Story of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party Points Way for Ofher States
Story of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor forty Points Way for OfherJiStates PARTY IS PRODUCT OF ECONOMIC NECESSITYUNITES WORKING FARMERS AND CITY WORKERSLEGISLATIVE ACHIEVEMENT VERY IMPORTANT— A...
...a well-rounded program that includes medical service, psychiatric and psychological work, education ; and vocational training, classification, social serv -' ice, religion, employment at worth-while work, recreation of the type that promotes physical and , mental health, discipline that develops self-control and self-reliance, careful placement, and adequate parole supervision...
...The long monotonous days and years that lie between them, and the slow but steady programs of reclamation being carried on within prison walls go unnoticed because they are unspectacular...
...yA Homestead tax exemption law, which lowers the tax on homesteads and farms by 20 per cent and abolishes state levy up to $4,000 fun value...
...the idea that a man in prison has come to the end of the road and that there is really nothing we can do for him, that parole is a humane process but a futile one, that the amount we can salvage from the human scrap heap is not worth our effort...
...thinking m* creasingly in terms of crime prevention, and properly so...
...We are amazed to learn that there is no such thing as a life prisoner...
...Polling nearly a half-million votes in support of Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia as Mayor and the election of five members to the City Council ami five to the State Assembly was indeed an achievement for so young an organization...
...Two years later we re-elected our Governor and other state officials, and also sent Paul Kvale, Ernest Lundeen and R. T. Buckler to Congress...
...convinced that those are in the minority, that many of them even are by no moans hopeless, and that the majority of those in our prisons and adult reformatories can be reclaimed...
...SINGING BATTLE NYMN OF REACTION , A^T his back march his henchmen, a goodly company indeed...
...Lo, where he comes, clad m the skin of the Giant Sloth, mounted upon his trained dinosaur, hrsndishing aloft his great stone battle axe, while at his side gleams his trusty sword made from the jawbone of a pterodactyl...
...The cooperative commonwealth in which competition, exploitation and plundering of the masses by big business will be done away with, can only be realized through Congressional action...
...Recent developments in the United States have greatly aided the national third party cause...
...SAYS COMMISSIONER MACCORMICK—NO MAN SHOULD BE GIVEN UP AS DEAD BECAUSE HE LANDED IN JAIL...
...FARMERS HELPED BY FARMER-LABOR PARTY '¦•UK first mortgage-moratorium law in the United States, de* signed especially to save farmers' land and equipment in a time of economic crisis, was enacted into law in 1933...
...Story of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor forty Points Way for OfherJiStates PARTY IS PRODUCT OF ECONOMIC NECESSITYUNITES WORKING FARMERS AND CITY WORKERSLEGISLATIVE ACHIEVEMENT VERY IMPORTANT— A NATIONAL MOVEMENT NOW ESSENTIAL By Congressman HENRY G. TEIGAN Farmer-Labor Representative from Minnesota THE workers of America are awakening to the necessity for building a patty to protect and serve themselves upon the political field...
...Harry H. Peterson, Attorney General...
...FARMERS AND WORKERS UNITE FOR-ACTION AS stated above, the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party is the .joint product of the National Nonpartisan League—political expression of the farmers, and the Working People's Nonpartisan Political League...
...8. The Farmer-Labor Party has carried on a state-wide educational program, explaining to the people how a retail sales tax 'works and why it weighs heavily upon'the small income receiver and lightly upon the large income receiver...
...And as they march they sing a song to the tune of a grand old Mesosoic hymn: DOWN rSS...
...The program may be summarized as follows: 1. Public ownership of railroads, public utilities, natural resources and banks...
...As eager as any going to strike down Insurgency and uphold the seats of the mighty, he glowers upon Moscow and wields a mighty lance for Melons...
...The public realizes that prisons are in existence only when an assault, an escape or some other infrequent but spectacular occurrence makes the headlines...
...Prof...
...Though the Farmer-Labor Party is the child of the farmers' Nonpartisan League and the Working People's Nonpartisan Political League, neither group had any intention of setting ' up a new political party in 1918 when the Farmer-Labor Party became a legal entity in Minnesota...
...And all of these must be carried on aod directed by intelligent, well-trained, socially-minded' personnel, free from political pressure or control.', • • • NO PLACE FOR DEAD END PENOLOGY TN recent years society has been...
...Yet much progress has been made...
...The Prof., you see, has been looking into the desperate state of the small Business Man under the wicked Surplus Profits Tax (or thinks he has) and finds it just too bad to be endured...
...K. K. Solberg, Lieutenant-Governor...
...What they need is effective treatment for what ails them and effective follow-up to make sure they do not have a relapse...
...It had an extensive radio hookup...
...Help has come at last...
...C. A. Halverson, State Treasurer, and Hjalmar Petersen, Railroad and Warehouse Commissioner...
...Dauntlessly be confronts the stronghold of Insurgency and at the *ght the ranks of Righteousness raise a deafening cheer and »el new courage stiffen their sinews...
...But I am...
...It is naturally not quite as simple as that...
...The workers and farmers of the United States are at last awakening to the need of acting in their behalf upon the political field as well as through trades union and cooperative organization...
...It is equally wasteful to keep thousands of prisoners under the conditions of maximum security giat only hundreds or even scores need...
...I have received many inquiries regarding this and a far greater number has beau received at the State Office of the FarmerLabor Party at St...
...We resent the intemperate, indiscriminate and uninformed attacks | that retard our attempts to correct the weaknesses in our prison and parole work...
...The following were elected to Congress: Magnus Johnson, Paul Kvale, Henry Arens, Ernest Lundeen and F. H. Shoemaker...
...But in lieu of wordy text, lo, a shark's tooth borne upon the tip' of the spine ** *n ichthyosaurus answers every purpose and everywhere lifts ™e drooping heart of Reaction...
...When the Farm Credit Administration attempted to force collections without regard to living needs of farm families, Minnesota's Farmer-Labor Governor, Elmer A. Benson, successfully led opposition to the Farm Credit Administration policy...
...The more recent development of your American Labor Party in New York State and its victories in the New York City elections has further aroused interest in independent political action...
...For those who have reached prison it is too late to talk of crime prevention...
...That is what I mean by "dead end penology...
...There is no denying that many men and women in prison will probably never be straightened out by anything we can do for them or to them, under present conditions...
...fcy exeatpone the day when society will make an effective, unhysterical socially-minded approach to the whole problem of crime, from its roots to its final fruit...
...2. Legislation to further and protect the cooperative movement...
...Tow huWOe...
...PLANS FOR * REHABILITATION IT is our task, stated in brief terms, to get-them * into first-class physical and mental condition,' to straighten out their attitude towards society, to train them for jobs on which they can make an adequate and satisfying living, and to see that they get the jobs...
...I reject the idea that the prison is a "dead end" street...
...The party and its adherents elected former United States Senator Elmer A. Benson, Governor...
...There is no place In our profession for a SMJWMR* Tf.-*-f"J"'— for "Deed End Penology...
...Though I cannot finish this picture, I have shown that the work of the Farmer-Labor Party has meant that the governmental machinery once used by Organized Wealth for exploitation of the common people is no longer so used...
...Ernest Lundeen was elected U. S. Senator, and Dewey W- Johnson, Paul J. Kvale, R. T. Buckler, John T. Bernard and myself were chosen U. S. Representatives...
...No one knows them' better than we and no one is more desirous of correcting them than we are...
...llV ®tete income tax, a replacement tax based upon ability to pay, designed to lift some of the tax burden from home owners and farm owners and place it upon individuals and corporations enjoying large incomes...
...Then, too, Labor's Nonpartisan League, under the able direction of E. L. Oliver, its Executive Secretary, omens well for the third party movement in America...
...For years they have been hammering the headlines with these ideas...
...The recent elections in New York, Detroit, Akron, Pittsburgh and other cities reveal that the working man is becoming class-conscious and appreciates his own importance in industry and in politics...
...A national Farmer-Labor or Progressive Party is definitely in the making in the United States of America...
...SLUGGING TYPE OF CRIMINOLOGY IN THIS COUNTRT — ATTEMPTS MUST BE MADE TO REHABIUTATE THIEVES AND GUNMEN...
...In the 1932 elections, four Farmer-Labor candidates for state administrative offices were elected: Floyd B. Olson, Governor...
...Prisons have always been a sort of a No Man's Land...
...PRISONS ARE NO i BLIND ALLEYS •l^HESE things are not so...
...CURING THE CRIMINALS THERE IS NO PLACE FOR THE MACHINE GUN...
...POLITICAL STRENGTH COMES RAPIDLY TPHE growth of the party in voting strength has been relatively » consistent...
...One mOjSfe {j&f need is medical care, another's vacgihmaTHMhfing, another's discipline, another's adjustment of his family situation, and so on...
...But it was not pntil 1930 that the Governorship fell into the hands of the FarmerLabor organization...
...Approximately $60,000,000 has been saved to the people by these tax laws...
...Even then, he usually is granted the benefits of a private radio, of the daily newspaper, selected magazines, the latest motion picture shown, orchestras, traveling bands, hand-decorated cells, baseball, handball, football, and basketball, and any other "amusements which over-sympathetic and sob-sister wardens or prison boards may contrive to make his stay in prison more enjoyable...
...I shall indicate only a few of the high spots in the legislative history of the party^A ll.Hj.ihii picture of the Farmer-Labor victories in Minnesota Farmer-La bo rites believe that taxes should be lightened upon the small owner either on the farm or in the city and upon the small income groups, whether individual or corporation...
...A youth survey, the first of its kind in the country, was made to secure a factual picture of the exact needs of Minnesota's youth and.lay the basis for a future youth program...
...Both wore fought viciously by the Steel Trust, which is especially interested in Minnesota because it has some of the largest mines in the world...
...Despite these successes at the polls, many of our people were saddened by the thought that Governor Floyd B. Olson, who had 'been one of the heroes of our earlier legislative struggles and campaigns, had died just as the fall campaign was about to begin...
...As Minnesota is the one state in which a party of wealthproducers has had an existence for more than 15 years, it is only reasonable that progressive-minded folks should ask how we "did it...
...A measure to establish a state adult educational system functioning with local autonomy waa passed by the Farmer-Labor-con trolled House, but defeated by a conservative Senate committee...
...Harry H. Peterson, Attorney General...
...Moseback, from the swamps and morasnen of yam University...
...This mean* that incomes must bear more taxes, and especially the larger incomes of wealthy individuals and big corporations...
...Punishment in all too many prisons has become a thing of the past...
...Thus the party program gives expression to the economic needs of these two groups and also advocates measures that will prove of benefit to the general public...
...There are in prison today thousands of men and women who want desperately to make good and who have the capacity to do so if we eon help them more effectively while they ore in prison, and if the public will give them a batter break when they get oat...
...Flinthead from the moisty caves of the Brookings Institute...
...Its first real success came in 1922 with the election of Henrik Shwstead to the U. S. Senate and Knud Wefald and Rev.rO* J. Kvale to the House of Representatives...
...BeSeed End Penology" vs...
...In that year, Floyd B. Olson was elected Governor and Henry Arens, a farmer, Lieutenant-Governor...
...But I also believe in good prisons jusi ma I he-, lieve in good hospitals and in good parole as I do in good follow-up medical care...
...This legislative record is one to be proud of and to give hope for the future...
...Education and ^eatre of the youth: have always been a vital concern of the party, and because of its fight, state help to schools ha* been increased and aid laws so revised as to give chief support J9 the hard-hit districts, again lessening inequalities of opportunity...
...It does not matter very much if we prison men do fall into oblivion...
...Knud Wefald, Railroad and Warehouse Commissioner...
...PRISONERS GIVEN UP AS "DEAD" UNDER the impact of such verbal barrages as these our prisons are in danger of falling into even worse oblivion than they now enjoy...
...God speed the day when we shall really be a vanished tribe, when crime is no more and the last warden opens the gate of the last prison tothe last prisoner...
...Nay, 'tis he, 'tis he, indeed...
...If the Farmer-Labor Party died every time its self-appointed undertakers announced its death, then it would, indeed, be the possessor of more than nine lives...
...To achieve the best results we need to break op our prison populations into comparatively small and comparatively homogeneous groups and to establish the institutions, program and personnel each group needs...
...They bear no pennon, banner nor gonfalon inscribed with ISta*oned words, for of course they cannot read...
...THE SURPLUS PROFITS TAX...
...We are in grave danger of falling prey to a philosophy of defeatism, we who are in prison and parole work, of thinking that our jobs are not worth doing and that the results we achieve are not worth trying for...
...They have sufficient ability, they wont to go straight, they are not anti-social but merely nonsocial, they are not crazy, they are not morons, they are not mad dogs, they do not need to be kept in iron cages all their lives, and they are uot going to be a constant public menace when they are released...
...This is an abbreviated statement of the party's program but gives a general idea of its objective...
...The prison is not a * "dead end" street...
...Do my eyes deceive me...
...By AUSTIN H. MacCORMICK Commissioner of Correction, Sew York City 117 E who are engaged in prison and parole work " are in a highly dangerous situation...
...But be that as it may, few working people and only a minority of the farmers would think of going back to the Republican Party or of operating again on the "nonpartisan" basis of 20 years ago...
...4. Tax revision in the interest of wealth-producers...
...Two Farmer-Labor governors have refused to use troops against strikers, on the ground that this is using the machinery of Government to increase the already existing inequality between workers and employers...
...What is needed to bring about complete realization of the party's program is action on a national scale...
...A public which does not listen with too much discrimination gets the idea that the only sure way to stop crime is with a shotgun and that the only way men should leave prison is in a pine 'box...
...At no time has the Farmer-Labor Party had control of the state legislature...
...But what are we to do with those offenders who have already arrived ? I believe in crime prevention just as I believe in preventive medicine...
...v . * Within each institution we must ramvtddafcxe the program as far as possible...
...FARMER-LABORITES TAX VICTORIES • THE occupation tax on iron ore, and the ore-royalties tax...
...The fine Progressive Party of Wisconsin, which was launched in 1935, has aided the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party in convincing the common people of the nation that independent political action is more practical for them than the "reward your friends and punish your enemies" method previously employed...
...Here is a paragraph from a speech I recently heard delivered to a large audience...
...Can my ears mistake the glad, glad summons of his bugle notes blown upon the thigh bone of a nmstodon...
...Gottfried Linsten, LieutenantGovernor...
...3. Adequate old age pensions and unemployment insurance...
...The Farmer-Labor Party also won control of the State House of Representatives, but not of the Senate, because members of that body were not up for re-election...
...We are not blind to the weaknesses of our prison and parole systems...
...i. Chain-store tax, designed to lessen the inequality which the small merchant suffers in the Ravage struggle that chain stores wage against him...
...GIVE US MELONS OR GIVE US DEATH...
...od old Brookings...
...Today, more than ever before, we are under the muzzles of the machine-gun school of criminology, the school that seeks to instill into the minds of the public the idea that all offenders are mad dogs, that America is swarming with millions of dangerous criminals who would slit one's throat at the slightest provocation, that our prisons are country clubs and prison officials "convict lovers," that our parole systems are hollow shams and that those who administer them are silly sentimentalists and sob-sisters...
...I do not intend to give up my wmmmmt conviction, my firm faith that men and women can and will straighten out under the right kind of prison and parole program, because of each cheap claptrap expressions as "sob-sisters and convictlovers...
...that the average man who receives a life sentence for murder spends only about ten years behind, bars, and that the average sentence served by a person convicted of murder is only sixty-one months...
...This faithful adherence of Farmer-Labor leaders to the principles of democratic government has earned the overwhelming support of many -people who have no intention of becoming •party members...
...It is wasteful, for example, to clutter up an elaborate vocational training program, with mental defectives...
...I cannot list here the political record of six years...
...Such ottaeks do more than retard ear efforts...
...j ' But we point to the striking progress that has been made in the last thirty-five years in American penology as evidence of what could be done more rapidly if those who control the purse s strings had more vision...
...Its death was statistically demonstrated just before the elections in the fall of 1936, but, none the less, it came through the elections with an even larger ¦ number of elected candidates...
...Governor Olson vetoed •Ufa a tax bill in 1935...
...Farmer-Labor administrations since 1933 have led the way in the state in forcing conservative State Senators to recognize the relief needs of drought-stricken farmers and unemployed city workers...
...I for one do not intend to go hack an them...
...Close upon this inspiring troop fresh from the troglodytiah «JJ«s, comes another led by that gallant warrior for the good ?Ujnngle, ?*pf...
...Governor Benson recently .refused to license such notorious anti-labor agencies as the Pinkerton Detective Agency...
...PauL Like other political parties, the Farmer-Labor Party came into existence as a result of economic necessity...
...This will help to keep money in the pocket of the common man...
...JVofs Crusade for Virtue and Melons^ Against Wicked Surplus Profits Tax By CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL w i-AMID the dust and din of the battle where the noble hosts of *~the Right-Minded contend for Privilege, Melons and Profits against the vile hordes of Moscow and vicinity, whose is this majestic form that rears itself against the ranks of Sin and Sebversiou...
Vol. 20 • December 1937 • No. 51
