THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



farmers desired a co-operative elevator the 

 Equity sent to the spot and built one, and 

 thereafter retained it under its own manage- 

 ment that it might know there was no chance 

 for these devices. 



6. To hamper, harass, undermine, dis- 

 credit, and if possible destroy the co-operative 

 societies wherever they appeared. 



This is a long story and not reassuring. 

 The principal sufferer from these tactics has 

 been the Equity, which may be said to have 

 survived and advanced only by reason of the 

 sheer dogged tenacity of a handful of aroused 

 Americans that would not know when they 

 were beaten. The career of the Equity has 

 been one record of incessant fighting. It has 

 been dragged into court on a variety of 

 charges, all subsequently proved to be without 

 foundation, attacked through the press and 

 attacked through the banks. More than once 

 it has seemed to be on the point of extinction 

 and still it has gone on growing in strength 

 and the scope of its operations. From the 

 long list of its struggles for the right to live 

 I will cite one that will serve as an illustration 

 for the rest. 



In 1911 it organized the Equity Co-opera- 

 tive Exchange, undismayed by the fate of 

 the Minnesota farmers' experiment, and be- 

 gan to try to do business by receiving grain 

 from the growers and selling it on the Minne- 



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