196 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



This decision was frequently cited as legal evidence that the League pro- 

 gram was constitutional. 



The failure to crush the League program by court action did not deter 

 the opposition from making preparations for the elections of 1920. 

 Dissension within the League provided the opposition with much-needed 

 ammunition and did the League irreparable damage. Among the rebelling 

 leaders were M. P. Johnson, former president of the North Dakota So- 

 ciety of Equity, and Theodore G. Nelson, "Two-bit Nelson" according 

 to his enemies, former president of the grain growers' department of 

 the American Society of Equity and an important factor in the early 

 activities of the Equity Cooperative Exchange. These Equity men had 

 been more interested in the cooperative movement than in the industrial 

 program of the League, but they were swept into the League columns by 

 the first flush of enthusiasm. Opposition organizations like the Good Gov- 

 ernment League, caricatured as the "Goo-Goo League" by League leaders, 

 and later the Independent Voters' Association furnished most of the op- 

 position in the general election of 1920 and especially in the recall elec- 

 tion of 1921. 



"The real revolt against the League's hierarchy came in 1919, when 

 the attorney general, William Langer, the state auditor, Carl Kositsky, 

 and the secretary of state, Thomas Hall, raised the standard of revolt. 

 All of these men had formerly been members of the League and had been 

 elected by its suffrage. Even since their rebellion they have never claimed 

 to be opposed to the organization as an organization, nor have they at 

 any time renounced their allegiance to its original industrial program." 32 

 Their two chief arguments of opposition were the mismanagement of 

 funds and the growing burdens of taxation. Once again it was demon- 

 strated that the League program was acceptable, even though its leader- 

 ship was not. 



Another unfortunate development from the standpoint of the League, 

 a development which was used by both sides for all that it was worth 

 politically, was the Scandinavian-American Bank case. 33 The Scandina- 



Willis, "North Dakota's Industrial Program and the Law," Survey, XLV (December 

 18, 1920), pp. 418-19. 



32. Andrew A. Bruce, Non-Partisan League (New York, 1921), p. 200. 



33. Gaston, The Nonpartisan League, pp. 303-12. 



