AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



one hand and the good relations existing between Union officials and the 

 New Dealers on the other. 



One of the most spectacular of farmers' political movements was the 

 Nonpartisan League, which was organized in North Dakota in 1915. Its 

 efforts, like those of its contemporaries, were facilitated considerably by 

 the earlier activities of the Grange, the Farmers' Alliance, the American 

 Society of Equity, and, hard as it may be for some to believe, by the 

 Socialist party of North Dakota. The League placed considerable emphasis 

 on the fact that the farmers of the state comprised the overwhelming 

 majority of the population; hence they were entitled to a dominant in- 

 fluence in the state government. It argued that state ownership of ware- 

 houses, terminal facilities, banking institutions, and other agencies vital to 

 the farmers had more to offer them than did an antiquated marketing 

 system which catered to selfish, sordid interests or the cooperative market- 

 ing reforms of the Equity. 



The League, by a strange blending of promotional techniques and 

 state ownership, hoped to build a new political movement based on 

 public ownership that was devoid of the Socialist label. It proceeded on 

 the assumption that cooperative marketing and buying in themselves 

 would never defeat the grain and milling trust, but that a farmer-con- 

 trolled government could if it erected a state-owned industry on a scale 

 that was big enough to have an effect on the market price. 



The League program was helped considerably by the prosperity of the 

 war and prewar years which made it possible for the farmers to pay dues, 

 and also by the fact that its leaders had amassed one of the most artful 

 groups of radical writers, speakers, and publicists that the nation had 

 ever seen. As a result, the League had no sooner swept through North 

 Dakota like a prairie fire than it began to look for new territory to conquer. 



By 1918 the League was in complete control of the government of 

 North Dakota, and the next year its industrial program, calling for state- 

 owned warehouses, elevators, banks, mills, and other agencies, was enacted 

 into law. Plans were also announced for extending this program into 

 Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Montana, and other states, but nothing 

 substantial materialized. In 1920 a League-endorsed slate was elected in 

 Wisconsin, but it was well known that this was nothing more than the 

 La Follette Progressives riding into office under a new name. Only in 



