by men and organizations who should and do know better, but who are playing upon passion and prejudice for ulterior purposes. More harm is resulting from this assumption of authority by private individuals, without the shadow of moral or legal right, than by all the pro-German propaganda or real disloyalty in the state. And the worst of it is that it defeats the very purpose which is used to excuse it—the purpose of uniting all our citizens whole-heartedly and sincerely behind the Government's war aims. Already this rule of passion, freed from legal restraint, has resulted in the excess of mob violence, of injustice and wrongs towards loyal and patriotic citizens, whose whole lives will be embittered by the brutal intolerance of a few. Our boasted freedom and liberty and love of fair play are being made the victims of methods no better than those of the despoilers of Belgium, from which they differ not in quality but only in degree.
Right to-day in Iowa, men in positions of leadership and responsibility are fomenting and encouraging this spirit of mob rule and terrorism, which is wholly outside the pale of law, and which will result in such a spirit of lawlessness that we will all pay dearly for it in the years to come. The Greater Iowa Association and its allied organizations are among those which are helping to create this atmosphere of dangerous suspicion and distrust, especially towards farmers' organizations in Iowa, which is bound to result in bloodshed and lynch-law if it is not quickly checked. The Greater Iowa Association boasts in its monthly publication that it has already spent $20,000 in helping to put down the Bolsheviki of Iowa (its usual expression for the loyal and conservative farmers of this state) and that it will spend $180,000 more (a total of $200,000) for this purpose if necessary. Its sentiments are approved and applauded by its sycophant organizations, such as the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce, in its official monthly bulletin, which it proclaims is "the mouthpiece for Des Moines."
Tut, tut! Obviously, Mason City leads directly into a
pretty political mess. Willy-nilly, friends of the A. P. L.,
if not members of the Non-Partisan League, are pushed
into ranks assigned to enemies. We may mildly animadvert
on the fact that it is the members of the Non-Partisan
League who largely buy the journal from which the foregoing
quotation is made. It has had a long and honorable
history, but is perhaps not so disinterested as the A. P. L.
It does not, however, go to war with the A. P. L. so much
as with the Greater Iowa Association, which presently
