NONPARTISAN LEAGUE: BEGINNINGS 165 



The nomination of Lynn Frazier for governor represented an ingenious 

 piece of politics, for, according to his sponsors, he was "a plain farmer, 

 with no political record which they could misrepresent." il0 At the time 

 of his nomination Frazier was forty-one years old. He was a native Amer- 

 ican and a farmer "not an imitation farmer nor a town farmer, either," 

 for he worked the land his father had been farming since 1881. Frazier, 

 like Townley, was born in Minnesota, his parents moving to Pembina 

 County, Dakota Territory, in 1881. There the father built a sod house, 

 and when Frazier graduated from high school at the age of seventeen, 

 he and his brother took up the task of running the farm, their father 

 having died the previous year. Having developed an ambition to become 

 a professional man, Frazier taught school for two years and saved enough 

 money to enter the Mayville Normal School. He completed his course in 

 one year, graduating in 1895 with the school's first class. After teaching 

 school for another two years, Frazier entered the University of North 

 Dakota at Grand Forks. There he displayed qualities as a student and an 

 athlete, his main sport being football. Frazier was the "square blocky 

 type, ideal for a center in those days of driving line rushes." He was foot- 

 ball captain for two years and graduated in 1901 with a good scholastic 

 record and many honors bestowed upon him by his classmates. Mean- 

 while, the brother in charge of the family farm had died, and consequently 

 Frazier had to give up all ideas of a profession and return to the "prosaic 

 work of being a farmer." '' 



If Townley and Lemke were unaware of the wisdom of their choice 

 of Frazier as the "political pontiff" of the League, they were soon con- 

 vinced of it. Upon his nomination Frazier was immediately labeled the 

 "modern Cincinnatus" who was "called from the plow to head his peo- 

 ple and to govern a great commonwealth." 12 He was "blessed by the 

 substantial figure and confident pose of a statesman. He looked like a 

 bishop. But Farmer Frazier was at that time untrained and inexperienced 

 as a public speaker." Townley and Lemke then assigned him the job of 

 meeting the farmers and selling himself with his "wholesomeness and un- 

 assumed solidity." Public meetings were widely advertised and usually 



50. Where the People Rule (n.p., n.d.), p. 6 [pamphlet]. 



51. Non-partisan Leader, April 6, 1916, pp. 3, 5, 6. 



52. Ibid., April 27, 1916, p. 7. 



