EXPANSION AND DECLINE 195 



maintained that its members could not do full justice to all their respon- 

 sibilities. It was impossible for the commission to make contracts for 

 longer than two years, and the political character of the administration 

 would tempt it "to lay the blame for any failure on the hired managers." 

 As set up, the commission could discharge "at will with or without cause," 

 the result being the erection of "a powerful political machine" and "the 

 attendant evils of the spoils system, bureaucracy, and incompetency." 

 For example, the majority of the industrial commission, which operated 

 the bank, also comprised the banking board, to which reports of the bank's 

 activities had to be made. 29 



The greatest opposition to the League came from the traditional foes of 

 the organization, who capitalized greatly on the arguments of Le Sueur. 

 First they resorted to the courts and finally to the press and the ballot 

 box. An injunction was obtained to prevent the floating of the bond issue, 

 but the state supreme court in Green v. Frazier held that the laws in ques- 

 tion provided "an ample and complete method for the payment of both 

 principal and interest of the bonds . . . and are in entire harmony with 

 the provision of Article 182 of the Constitution as amended. . . ." In the 

 case of Langer v. Hall, the court decided that the bonded indebtedness of 

 the state could be increased, declaring that "the state could issue $2,000,000 

 of bonds in excess of the existing debt and that they would be within the 

 debt limit." In Sargent County v. State of North Dakota, the court held 

 that "the Bank of North Dakota, as an agency of the sovereign power 

 engaged in the banking business, has a distinct status separate and apart 

 from the state itself; this status permits it to function as a distinct and 

 separate agency of the sovereign power." 5to Another suit filed in the fed- 

 eral district court, the suit of the "forty-two taxpayers," charged that the 

 industrial program was a deprivation of their property rights under the 

 Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution. The court, presided 

 over by Judge Charles F. Amidon, supposedly a League sympathizer, held 

 that the industrial program was not a deprivation of property rights. 81 



29. Ibid., pp. 194-95. See also the Grand For\s Herald, December 30, 1919; Oscar 

 Anderson to Le Sueur, December 26, 1920; Wallace Campbell to Le Sueur, December 

 24, 1920. 



30. Quoted in Cooke, "The North Dakota Industrial Program," pp. 21-23. 



31. Ibid., p. 23. See also Scott v. Frazier, 258 Fed. Rep. 676 (1919), and Hugh E. 



