THE LEAGUE AND THE WAR 



old political reporter, the membership dues 

 continued to be paid without a murmur from 

 the rank and file. The annual tax, once nine 

 dollars a year, became sixteen dollars for an 

 "election bienniuin," or election period of 

 two years, and there went with it now only 

 a subscription to the League's organ, in some 

 states still in embryo. 



A year after that first election in which the 

 League had swept North Dakota there were 

 20,000 more Leaguers in that state and 40,000 

 outside of it. In two years the total member- 

 ship had reached 150,000, fought at all points 

 and w r ith desperate ingenuity by the threat- 

 ened Interests in eleven Northwestern states. 

 This in spite of the war and the use of the war 

 situation in ways I am now to tell about, to 

 embarrass, to check, or to ruin the movement. 



All persons familiar with the true nature of 

 the Great War had been aware from the first 

 that the United States could not keep out of 

 the conflict. In North Dakota men had been 

 so absorbed in the local struggle they had 

 never once looked out-of-doors to judge of 

 the great fight and what it meant. I have 

 said the League made grave errors. One of 

 them was about the war. League leaders did 

 not understand what was involved therein. 

 The fault was their own and they paid for it ; 

 they might have understood it if they had 

 taken the trouble to look and to study. There 



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