THE STORY OF THE XOXPARTISAN LEAGUE 



another. The farmers at home were daily 

 growing more vindictive against the men that, 

 in the current phrase, had sold them out, and 

 it was back home that the legislators must 

 wend w r hen the session should be over. To 

 this, to the indefatigable zeal and good gen- 

 eralship of the reformers, and to the moral 

 influence of the fact that the state had voted 

 overwhelmingly for a certain policy and 

 twenty-eight men were conspiring to defeat 

 the will of the mass majority, we owe this 

 really extraordinary body of laws passed by 

 the Fifteenth General Assembly of North Da- 

 kota, January and February, 1917. Here are 

 some of them: 



1. Three laws to abolish three ancient abuses on the 

 part of the railroad monopoly. As I have related, one 

 of the potent methods by which the combination of 

 Interests fought the growth of co-operation in the 

 Northwest was by refusing or failing to supply cars to 

 co-operative elevators. The legislature passed a law 

 to compel railroads to furnish cars to all shippers alike. 

 I do not know anything more eloquent of the conditions 

 formerly prevailing in North Dakota: for observe 

 that to secure an act of such obvious justice a 

 political revolution was necessary. 



The next law wa,s of the same order and same origin 

 to compel railroads to furnish sites for elevators and 

 warehouses along their rights of way. AYith these two 

 weapons stricken from the hands of the combination, 

 the co-operative movement for the first time began to 

 have a fair chance to live. 



The third law, compelling railroads to furnish side- 

 is! u 



