17 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



itself, but only to its leaders and candidates. 74 What became of the money 

 that the League collected was a question frequently asked by its adver- 

 saries. 70 Nonpartisan leaders were dubbed as "red Socialists," "expert 

 hypnotists," "gold brick vendors," "world revolutionaries," "atheists," 

 "I.W.W.'s," "dynamiters," "free lovers," "carpetbaggers," "home wreck- 

 ers," "Huns," "traitors," "noisemakers," "theorists," "dilettantes," "dream- 

 ers," "beautiful phrasemakers," "swivel-chair reformers," "mild-eyed 

 poets," "sweet-mouthed flatterers," "mountebanks," "confidence men," 

 "anarchists," "charlatans," "agitators," and "visionaries." 76 



The charge was advanced that North Dakota would become an 

 "agrarian dictatorship." It was claimed that the League was a "virulent 

 infection . . . carrying death dealing germs into the vitals of our state. . . . 

 With progress stopped industrial and commercial stagnation will ensue 

 and the human family will deteriorate like angle worms in a tin can with 

 too little dirt to cover or feed them." It was also charged that the program 

 would make North Dakota a "mecca for Ne'er-Do- Wells" and thus open 

 its doors to the "thriftless," "shiftless," and criminal. 77 Had the opposition 

 charged that the League was an organization in which the few decide 

 and the many follow, it would have made a more pointed criticism. 78 



The first real test of opposition to the League program was destined to 

 come from the North Dakota senate. Of the total of 49 senators, 24 were 

 holdovers from the previous session; and of the 24 newly elected, 18 were 

 endorsed by the League, 14 being Republicans and 4 Democrats. In the 

 lower house the strength of the League was impressive, 81 being elected 

 by the League and 32 by the opposition. 79 



74. Bacon, A Warning to the Farmer, p. 25. 



75. Thomason, The Beginning and the End of the Nonpartisan League, p. 185; 

 Charles Merz, "The Nonpartisan League," New Republic, XXII (May 12, 1920), 

 pp. 333-38; Maxwell, The Nonpartisan League from the Inside, pp. 58, 62, 71; 

 Gillette, in Survey, XLI (March, 1919), p. 755. 



76. Independent Voters' Association, Townleyism's Future in North Dakota 

 (Fargo, N. Dak., 1919), pp. 7, 12, and Voters' Guide (Fargo, 1920), p. 6; Non- 

 partisan Leader, February 8, 1917, p. 15; Maxwell, The Nonpartisan League from 

 the Inside, p. 58; Daily Journal Press (St. Cloud, Minn.), October n, 1919; Thoma- 

 son, The Beginning and the End of the Nonpartisan League, pp. 113, 185, 192, 200; 

 Trade Unionism and Townleyism (n.p., n.d.) [leaflet]. 



77. Independent Voters' Association, Voters' Guide, pp. 5, 9, n. 



78. Non-partisan Leader, March 9, 1916, p. 2. 



79. Ibid., November 30, 1916, pp. 5, 12. 



