THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



free red man used to start every fall. One 

 produced the power wherewith to grind wheat, 

 and the other the wheat to be ground, and the 

 two erected the market-place that now over- 

 shadows the grain-growing world. 



As soon as white men came to this part 

 of the world and began to plant it they began 

 also to make use of the enormous motive 

 power of the Falls. After a few years a com- 

 pany of them bought that power outright. 

 This was the initial error from which have 

 come mischiefs uncountable. The Falls were 

 in a navigable stream, the stream was the 

 public's highway, the whole of the stream 

 and the attributes thereof should have re- 

 mained a public possession, and if they had 

 so remained the grain story of the Northwest 

 would have been very different and infinitely 

 more cheerful. 



The new owners of the public's water-power 

 were flour-millers. They built mills at the 

 Falls, the mills attracted wheat to Minne- 

 apolis, the burned-over prairies began to 

 increase greatly the wheat output, the for- 

 tunate owners of the public water-power made 

 exceedingly good profits and built more mills, 

 and the road for wheat to Minneapolis was 

 fixed and established. 



When this was plain enough, the flour 

 manufacturers there founded the Minne- 

 apolis Millers' Association, the purpose of 



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