NORTH DAKOTA 



426S 



NORTH DAKOTA 



opposed the Liberal press and Ministry and 

 was influential in causing the resignation of the 

 Minister of War, the ultimate fall of the Lib- 

 eral and Coalition governments and the ap- 

 pointment of Lloyd George as Prime Minister 

 in December, 1916. 



Alfred Harmsworth was the son of a barris- 

 ter of Chapelizod, in Dublin County. Without 

 influence or friends he began his journalistic 

 career as a '' free-lance" writer on the London 

 press. He became the proprietor of a weekly 

 journal called Answers and, later, of the Eve- 

 ning News and Daily Mail, and his manage- 

 ment of these papers marked a new era in Eng- 

 lish journalism. In 1908 he became chief owner 

 of The Times, England's greatest newspaper, 

 popularly called "The Thunderer." In 1904 he 

 was created a baronet and in 1905 was made 

 Baron of the Isle of Thanet. Shrewd, impulsive, 



self-confident, indifferent to the conventions of 

 British life, he has aggressively sustained radi- 

 cal policies. 



He owns more daily and weekly newspapers 

 and magazines than any other man in the 

 world. To supply these he has built large pa- 

 per mills in Labrador with a capacity of nearly 

 100,000 tons of print paper a year. These he 

 offered to loan to American publishers in 1917, 

 during the War of the Nations, when the Ameri- 

 can paper supply was threatened and prices 

 were abnormally high. 



In June, 1917, Lord Northcliffe was appointed 

 as the head of the British War Commission in 

 the United States. Such a body was needed to 

 coordinate activities relating to the conduct of 

 the war, particularly in the matter of supplies 

 for the allied cause. The Commission was 

 charged with no political power. 



ORTH DAKOTA, one of the north- 

 central states of the American Union, a prairie 

 state lying on the Canadian frontier and having 

 the largest wheat fields in the United States. 

 Its name, meaning allies, is derived from that 

 of the Indian nation, or Sioux Confederation, 

 which inhabited the region now comprising 

 North Dakota and the adjacent states. The 

 goldenrod is the state flower. 



Size and Location. Having an area of 70,837 

 square miles, of which 654 square miles are 

 water, North Dakota ranks sixteenth in size 

 among the states. Its area is 780 square miles 

 greater than that of Oklahoma and about one- 

 fifth that of British Columbia. The state is 

 rectangular in shape, its length from east to 

 west being 150 miles greater than its width 

 from north to south, and with the exception 

 of the east border with Minnesota, which is 

 formed by the Red River, its boundaries are 

 straight lines. 



The People. As in all of the newly-developed 

 Western states, the number of inhabitants in 

 North Dakota is comparatively small, for the 

 average number of people is only about ten 

 per square mile. In 1910, when it had 577,056 



inhabitants, North Dakota ranked thirty-sev- 

 enth in population among the states. More 

 than one-fifth are of foreign birth, chiefly Nor- 

 wegian, Russian, Canadian and German. In 

 1915 there were 8,710 Indians confined in the 

 reservations of the state. In 1910 Fargo and 

 Grand Forks were the only cities with over 

 8,000 inhabitants. The other principal cities 

 are: Bismarck, the capital.; Valley City, Minot, 

 Devils Lake, Jamestown and Mandan. The 

 population of the state on January 1, 1917, was 

 estimated at 752,260. 



The Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches 

 have the largest memberships. Other denomi- 

 nations of importance are the Methodists, Pres- 

 byterians, Congregationalists and Baptists. 



Education. The excellence of North Da- 

 kota's school system is seen in the state's low 

 illiteracy, which averages only 3.1 per cent. At 

 the head of the public schools are the superin- 

 tendent of public instruction and the state 

 board of education. County schools are ad- 

 ministered by county superintendents. In 1913 

 inspectors of high schools and rural, graded 

 and consolidated schools were appointed; the 

 state appropriations for schools were increased, 



