given, even as news, a fair account of the League's purposes. Every daily paper in the state was filled with "gross misinformation and absurd lies." So the League started a little weekly paper of its own. With this single weekly, against the entire daily press of the state, it swept the primaries in June, 1916.
Then the League decided to have a daily paper. The "Courier-News" of Fargo had been for sale, but the owners would not sell to the League. The League went ahead to start a new paper, actually buying machinery and taking subscriptions; then the "Courier-News" decided to sell, and its circulation under League ownership now exceeds the total population of Fargo.
The League at present has weekly papers in seven states, with a total circulation of two hundred thousand, and another weekly, the "Non-partisan Leader," published in St. Paul, with a circulation of two hundred and fifty thousand. It is starting co-operative country weekly papers, supervising their editorial policy and furnishing them news and editorial service; over one hundred of these weekly papers are already going. There is another League daily in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and one at Nampa, Idaho. Finally, the League is going ahead on its biggest venture, the establishment of a daily in Minneapolis. This paper is to be capitalized at a million dollars, and the stock is being sold to farmer and labor organizations throughout the state. Says Mr. Morris: "Many wealthy professional and business men, disgusted with the controlled press, have purchased stock, and are warm boosters for the League publications." Also he says:
One of the chief results of the establishment of a League press is
a different attitude on the part of many existing papers. With competition
in the field, many publishers who have hitherto been biased
and unfair have been forced to change their tactics. Few of these
papers have gone over to the League side of political and economic
questions, but they have been forced at least to print fair news reports
on both sides of the question in their news columns, reserving their
opposition to the movement for their editorial columns. That, of
course, is fair enough. The menace of the controlled press in America
is due to the fact that as a rule this press does not confine its arguments
and opposition to the editorial columns, but uses the news
columns for propaganda, and, failing to print the news, printing only
a part of it, distorting it or actually lying, sways opinion through the
news columns.
Such is the procedure in places where Americans are free.
