THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



could embarrass or ruin the small country 

 bank by shutting off its currency supplies 

 or refusing deposits. The small country 

 bank could ruin the farmer or tradesman by 

 shutting off his credit. Over the farmer in 

 particular the local bank held a menace usu- 

 ally found enough to cow the most rebellious. 

 It held the mortgages on his farm and often 

 on everything else he owned, and chattel 

 slavery itself could hardly have provided a 

 more perfect subjection. 



To placate a financial sovereignty like this 

 was a natural impulse. It will be seen at 

 once that no commands, instructions, nor 

 even, in many cases, direct intimations, 

 were needed; a general understanding that 

 the genius sitting above, with fingers on the 

 pipe of money supply, desired this to be done 

 or thought something else would be good for 

 business — this was usually enough, and could 

 hardly have been otherwise. 



But the one great nerve center of the busi- 

 ness of Minneapolis was the milling industry. 

 Mill had been added to mill until the daily 

 output reached 25,000 barrels, 40,000 barrels, 

 60,000 barrels, 80,000 barrels.^ The long 

 trains of freight-cars, on one side bringing 

 the wheat and on the other side bearing away 



1 There are twenty-five flour mills with a total daily capacity of 

 80,460 barrels. In 1915 Minneapolis produced 18,252,801 barrels of 

 flour, said to be equal to 8,000,000,000 loaves of bread or 80 loaves 

 for each inhabitant of the United States. 



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