THE LEAGUE AND THE WAR 



Therefore we pledge our adherence to these purposes, 

 we commend our President for his faithful statement 

 of the intentions which are in the hearts of the American 

 people, and we assure him and our fellow-citizens of 

 our unqualified support of our government in its war 

 efforts. 



It is, however, true enough that for months 

 after the declaration of war the majority of 

 the people of the Northwest remained in a 

 state of haze as to its real nature. In the 

 fall of 1917 Townley went to \Yashington 

 and conferred with the President, with George 

 Creel, chairman of the national Committee 

 on Public Information, and with others. He 

 came away with a clearer vision of the nature 

 of the issues involved and his first perception 

 that the life of democracy was at stake in 

 the world. Mr. Creel was one of the few 

 men in the government that saw that what 

 in the West had been stupidly called disloyalty 

 was nothing but lack of information. Else- 

 where it seems to have been taken for granted 

 that everybody knew everything without any 

 explanation. The Committee on Public In- 

 formation at once took up the task of en- 

 lightening those that had never considered 

 the causes of the war, and from that time on 

 there was no trouble, except with the actual 

 German and pro-German element, of which 

 North Dakota had no larger share than some 

 other states. 



17 243 



