SCHISMS AND INJUNCTIONS 



5. The Hail Insurance Act menaced the 

 business and profits of the insurance com- 

 panies linked with the banks that were linked 

 with the railroads and linked with the con- 

 trolling groups of Wall Street. 



6. The suggestion that the state might 

 print and furnish its own school text-books 

 was a menace to the business and profits of 

 the school-book trust, linked as the other In- 

 terests and in the same way to the controlling 

 groups. 



7. The laws instituting the State Income 

 Tax, State Inheritance Tax, Work-men's 

 Compensation for Injuries, the strict inspec- 

 tion of mines, although not without prece- 

 dent, undoubtedly aroused each its own ele- 

 ment of opposition that was drawn now to 

 the general assault. For it was felt in all of 

 these menaced quarters that if the League's 

 innovations should be sustained in North 

 Dakota they would be adopted within a short 

 time in other states, and no man might foresee 

 how far the reform might go nor what pro- 

 found changes it might achieve. 



Two incidents will illustrate the fierceness 

 of the contest and the unfairness with which 

 it was waged. In the session of the Sixteenth 

 or Farmers' General Assembly a member of 

 the House introduced a bill, regarded by all 

 his conferees as a stupid and silly joke, declar- 

 ing that all returned soldiers from the war 



285 



