THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



remedies. Unbiased thinkers were convinced 

 that the citadel of the System preying upon 

 him was the terminal elevator and the termi- 

 nal market in Minneapolis. Suppose an 

 elevator and a market operated not for pri- 

 vate greed, but for the public good, and most 

 of the farmer's troubles would disappear. The 

 only power competent to erect and operate 

 such elevators and such markets was the state. 

 The state had never done such a thing; there- 

 fore a certain order of minds familiar in every 

 community was sure the state never could 

 do it. Persons not terrorized by tradition 

 had a different view and the legislature was 

 besought to take the first step to this form 

 of relief. 



In all the states as in the nation we have 

 tried to bar the door upon any changes in the 

 Constitution. We would not say that as to 

 chemistry, physics, electricity, biology, astron- 

 omy, geology, ontology, etiology, conchology, 

 philology, or anthropology the last word had 

 been said in 1787, but when it comes to gov- 

 ernment, far more important to us than any 

 of these, we shut ourselves resolutely in the 

 hermitage of the fathers. It was so in North 

 Dakota. Instead of allowing the people to 

 say at once what they wanted to have done 

 about the Constitution they must live under, 

 changes in that sacred document must be 

 reached through long and tortuous ap- 



102 



