i88 



AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



candidates, however, were so listed. D. H. Evans a Populist, an old-time 

 Democrat, and a banker was named for governor, and Tom Davis and 

 Fred E. Tillquist, both insurgent Republicans, were put up for attorney 

 general and warehouse commissioner, respectively. But this eleventh-hour 

 farmer-labor party failed. League nominees, who had claimed the majority 

 of the districts in the primaries, were defeated in the general election. 

 In the house the farmer-laborites mustered only 26 votes against 105 for 

 the opposition; in the senate about 15 out of 67 senators voted with them, 

 but of these the farmer-laborites had elected only io. 8 



One result of the League's defeats was the impression of its leaders with 

 the need for more effective organization. The drive for a larger member- 

 ship began shortly after the 1918 political campaign. Great emphasis was 

 also placed on the need for more effective cooperation between labor and 

 agriculture at the ballot box. In July, 1919, the Working People's Non- 

 partisan and Political League of Minnesota, which became the town and 

 city branch of the League, was organized, absorbing various trade unions 

 and other League sympathizers who were ineligible for membership in 

 "the farmers' league." 



In Nebraska, as in Minnesota, the League was given an unceremonious 

 reception. No candidates were put up for state executive offices, but at- 

 tempts were made to elect legislative and county officers. 9 Even the power- 

 ful Nebraska Farmers' Union had passed resolutions the year previous 

 strongly condemning the policies of the League. 10 One report had it that 

 a Nebraska organizer "was taken by an armed mob, in the dead of night, 

 to an island in the Platte River, where one end of a rope was tied around 

 his neck and the other thrown over the limb of a tree. He was given his 

 life only on his promise to sell his League automobile, give the money to 

 the Red Cross, and himself enlist in the United States army." 11 Suit was 

 brought against members of the state's council of defense, which had 

 ordered the League to cease organizing Nebraska and "had prohibited 

 it from holding a State convention for the purpose of nominating a State 



8. Kingsley, "Recent Variations from the Two-Party System," pp. 30-32. 



9. Frank G. Moorhead, "The Non-Partisan League in Politics," The Nation, CVII 

 (October 5, 1918), pp. 364-65. 



10. Nebraska Union Farmer (Omaha), August 8, 1917, p. i. 



11. Moorhead, in The Nation, CVII (October 5, 1918), p. 364. 



