*9 2 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



that "we should have some of your time to aid in working this out" and 

 described the Howe plan as "a very comprehensive outline for work; I 

 think more comprehensive than we would care to tackle at this time." 21 

 League officials, according to Le Sueur, inquired "when and how much 

 time you can give us ... what we want of Mr. Frederic C. Howe is 

 that he recognize the fact that ... he is one man in the United States who 

 can and ought to be of tremendous service in carrying out the practical 

 program that we are driving at. ... Mr. Townley has assured me that 

 even if we have to sell our hides to cover the cost it must and will be 

 covered and tell you to come." 22 



Despite the efforts made to obtain the aid of Howe, it became quite 

 apparent in subsequent correspondence that he had become involved in 

 other reform projects, and consequently was not instrumental in drawing 

 up the final plans for the League's industrial program. Generally speak- 

 ing, the legislation of the League was framed by attorneys and others in its 

 employ. These men acted in the same capacity as did the legislative rep- 

 resentatives of the Canadian government in the provinces. The men en- 

 gaged in shaping the legal and economic phases of the industrial pro- 

 gram were W. G. Roylance, a former college professor; William Lemke 

 and W. A. Day of the legal stafT of the League; A. C. Townley; and Wal- 

 ter Thomas Mills of California, a League lecturer. 23 



The League's industrial program was passed in its entirety by the 1919 

 legislature. The legislation provided for the establishment of an indus- 

 trial commission to head the state industries ; the organization of the Bank 

 of North Dakota to finance the industries; the construction of a mill and 

 elevator and cheaper homes for farmers and laborers; compulsory state 

 hail insurance; 24 authorization for an experimental creamery; exemption 

 of all improvements from the general property tax ; the issuance of ten mil- 

 lion dollars in bonds for rural-credit loans, plus bonds for financing the 

 state bank and the state mill and elevator. The industrial commission, 

 the all-important agency empowered to direct the entire industrial pro- 

 gram (with the exception of the hail insurance plan), was a body com- 



21. Le Sueur to Howe, July 8, 1918. 



22. Le Sueur to Howe, July 23, 1919. 



23. Cooke, "The North Dakota Industrial Program," p. 18. 



24. See Gilbert W. Cooke, "North Dakota Hail Insurance, 1911-36," Journal of 

 Business, XI (1938), pp. 277-307. 



