THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



by this government to win the War for Liberty and 

 Democracy. Part of it will be spent for guns, part 

 for ships, part of it for coal, clothing, shoes, leather. 

 A part of it will be paid to those that are making 

 millions of profit out of the war to-day. 



But a soldier boy cannot carry a gun unless there is 

 bread in his stomach. A soldier boy cannot dig a 

 trench unless he has a strong body made by bread. 



And some of those billions of dollars have to be spent 

 to pay the farmers for the wheat to make the bread. 

 Now we have been calling for government control of 

 prices. And we got them all right. But in our clamor 

 for government control we overlooked the better tool. 



We forgot, or neglected to see, that the representa- 

 tives of the profiteers were too large a part of our gov- 

 ernment, and so we got the government control too 

 largely in behalf of the profiteers. They are to-day 

 influencing this government in too large a measure. 

 Else they would not fix a price on coal twice what it 

 was before the war; else they would not be so long 

 reducing the price of bread after they have reduced 

 the price of wheat. 



On another occasion he said to a meeting at 

 Jamestown, North Dakota: 



Unless you do away with the gambler in food and 

 the necessaries of life you will produce your wheat 

 and get $2 a bushel for it, and then you will bond the 

 nation and pay across the water $5 or $6 a bushel for 

 your own wheat for your own boy. 



That is the line-up now. It is wrong. It is national 

 suicide. It is national suicide in times of peace; it is 

 multiplied national suicide in times of war, and we are 

 not so crazy as to believe we can succeed unless this 

 government shall do what every European government 

 already has done take over, absolutely take over 



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