200 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



partisan League in North Dakota. This association was the spiritual and 

 organic successor of the Good Government League, the earlier short-lived 

 opponent of the League. The I.V.A. was organized in the summer of 

 1918 in Griggs and Steele counties for the supposed purpose of studying 

 the problems of government. Work began at Cooperstown on December 

 9, 1918, and the organization was placed on a permanent basis at a con- 

 ference held in Bismarck in January, 1919. Toward the close of the legis- 

 lative session, another state-wide conference was held; an executive com- 

 mittee was appointed, and the decision was made to place eleven of the 

 measures passed by the legislature up to the people for a referendum vote. 

 Seven of the measures were to be voted upon without change, while altera- 

 tions were proposed for the other four. The association also organized 

 campaign communities in forty-three of the fifty-three counties. 39 



In the elections of 1920, the Independent Voters' Association circulated 

 a "voters' guide," sponsored chiefly by a Republican-Democratic-I.V.A. 

 joint campaign committee that supported the anti-Townley candidates. 40 

 Party lines were eliminated as far as possible; independent Republicans 

 and Democrats were asked to bury the hatchet for the time being to 

 present a "compact front against the particular brand of politics" known 

 as "Townleyism." The association pledged itself "to the practising of 

 greater economy, home rule by home people, loyalty to the state and 

 nation, strict enforcement laws, stabilizing of credit and an equitable 

 distribution of the tax burden by taxing all property wherever it is found 

 in proportion to its value." Changes were proposed in the laws governing 

 the Bank of North Dakota to "make it impossible not only to misuse the 

 funds on deposit . . . but also to use the bank as a political club over political 

 enemies and as a means to reward political friends." It demanded a "fair 

 and unbiased examination of the bank's affairs by elected officials" ; limita- 

 tion of "real estate mortgage loans by the Bank of North Dakota to actual 

 farmer residents"; and passage of legislation authorizing "the publication 

 of all private legal notices affecting local property and people and their 

 interests, in local papers thus giving the citizens of every country town 



39. Independent Voters' Association, Townleyism's Future in North Dakota 

 (Fargo, N. Dak., 1919), p. 65. 



40. Independent Voters' Association, Voters' Guide (Fargo, N. Dak., 1919), pp. 

 3-10. 



