Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu/273

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dollars from the Capital Trust and Savings Company, they did their best to start a run on the St. Paul municipal bank, and only failed because their false statements were promptly exposed. They have lied systematically about the farmers' movement, and have refused to publish corrections, even in the form of paid advertisements. They were ultra-patriotic, and urged all employers to continue their employes' wages while the latter were in the army; but they themselves failed to follow this advice!

And now come, Mr. Galt, and explain to a jury of American citizens how it happened that these articles, "untruthful in every particular in which they reflect upon the 'Dispatch' and the 'Pioneer Press'," were allowed by you to be published in a paper having two hundred thousand circulation in Minnesota and adjoining states, and were left unanswered and unchallenged by you for a period of fifteen months!

The Nonpartisan League is an issue, not only in Minnesota and North Dakota, but all over the country where the interests are in terror of a farmers' revolt. And so the whole power of the kept press is enlisted to malign it. The League is doing business through the Scandinavian-American Bank of Fargo, and the enemies of the League raid this institution, with the help of subservient public officials, and throw it into the hands of a receiver. From one end of the country to the other goes the story of crooked banking by the farmers' party, and is featured by the capitalist press. The "New York Times" has several detailed dispatches, also solemn editorials. A week or two later the Supreme Court of the State denounces the proceedings as a conspiracy, declares the bank sound, and orders its return to the owners. The "Times" gives this—not one line! Or take the "Kansas City Star," a most completely respectable organ, which features the smash-up of the bank, and reports the restoration in a tiny item, giving the name of the bank, but not mentioning it as the League bank—understanding perfectly well that ninety-nine out of a hundred readers will not make the connection, and will not know that the League has been vindicated!

And then, a few days later, the American Bar Association issues a denunciation of the League, declaring it is "pure Socialism," and Socialism means the "nationalization of women." The "Chicago Tribune" gets out a big headline: