CHAPTER XIII 



"the farmers' legislature" 



THE test issue in North Dakota was the 

 state terminal elevator, to defeat which 

 at all hazards became the dearest aim of the 

 reactionaries. The session of 1917 showed 

 their resources in cleverness to this end. The 

 League proposed a bill to amend the Consti- 

 tution at a special election to be held the 

 following June, with a special session of the 

 legislature to be held at once thereafter. This 

 was to provide the necessary acts for state- 

 owned mill, elevator, and the rest of the pro- 

 gram. To frustrate this plan and ruin the 

 project no fewer than eight bills (counting 

 both houses) were projected in this session, 

 each purporting to provide the elevator and 

 each suggested for the express purpose of de- 

 feating it. 



One of these, for instance, planned, through 

 an adroitly managed maze of words, that the 

 state should build the elevator and then de- 

 liver it to private interest to be operated. 

 Another, seemingly fair, made such provisions 



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