
tation of the heroes dead and of the
living whose memories of the conflict
are too poignant to parade them be-
fore the public to those, the speeches
of Bryant and Richter seem nothing
less than blasphemy. -
The same papers which asserted
that Richter and Bryant spoke for the
veterans Of the world war sheer at the
candidates of the Nonpartisan Lea
que in Minnesota-chief among whom
is Captain George Mallon, one of Per
shing's Hundred heroes"-a man who
in the Spanish and Philippine
campaigns and who commanded a ma
chine gun in the Argonne-a nan
whose bravery on the field Of battle
won for him the highest decorations
in the gift of the French and English
nation. The same papers make cheap
jibes about returned veterans like Ser
geant Melvin Hildreth who dared to
oppose the will Of big business by ask
ing the people to send him to the ma
toinal convention of his party.
Bryant and Richter are in disgrace.
Some of the small business men who
contributed to their enrichment will
perhaps come to feel that there are
greater dangers confronting the ma
ton than the rule Of the organized
farmers. The powerful interests which
fat thru their exploitation of.the
people of the Northwest will hiresoth-
men to wage their ruthless war on
the Nonpartisan League. Perhaps they
will select men of better character
than the two fallen "heroes." Be that
as it, may. The cause Of the farmers
is just and they do not fear their ad-
versaries, be they of high or low de-
gree.