The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-12-18

Gov. Olson, the idol of tim
! orous radicals elsewhere who
shrink from the iron laws CT
MarXism but long for revolu-
ton, has erected a personal
political organization upon the SUP
structure of the old Non Partisan
League and the Farmer Labor AS
ISOLATION The Olson supra party
organization is known as the ALI
Party Union.
1t would be nonsense to say that
the Olson party employs murder as
a political weapon.
Rational Americans could not
conceive of a political movement
using force to eliminate journalistic
critics. Much less could they believe
that an enlightened, humane intel
lectual such as Gov. Olson might
sanction a purge" of his enemies.
Yet, by some coincidence, within
Is months two anti-Olson editors
have been shot down in Minneapolis
and the freedom Of the press in this
bailiWick Of radicalism has been
curtailed immoderately by fire.
arms.
Cuilford Staying Recalled
One night in September, 1884,
Howard Guilford, editor of small,
prying newspaper known as the Sat-
urday Press, announced over the
radio that he intended to publish
disclosures affecting Mr. Olsons
relations to the underworld while
he, Mr.. Olson, was prosecuting at
torney of Hennepin County, of
which Minneapolis is the county
seat.
Mr.. Guilford whose ethical canons
were said not to be rreproachable,
was shot down the following night
as he left a fruit stand after buying
the breakfast oranges and eXchang-
y ing small chat with his friend the
proprietor Shotgun shells tore of
his face. No one ever was prose-
cuted. 1t soon was forgotten.
Last week Walter w. Liggett, a
burly, combatiVe journalist, who had
ranged far in pursuit of his trade
and finally settled in his native state
to run a weekly and take hand in
politics, was slated 10 make speech
before the Minnesota House of Rep
resentatives. Mr. Li9gett was to have
been invited to the floor in TIE role
of a citizen with a grievance. That
is a privilege accorded citizens OF
Minnesota.
Sought Olson Impeachment
Mr.. Liggett had his speech pre-
pared. He intended to demand the
impeachment of Gov. Olson. For 20
consecutive weeks he had voiced
that demand in his paper. The
speech was to be the detonator of a
political plot. When Mr.. Liggett
had finished. dozen members were
TO arise, demanding the floor, One,
it was thought, would succeed in
introducing a resolution calling for
Mr.. Olsons impeachment.
But on the preceding Monday
night. Mr.. Liggett eXtricating his
bulk from behind the steering wheel
of the family car was riddled with
y machine gun bullets in the alley
back of his apartment home as his
wife and 10-year-old daughter
helplessly looked on.
A leading citizen of Minneapolis
was reading the latest issue of Lig
gett'S green-paper sheet, the Mid
west American, when secretary
phoned him the news. He had fin
iShed with a strongly worded article
which demanded the custer of Mr.
Olson or the Indictment of the edi-
tor for criminal libel.
Good Citizens Shocked
MY God!' he said to his wife,
reverting to the Guilford case, the
mortality rate for editors in this
town is getting high" The two muir
ders were not precisely on the same
footing. Their principal likeness,
indeed, lay in the fact that both
victims were editors and both had
been attacking Gov, Olson with the
threat of more to come, Mr.. Gull
fordS paper only little while be-
fore had changed its emphasis, min
inning the dirt about which citl-
zen had been observed in the SOM
pany of which town blond and con-
centrating its fire on political cor
ruption. Mr.. Liggett never conduct
ed a scandal sheet
A veteran of the Nom Partisan
League movement in North Dakota
and Minnesota. Mr.. Liggett returned
10 his native state in 1888 after
rowing career AS cruSading jour-
nalist He worked on solid New
York newspapers. For a time he
was managing editor Of the Socialist
Call in New York. He exposed the
lax enforcement of the prohibition
laws in a series of articles for the
magazine Plain Talk. He wrote
\ book debunking Herbert Hoover.
Help Found Movement
When he settled in Minneapolis in
the fall of 1884 and began to pub
lish the Midwest American here, he
was returning TO his old stamping
ground. AS one of the founders of
the radical movement in the North
west, with A. C. Townley, Charles
Lindbergh Sr and others he be-
lieved he had right to his say about
the way it was being administered
by Mr.. Olson.
Mr.. Liggett was no carpet Dagger
in radical Minnesota. He assumed
to speak for the Non-Partisan
League "old guard which believed
that Mr.. Olson's all-party coalition
had deprived them of influence. He
regarded himself as factional
leader. His little newspaper. pub
lished in an outlying residential sec
ton, attacked Mr. Olson.
1t also lambasted the underworld
the reformed 6ootleggerS dominat-
ing the liquor situation. and The
mobsters who had organized the slot
machines, gambling night clubs and
prostitution into paying enterprises.