THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



the discovery as our own and always with- 

 out a thought as to the truth of it. Simi- 

 larly it became in some quarters the custom 

 to ascribe the growth of the Northwestern 

 country to the railroads, as if they had put 

 the fertility into the soil or created mankind's 

 appetite for bread. The railroads truly 

 brought the settlers into the region and 

 took their products out, but the toll exacted 

 for the service was far beyond its value, was 

 never expressed in rate sheets and never 

 really known in its exactions except to those 

 that toiled under it with heavily bowed 

 shoulders. What the Northwest would have 

 been with fair freight charges was the real 

 consideration but nobody with propaganda 

 ever exploited that. Why farming was un- 

 profitable in this prolific region was deemed 

 a mystery; yet freightage had its due, though 

 always obscured, place. The farmer planted, 

 God gave the increase, and excessive railroad 

 rates, swarming middlemen, and primitive 

 distribution took up the best of it. 



So the economic field became for a time 

 the favorite adventure, and societies or com- 

 binations of farmers formed for mutual de- 

 fense undertook to resist the above dis- 

 pensation. The histories of some of them 

 were tragic — a few unselfish men struggling 

 hopelessly for a cause of the Common Good 

 against a gigantic and ruthless power that 



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