THE STORY OF TIIE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



est fault of the League leaders was that they 

 did not from the beginning perceive that this 

 would be the case and put themselves upon 

 guard accordingly. 



This carelessness and the extreme rancor of 

 their enemies brought about the extraordinary 

 indictment of President Townley and another 

 in a remote corner of Minnesota for alleged 

 disloyal utterances. As this case is at the 

 moment pending before a state court it may 

 not properly be discussed here. But to those 

 that know the facts they bear a comment 

 that, it may be believed, will eventually be 

 apparent to the world. 1 



1 Grand Forks is a city of the state that is not usually deemed 

 friendly to the League. I find that a meeting held at Grand Forks 

 in the days when the League and its officers were most undergoing 

 attaek, passed (with only two dissenting voices, I am told) this 

 resolution: 



"We, two thousand citizens of North Dakota, in mass-meeting 

 assembled, this, the 30th day of March, 1917, at the auditorium in 

 Grand Forks, do hereby express our confidence in A. C. Townley, 

 president of the Nonpartisan League, in the management of said 

 organization; and we do hereby resent the misrepresentations and 

 falsehoods published in the press, especially The Grand Forks Herald 

 and The .\ormandcn, which press we believe to be controlled and 

 directed by large corporate interests within and without the state, 

 against A. (.'. Townley, and we wish to warn such press that any 

 insult tn Mr. Townley or the Nonpartisan League will be considered 

 a personal insult to all of us, and we earnestly request the people 

 of Grand Forks, and all the citizens of the state, to fully inform 

 themselves on the aims and purposes of this farmers' organization. 

 This we do for the good and welfare of all the people." 



