5 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



ment of banking; and permitting cities to own and operate such public 

 utilities as street railways, telephones, water works, gas works, and electric 

 light, heat, and power works. He had little to do, however, with the exten- 

 sion of the direct primary into Minnesota. Like many another state, Minne- 

 sota had long made some effort to control the party primaries through 

 which delegates to conventions were chosen, but it took more advanced 

 ground when, as early as 1899, its legislature passed an act for the use of 

 the direct primary in Hennepin County only as a substitute for the cus- 

 tomary caucus and convention nominations for city, county, judicial, 

 school, and similarly nonpolitical offices. Two years later this act was ex- 

 tended to the entire state, thus making Minnesota the first state in the 

 Union to require the universal, although strictly limited, use of the direct 

 primary. But it was not until 1912, after the direct primary movement 

 had gathered irresistible momentum, that the Minnesota legislature got 

 around to the enactment of a direct primary law equally applicable to 

 all state offices. 51 



In Missouri the reform governor was Joseph W. Folk. Unlike La Fol- 

 lette, Cummins, and Johnson, who rose to prominence mainly through 

 rural support, Folk first made his name known as the chief law-enforce- 

 ment officer of a large city, St. Louis. In this capacity, during the years 

 1901-2, he exposed and prosecuted a group of "boodlers," including the 

 city boss, whose deals with corrupt business interests had cost St. Louis 

 taxpayers princely sums. Twelve of the culprits were convicted and sent 

 to jail. Folk then turned his attention to exposing grafting members of 

 the state legislature and the state administration. The shocking condi- 

 tions he revealed blasted numerous reputations and made Folk the logical 

 candidate of the Democratic party, to which he belonged, for the gover- 

 norship in 1904. Nominated less by the support of the cities, where fright- 

 ened bosses did all they could to defeat him, than by the rural counties, 

 where the spirit of reform was strong, he won the election handily in spite 

 of the fact that the Republicans carried the state in the voting for Presi- 

 dent and for every other state office except governor. 52 



During his four years in office Folk used the executive power so erfec- 



51. Folwell, Minnesota, III, 287; IV, 366. 



52. Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities (New York, 1904), pp. 101-43, an( * 

 The Struggle for Selj-Government (New York, 1906), pp. 1-39. 



