OCR Text |
Show THE CITIZEN A TRAITORS LEAGUE are these days for Leagues BAD and Leagues of Nations like the NaLeagues of Notions n League of North tional Dakota and otherwhere. n The reputation of the League had been getting more melancholy, not to say scandalous, ever since its chief was condemned by due counprocess of law as disloyal to his try. Not that the League ever was much better than- Arthur Clarence Townley, for he was its kaiser, he the czar and autocrat of all the Dakotas and the steppes of Nebraska, Minnesota and Kansas and the far regions of Montana, Wyoming, Texas and Idaho. But now a glad event has happened, The Scandinavian Bank of Fargo, N. D., clearing house for Townley and his mad notions, has blown up and lies a mass of lonely financial wreckage amid the shattered dreams of the as Leaguers of the Northland. And the Leaguers stand by and watch the ruins they are tempted to throw their caps and mittens in the air and give three cheers for the busted bank. When a bank fails in our midst we mourn; we look rueful and make obother unpleasant jurgations and things. Not so in the gay autumnal haze of North Dakota on the edge of a cold winter. Of course it is peculiar, but it is explainable. Non-Partisa- them whenever he considered it necessary. In their hypnotic trance they made all kinds of signs to show that they liked it. Non-Partisa- - FOR a long time the Leaguers that something ailed them. They could not analyze the symptoms. Suddenly the bank blew up with a blinding flash and in the baleful glare of burning promises to pay they understood what was the matter. Most of the members of Townleys Repersonally conducted League were publicans sane, sound, conservative farmers who had about as much use for socialism as an owl has for an oil painting. But along came Arthur Clarence Townley, faker extraordinary, looked them squarely in the eye, made a few passes with his hand and bank they were hypnotized. When the exploded they were released from the of a baneful spell glib-tongue- BUT on the dreams of Townley, the wild, impractical notions of a man who had made a failure of his private ventures, but who had the aspiring audacity to take over a whole state and run it in the name of the embattled farmers. d Now they are going back into the Republican party and are so glad that they want to stand on the topmost ruin and. give three cheeers. Many of them want to save g the League and preserve what is good in it for future use. The League is by no means all bad. Purged of its radicalism and socialism it can serve a business purpose. It was founded on the prejudices of infuriated farmers who believed that they had been oppressed. Under the nnu leader who put himself forward, the set out to achieve reforms. They made an unfortunate choice; or rather Arthur Clarence Townley, castand ing upon them his hypnotic eye at cure-al- l offering them his bottled so much a bottle, made their choice for them. After that they were led around like tame elephants by their red-eye- d It will not be difficult to explain scales have dropped from the eyes of the Leaguers not only in North Dakota, but elsewhere, and they nave begun to realize how greatly they were deceived by a peregrinating failure who could not manage his own business, and yet aspired to overturn the American government and put in its place a soviet government. before the bank exploded all the place the farmers were getting cold feet. They had paid into the treasury of the League more than $2,500,000, and most of their hopes and plans had turned out to be as unsubstantial as so many rainbows. They asked again where their funds were going to and when Townley, in the grand manner of an autocratic told them to mind their own business, they did not have a whole laugh in all the crowd. In fact, they looked at one another and scowled hard. They had paid $100 a piece merely for the privilege of dealing at stores, and they askthe ed wherein they were benefited by the million dollars that Townley and his aides had taken in for the stores scheme. Townleys reply did not evoke thunderous applause. EVEN union for the kaiser, but blinded though they were their vision was sufficiently clear to see that they were being led into an abyss. They drew back and refused to surrender to Townley and Ludendorff. But Townley had gained such control over his Leaguers that he was able for three or four years to frame the legislation of North Dakota. He elected Lynn J. Frazier as governor. When the 1916 campaign arrived he had herded the Republicans into his corral and one of the consequences was that Woodrow Wilson was elected president of the United States. Townley bought up many newspapers and handed each of them a trumpet to blow his praises and proclaim his dreams as the inspired words of economic salvation. No one dared oppose him among all his followers. To do so was to invite persecution and disaster. He went ahead with his schemes and continued to stuff paper into the vaults of the Scandinavian-America- n bank. d farmers abanhow the doned their common sense and followed Townley, but first let us probe amid the ruins of the bank. Townley and two lieutenants were e the governing poweT of the League and he dominated his lieutenants. Refusing to incorporate the League, he and his agents took in hundreds of thousands of dollars and they have made no accounting to this so day. Indeed, he was so clever, dryly humorous, so pert and impertidid Townley get this hold on nent in his speeches replying to those HOW whole state and hypnotize hunwho dared to demand an accounting dreds of thousands in other states? that the farmers rubbed their hands He had been engaged in wild schemes in keen appreciation, wagged their before and had never made a success heads at one another smilingly and They remarked: Aint he great. farmers had seen and heard of anything. He had persuaded some back in 1912, still were hypnotized and Townley THE things that had sickened Minnesota capitalists, of capitalized their helplessness. their American spirits. During the to finance for him the development near Every Townley Notion had credit war Townley tried to tie them to the thirteen sections of land on Page IS.) bank traitorous I. W. W. and its one big at the Scandinavian-America- n and could cash any kind of paper from a sight draft to a note running sixty or ninety days. If Townleys chain of stores needed money; if his editors1 of controlled newspapers required a golden elilir of life so as to cry out the more blatantly for soMATINEE SATURDAY cialism, for Townley and not infrequently for the cause of the kaiser, & somebody went to the bank and cashPRE8ENT THE ed a check. When the collapse came FUNNIEST AMERICAN COMEDY OF RECENT YEARS some wTho had by the examiners, strange process been released from TTaiilor-Rlila- de their trance, discovered that the liabilities amounted to $1,606,847.43. A COMEDY CLASSIC By HARRIS JAMES SMITH traitor. ear-splittin- let us return to the bank. It because it was established By F. P. Gallagher sober-minde- Le-nin- Non-Parti-th- e, ve Chey-(Continu- SALT LAKE THEATRE ve 3 Thursday: OCT. COHAN 30 HARRIS A AND ed yet nobody in North Dakota is One Solid Year in New EHaim York-- Six Months in Chicago-- Six in sackcloth and ashes PRICES: Evenings 50c to $2.00. wailing like Job. Why? Because they have a law guaranteeing depositors and the only one that can lose is that ... I..,. old simpleton The Public. The peoto OUR ROTISSERIE ple will be taxed a little heavier all is 6:30 to 9 i Will operate daily from pay the depositors, and that a nice roast chicken there will be to it except something I p. m.,forget your family dinner. more $1,606,000 than that is worth the lesson. It is the lesson that the farmers and other Leaguers are taking to heart and that is why they are harping their cherubims, as joy to the slant-eyethe bard of Avon might say. It means that Bolshevism has been driven back into the Avernus from which it sprang, that the lid has been clamped on and that the farmers are sitting on it thinking and thinking hard. It means that Socialism is not as popular as it was when Townley wps flirting with the I. W. W. and The I. bally hooing for the kaiser. d Months in Philadelphia Sale Tuesday. Matinee 25c to $1.50. ' i.raiiim.- -ijj LADIES! Get the habit of lunching and dining at ROTISSERIE INN Where tempting dishes can always be had. We specialize on Shell Olympia Oysters, Soft Dung-eness Crabs, Frog Legs, Soles, Crab, Mushrooms, Alligator Pears and all fresh vegetables obtainable on eastern and western markets. F. CAP1TOLO C. Ill NETT I 323 SOUTH MAIN STREET I |