The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1930-05-23
FRIDAY, MAY %, 1880.
KNUTSON AND THE ITCH

four-page monthly edited by Alfred Knutson of
Bismarck, North Dakota an individual by the
name of Alex Moral, goes to great pains trying to
prove that the Producers News is inconsistent an
enemy of the poor farmers and a misleader of the
workers because we stated in an editorial in
issue of October II, that 'liquor is disease of
capitalism almost as much as the seven-year
itch" Needless TO state, the analogy ironical.
1t seems incomprehensible to us that respon-
sibe official like Moral, who claims he is writing
for "The international Farmers Council" should
allow the better part of year to elapse before
sounding warning to the poor farmers that we
were misleading them the liquor question. We
are also more or less at loss-tho less rather
than more-that whose inability to understand
plain English is so glazing should be permitted to
hold up The International Peasants Council to ri
dicule. A ten-year-old school boy would have de-
duced from the quotation referred to that in our
opinion alcoholism is NO more disease of capt.
talism than is the seven-year itch. He seems to
be of the opinion that both the seven-year itch
and alcoholism indigenous to the capitalist
system and that the only way to cure capitalism
of those two foul, if not fell diseases is to kill
the system
If either Knutson Nora both, were af-
flicted with the seven-yeartch, or were victims of
alcoholism we certainly would not propose that
both their heads be severed from their bodies in
order to relieve them of their maladies The edi-
torial objected to was in reply to an idotic TRADE
made on Townley and the American Temperance
League by Alfred Knutson and The Producers
News does not claim that the evils of intemper-
be eliminated under a system based on
the exploitation of man. i. e. the profit system.
The theory that only when the capitalist system
is abolished the masses BEGIN to set their
social house in order, runs like red thread thru
almost every editorial in the Producers News
This despite the fact that the Producers News is
not Communist organ, being neither affiliated
with nor receiving support from the Communist
Party but depending for existence on its subscrip-
ton list, revenue from advertising and job print
ing.
The position of The Producers News and the
Communist Party on the liquor question is almost
identical. The Communist Party favors the repeal
of the 18th Amendment while the Producers News
is bit definite favorng the substitution of
government control and distribution of liquor at
cost for prohibition. If we had not pointed out in
our various articles prohibition that only under
Workers and Peasants Government could sin
and serious effort be made to abolish the evil
of alcoholism, Aft and Alex might have reason to
kick But those two worthless are either unwilling
or unable to find the rock in the heel of the sock
In his long-heralded reply to the News editorial
Mr.. Moral via Knutson charges the News with
"Opportunism." Knutson has already beaten his
breast and torn his hair as penance for his oppor
tunistic sins committed during the days when any
bourgeois tramp, hiking the high roads of Europe
In search of place to Sleep eat and drink was
always assured of haven of rest underneath the
hOspitable canopy of the Peasants International.
Those were the happy days, before the advent of
Tho blvd
itch, the Shiny bourgeois politician of JugoS lavia
We're received with friendly greetings at the bar
gain counter of that organization in Moscow. Those
were the days when Aft Knutson, as the represent
alive and practically the entire membership of the
international" in the United States liked to have
his picture taken with the opportunists" of Sheri
dan county, and go away with enough jack to buy
himself another second class passage to Moscow.
Alfred did not notice the "opportunist" errors of
The Producers News in those days. He did not OBJ
Ject to The Producers News supporting the candid
scy of Joe Dixon for the U. S. Senate and Well
ington D. Rankin for governor of Montana on the
republican ticket What did little deviations like
that amount to when Knutson could collect enough
dough from the "opportmists" to enable him to
play the role of an international carpet Dagger.
At that the "devations" of The Producers News
were not more out of line with Leninism than those
Oh the communist party itself when it plunged
lock, stock and barrel into the swamp of IaFoI-
.etism' and when dragged out by the communist
International thru the timely Intervention of Leon
Trotsky, plunged right into the morass of Farm
er-Laborism. Perhaps Knutson is not to blame
After all he is only flunkey who sticks to the
payroll, let the deviations go where thew NAV The
party weathervane, not his conscience is his guide
= He is not the kind that swms against the current
Gold dust is carried down stream
Because of Knutson's Incompetence, The United
Farmer was suspended several months, appearing
only as eaflet in order to keep the mailing priv
llege During those months the farmers were in a
receptive mood to communist propaganda. KNIT
son not only did not have the means thru which
TO express himself to the farmers but HE DID
NOT HAVE A POLICY.
At the NOnpartisan League convention held in
Bismarck early in the spring, there was an excel
lent opportunity for a competent man in Knut.
sont position to stick pin in the inflated gas bao
OF the Nonpartisan League and to show the as.
sembled delegates that they had neither a nro-
gram not policy that would benefit them one
leta Knutson lowered around the convention like
waif at wedding supper His excuse for not
getting out any literature was that he did moi
know what policy to advocate 1t appears that this