THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



and so long as they had the field to themselves 

 could fix what prices and conditions they 

 ^pleased. There might be three or even four 

 elevators at the same station, all bearing 

 names of diflFerent suggestions of lordliness — 

 "Majestic," "Atlantic," "Great Western," 

 and the like — but all, as a rule, were of the 

 "line" order, were owned by some corpora- 

 tion or firm on the Minneapolis Chamber, 

 and acted in concert, though by a useful 

 fiction they were supposed to compete. A 

 genuinely co-operative elevator in any of 

 these places was a grave menace to this 

 established and highly successful business, 

 not merely because the profits under the co- 

 operative system were distributed among 

 the farmer owners, but because the farmers' 

 elevator was free to pay approximately what 

 the wheat was worth. 



The co-operative elevator began to spread 

 rapidly. To meet it the "line" companies 

 adopted effective tactics. 



1. Being interlocked with the directorates 

 of the great banks of the Northwest, the great 

 banks of the Northwest being interlocked 

 with the great financial interests of the coun- 

 try and the great financial interests of the 

 country, of course, controlling the railroads, 

 it was easy to induce the railroad manage- 

 ments to refuse to a farmers' co-operative 

 elevator association a site on the companies' 



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