CHAPTER XII 



THE FIRST VICTORY 



IN a short time Townley had 10 automo- 

 biles rolling through the state, with can- 

 vassers inside of them taking subscriptions 

 and enlisting members; then 20, then 40, and 

 then CO. He bought machines, ran in debt 

 for them, chartered them, borrowed them. 

 Steadily the figures of membership went up. 

 By July he had 10,000, and when in Septem- 

 ber the League's newspaper, The Nonpartisan 

 Leader, made its first appearance, it had 

 22,000 subscribers, every one of them a mem- 

 ber of the League. 



It was about this time that the old-school 

 politicians of the state woke up to the real 

 nature of the work in hand. After all, some 

 advantages pertain to obscurity. Townley? 

 Townley? AVho in the devil is Townley? the 

 machine-leaders had said when they heard 

 vague reports about a new organization slowly 

 forming in the state. Nothing was more famil- 

 iar than farmer organizations; the junk-heap 

 was littered with their remains. One more 



0:3 



