5 2 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



and served two terms. 55 In North Dakota John Burke, a Democrat, was 

 the reform leader. With the dominant political party, the corporations, 

 and the leading newspapers of the state all against him, he was three times 

 elected governor by excellent majorities in 1906, 1908, and ipio. 56 In 

 Nebraska, the reform leadership was less personalized, but two progres- 

 sive Republicans, Norris Brown as attorney general and George L. Sheldon 

 as a member of the state senate, gave some direction to the movement. 

 Campaigning together in 1906 on a reform program, Brown went to the 

 United States Senate and Sheldon was elected governor. 57 In Illinois, 

 Charles S. Deneen, a Republican who held the governorship from 1905 

 to 1913, was certainly not a spotless reformer, but he at least worked 

 energetically to establish the direct primary. When the supreme court, 

 time after time, invalidated legislation designed to accomplish this end, he 

 stumped the state "county by county, and ward after ward" to secure a 

 law that the court would sustain. Only in 1912, on the fourth attempt, 

 was such a law enacted. 58 



The reforms inaugurated by the legislatures of these states of the Middle 

 West were by no means identical, but clearly marked trends are unmistak- 

 able. One type of legislation created, well in advance of most of the other 

 states of the Union, a direct primary system of making nominations for 

 office. This reform was fundamental, and throughout the western Middle 

 West it literally revolutionized state government. Nor was there in this 

 region any such backsliding and evasion as occurred in some of the eastern 

 states. The change had come to stay; candidates were at the mercy of pub- 

 lic opinion in a way in which they had never been before. Sometimes, but 

 not always, the direct primary was supplemented by plans for direct 

 legislation the initiative and referendum. Honesty in politics was fre- 

 quently sought by means of drastic antilobbying and corrupt practices 

 acts. Direct primaries for candidates for the United States Senate became 

 common, and in some instances a preferential vote, taken at the time of 



55. Wilcox, "Northwestern Radicalism," pp. 87-88. 



56. Ibid., p. 94. 



57. Albert Watkins, Illustrated History of Nebraska (3 vols., Lincoln, Nebr., 1905- 

 13), III, 277. 



58. Roy O. West, "Charles S. Deneen, 1863-1900," Journal of the Illinois State 

 Historical Society, XXXIV (March, 1914), p. n; StefTens, Struggle for Self-Govern- 

 ment, pp. 74-78. 



