New York Times
FARGO, TOO, MAY BAR
PEOPLE’S COUNCIL.
Pacifists, Urged by North Dakota Governor, Decided Yesterday to Go There.
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AFTER MINNESOTA REBUFF
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But the City Authorities Are Very Likely to Forbid Any Sessions There.
Following the announcement by Governor Burnquist of Minnesota that the People’s Council could not hold its peace gathering in that State, it was announced from the headquarters of the organization, 70 Fifth Avenue, last night that the convention would meet in Fargo, N.D., on next Saturday, the date it was scheduled to be opened in Minneapolis. The Council received this telegram from Governor Frazier of North Dakota yesterday:
“The People’s Council of America on Democracy and Peace will be guaranteed their constitutional rights in North Dakota. We are loyal and patriotic, and believe in freedom of speech for all the people.”
The Council accepted the invitation and announced that a special train bearing the New York pacifist delegates would leave Weehawken for Fargo at 2:30 o’clock this afternoon. The New York delegation includes Morris Hillquitt, Dr. J. L. Magnes, and Professor H. W. L Dana of Columbia University.
The Conference Committee in charge of the patriotic rival convention which was to have been held in Minneapolis next week were nonplused more or less by the action of the Minnesota Governor. There was some consideration of a proposal to follow the pacifists, wherever they went, but a statement was issued last night from the committee’s headquarters at 280 Broadway, saying that the labor loyalty convention would be opened in Minneapolis on Sept. 5, as announced.
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FARGO, N. D., Aug. 29. — A special meeting of the Board of Commissioners will be called tomorrow to decide what action, if any, will be taken to prevent the holing of the People’s Council of America on Democracy and Peace National Convention here as forecast by that organization.
Governor Frazier of North Dakota today sent a telegram to Louis P. Lochner, Executive Secretary of People’s Council, guaranteeing them “their constitutional rights in North Dakota,” but Mayor Stein said tonight:
“As far as I am concerned they don’t have to come here, for the people of Fargo showed last night when they broke up a peace meeting that they are not in favor of such gatherings. Personally, I think it would be a mistake to have them hold their meeting here, and I am afraid serious disorders would result.”
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Minneapolis , Minn., Aug. 29. — Louis P. Lochner, Secretary of the People’s Council of America, sent a telegram today to President Wilson protesting against the action of Governor Burnquist in issuing an order yesterday prohibiting the holding of a national conference here next week for the announced purpose of discussing peace.
It was said at the council’s headquarters here that information had been received indicating that the Governors of North Dakota and Wisconsin would permit the meeting to be held in their states.
Mr. Lochner’s telegram to the President also appealed for aid, and asked if there was “no way in which the right to free speech and peace assembly could be secured.”
