THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



2. The railroad rate bill directly menaced 

 the most powerful railroad companies of the 

 United States; companies accustomed for 

 many years to unquestioned political domina- 

 tion in the Northwest, companies also directly 

 linked with the great packing-house combi- 

 nations, the greatest banks in Chicago and 

 New York, and the interests that were once 

 called the final arbiters of national destiny. 



3. The proposal that the state should own 

 its elevators struck directly at the great and 

 profitable business of handling grain, erected 

 through so many years around the Minne- 

 apolis Chamber of Commerce. This naturally 

 involved an assault upon the profits and 

 prosperity of the Minneapolis banks, linked 

 as before said to the greatest banks in the 

 country; linked also to the great and not 

 always apparent speculative Interests in the 

 grain business that centered in the Chicago 

 Board of Trade, involved the Armours and 

 other packing Interests, and was linked once 

 more to railroads, banks, and insurance 

 companies. 



4. The proposal that the state should build 

 and operate flour-mills was an ominous blow 

 at the great flour-milling Interests of Minne- 

 apolis, the greatest of their kind, whose mills 

 rolled forth a daily total of eighty thousand 

 barrels of flour, and fed an appreciable part 

 of the world. 



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