206 



AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



ment and consequently to his personal leadership; the rise of other farm 

 organizations that were helping divide and confuse the farmers of the 

 Northwest; and, to a lesser degree, the hostility of the Socialist party. 



Liberal and radical groups have had a notorious record of open hos- 

 tility and differences of opinion among themselves over the methods to 

 be used and the goals to be sought, the case of the Nonpartisan League 

 being no different in this respect. The League from the very beginning 

 was accused of being a Socialist organization, but the Socialist Party of 

 America had other ideas and expressed itself very clearly on the League 

 issue in a resolution adopted at the St. Louis convention in 1917. The 

 Socialist party repudiated any attempted affiliation with the League on 

 the ground that the latter was interested in acquiring political power for 

 a "certain division of the industrial class of the United States," while "the 

 historic mission of the Socialist Party was the emancipation of the 

 working class." State Socialist organizations were warned not "to fuse 

 or to compromise," and were urged to "maintain in the utmost possible 

 vigor the propaganda of Socialism, unadulterated by association of office 

 seekers. . . ." Finally, the Socialists believed : "The Social Revolution, not 

 political office, is the end and aim of the Socialist Party. No Compromise, 

 No Political Trading." 52 



Other basic arguments were advanced against the League. The Socialist 

 party was interested in the welfare of city people as well as that of the 

 farmers, but since the League consisted primarily of farm owners, the 

 interests of the League farmers were "in conflict with those of agricul- 

 tural workers and their actions in the long run must be dictated by their 

 interests." The League, in effect, it was reasoned, would be opposed to 

 state insurance for agricultural workers, to old-age and unemployment 

 insurance, to fixing maximum prices on farm products, and to the com- 

 pulsory sale of such produce. During the war, the Socialist party said, 

 League representatives in Congress succeeded in inserting minimum sale 

 prices for wheat in the Food Control Act so that the consumer would be 

 compelled to pay at least $2.00 per bushel for wheat. Victor Berger, the 

 Socialist congressman from Milwaukee, in a speech delivered in Minne- 

 apolis early in 1920, reminded his listeners: "Did the Nonpartisan League 

 by stealing the livery of the capitalist class [think] they could do some- 



52. A Political Guide for the Workers (Chicago, 1920), pp. 82-83. 



