166 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



held out of doors. Farmers drove miles to hear him. "He stood before 

 them, sunburned and baldheaded. His voice was firm and persuasive. He 

 spoke briefly and the tired farmers loved him." 53 



Townley and other League leaders emphasized the need for victory in 

 the primary election by painting lurid pictures of the consequences that 

 would follow the defeat of League candidates: 



If the farmers and their friends lose . . . North Dakota will be drained to the 

 limit of her ability to pay. Homesteads will be mortgaged and lost. As in the 

 past, horses, machinery and household goods will be sold under the hammer 

 and the tillers of the soil will be turned out of their homes. Merchants will go 

 broke because the farmers can not pay their store bill. Heavy mortgages, high 

 interest, low prices, will force long hours of toil. Wives, mothers and sisters will 

 work in the field. Children will be kept out of school summers to plow, seed 

 and harvest, and kept at home winters for lack of money to pay the way through 

 high school or college. All will be debt and drudgery. Mothers and fathers will 

 die from overwork and worry while yet they should be young. 



Meanwhile we will yield up tens of millions of the earnings of our wives and 

 daughters and mothers and fathers and brothers to the greedy masters of trade 

 and finance in the East millions that they do not need and can not use mil- 

 lions that should be spent in North Dakota to make happy and prosperous a 

 great people in a great state millions that should be spent by North Dakota 

 farmers with North Dakota business men to the greater advantage of both. 



All this as in the past // we lose. 5 * 



Frazier, despite his lack of political experience, displayed all the ear- 

 marks of one willing to learn; furthermore, there was something appeal- 

 ing about his inexperienced campaigning. "Public speaking like this is 

 out of my line, I must admit," he said. "I am not a politician, but I can 

 milk and slop hogs and fill the bill on the farm." 55 "[When told that] 

 I was chosen to lead the farmers' ticket to victory, I thought that they had 

 made a mistake." This approach appealed to the farmers, and the Non- 

 partisan Leader made much capital of the fact that his speeches were "un- 

 adorned with flourishes." 



A novelty of the campaign that caused amazement among the experi- 

 enced politicians was the chartering of a special train, the "Frazier 



53. Manahan, Trials of a Lawyer, pp. 221-22. 



54. Non-partisan Leader, June i, 1916, p. i. 



55. Ibid., April 13, 1916, p. 16. 



