HOW ONE FARMER WAS RUINED 



solutely to do the bidding of those that had 

 put them in. The railroads, the "line" ele- 

 vators, the great grain and milling companies, 

 the banks, maintained a political organization 

 that ruled the state like a satrapy. 



To think of combating this condition by 

 forming a third party was idle dreaming. 

 That experiment would have in North Dakota 

 always the result it had so far had; at the end 

 of it the System would be the stronger and 

 the farmer's lot the worse. Besides, it was a 

 fiction that North Dakota or any other state 

 or the United States was governed by a party. 

 The party was only a name. State and coun- 

 try were governed by influences that com- 

 bined back of the parties, so that no matter 

 which party might win at the polls the real 

 control would be the same. The secret of 

 power lay in that party control. In North 

 Dakota the railroads, the elevator companies, 

 the millers, and the banks had exercised that 

 control by directing the state conventions so 

 long as these made up the party tickets, and 

 then by dominating the primaries when these 

 supplanted the conventions under the newer 

 laws. The heart of the whole great machine 

 was the control of the primary; the primary 

 selected the candidate, and if the candidate 

 was of the Interests' picking he would do the 

 Interests' will in office always, unquestion- 

 ingly, whatever that will might be. 



14 1^ 



