344 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



a combination of these two elements would make itself felt throughout 

 the nation." 8 



In the Minnesota primaries of 1918, trade unionists supported the Non- 

 partisan League. In its convention that year the Minnesota Federation of 

 Labor resolved to call a farmer-labor conference, which met and nomi- 

 nated candidates for governor, attorney general, and railroad and ware- 

 house commissioner. Though defeated, the Farmer-Labor party officially 

 was established as the second party in the state. 4 



Once the war was over, hopes for a national third party in 1920 mounted. 

 One of the first moves in this direction was in the forming in 1919 of the 

 American Labor party, which was to be rechristened the Farmer-Labor 

 party. Others interested in a new party included the Committee of Forty- 

 Eight, the American party of Texas, the Single Tax party, the Nonpartisan 

 League, the American Constitutional League, the Private Soldiers and 

 Sailors League, and the Chicago Federation of Labor. But the militant 

 trade-unionist element, which succeeded in adopting a program for 

 nationalization, alienated most of the early supporters. La Follette with- 

 drew from the new party because the platform it adopted was too radical; 

 the Forty-Eighters bolted the ranks for pretty much the same reason ; and 

 even Hearst's New Yorl^ American became cool to the point of suggesting 

 its disintegration when it became known that its first concern was not 

 "how to promote effective American opposition to foreign entangling 

 alliances." The convention in desperation had to turn to Parley Parker 

 Christensen of Utah, a nonentity, as presidential candidate. 5 



The Farmer-Labor party was doomed to defeat. It was faced with the 

 usual difficulties that normally confronted third parties. It lacked finances 

 and organization. Few farmers supported it. La Follette, the Socialists, the 

 Leaguers, and others ignored it. To make matters worse, its standard 

 bearer was a colorless figure, his vote being far less than that of Eugene V. 

 Debs, the Socialist, who polled 900,000 votes. In Minnesota, South Dakota, 

 and far-off Washington the Farmer-Labor party claimed second place. 



3. Quoted in Eleanor Taylor, "Farmer and Factory-Hand," Survey, XXXVIII 

 (September 29, 1917), p. 565. 



4. American Labor Yearboo^, 1919-20 (New York, 1920), p. 289; Minnesota 

 Farmer-Labor Convention, Proceedings, 1923 (St. Paul), pp. 23-24. 



5. "Birth of the Farmer-Labor Party," Literary Digest, LXVI (July 24, 1920), 

 p. 12. 



