EXPANSION AND DECLINE 187 



with any party-affiliation difficulties in endorsing its candidates. The 

 League did no work in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth, the three large 

 cities of Minnesota, for it endorsed no candidates from city districts. 4 



The opponents of Lindbergh concentrated on the election of J. A. A. 

 Burnquist as the Republican candidate for governor. The candidacy of 

 Fred Wheaton, the Democrat, never personally a strong contender, was 

 further weakened by the open endorsement of Burnquist by several 

 prominent Democrats and also by the support given the Republicans from 

 several bipartisan anti-League organizations. Of the latter, the most promi- 

 nent was the America First association, formed in the summer of 1917. 

 During the last week of May and the first week of June, the newspapers 

 of the Twin Cities carried daily appeals to the Democrats to enter the 

 Republican primaries "to save the State from Socialism," and with some 

 degree of success. Old party lines already had given way to "a pro-League 

 and anti-League grouping." Lindbergh had written a book "whose 

 bungling expressions on the war came home to roost . . . , when published 

 by the opposition during the campaign." He was defeated in the pri- 

 maries but received 150,000 votes, or three times the number of members 

 the League had in Minnesota at the time. 5 The results of bipartisan voting 

 were obvious. The Democrats, who had polled 93,112 votes in 1916, cast 

 only 32,649 votes in the primaries, while the Republicans, who never had 

 tallied more than 200,000 votes in the primaries, this time received 

 349,951. With the aid of labor the League nominated 80 out of 130 mem- 

 bers to the lower house, and 42 out of 67 members to the senate. The 

 League carried 30 counties, mainly those along the North Dakota border. 6 



The defeat of Lindbergh gave the third-party advocates within the 

 League their opportunity, for the elements favoring such an alignment 

 had gathered strength. Nominating petitions were circulated to place 

 candidates in the general elections on a "farmer-labor" ticket. 7 Only three 



4. Kingsley, "Recent Variations from the Two-Party System," p. 29. 



5. Austin P. Haines, "The Nonpartisan League and the Loyalty Issue," New 

 Republic, XVI (September 14, 1918), p. 188; Herbert E. Gaston, The Nonpartisan 

 League (New York, 1920), p. 261. 



6. Kingsley, "Recent Variations from the Two-Party System," pp. 30-31; Non- 

 partisan Leader, July 29, 1918, p. 2. 



7. Ray McKaig, "The Nonpartisan League and Its Independent Press," Public, 

 XXII (January 4, 1919), p. 13. 



