THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



ley and others for obtaining money under 

 false pretenses, since the organization was a 

 manifest fraud. Newspapers dedared that 

 the League officers would be arrested in open 

 session of the convention and their books and 

 papers seized as the property of an illegal 

 body. The League was a copartnership; 

 hence all its members were responsible for 

 all its debts. Farmers were warmly advised 

 that as the League could never have any 

 standing under the law, they had better leave 

 the convention and cease to be fooled. 



Great bundles of cunningly worded circu- 

 lars conveying such news were sent up from 

 Minneapolis by night and distributed among 

 the delegates as they left the hall at noon; 

 but when the League officers themselves 

 pasted these circulars on the walls of the 

 building and read them (with comments) to 

 the reassembled convention, the effect of 

 this particular strategem seemed largely to 

 be lost. 



The campaign for the primaries opened the 

 day after the convention adjourned and was 

 carried on in every part of the state, and 

 always with mcreasing temperatures, it seemed 

 to me. The opposition is to be credited with 

 a desperate stand against what was soon seen 

 to be certain defeat. For the clenched de- 

 termination of the farmers was unmistakable; 

 neither appeals to party loyalty nor the elo- 



218 



