CHAPTER XIV 



THE LEAGUE AND THE WAR 



UPON the securing of these reforms, those 

 of us that were observing the League ex- 

 pected confidently to hear next of its demise. 

 This would have been the natural develop- 

 ment and in accordance with all experience. 

 It had achieved a considerable part of its aim ; 

 more, in fact, that any such organization had 

 any good reason to expect. There had never 

 been a legislature in the history of the United 

 States that in an equal space of time enacted 

 an equal number of betterment measures. 

 The full goal had not been reached, that was 

 quite true; on the terminal-elevator issue the 

 Interests were still defying the ballot-box. 

 But in all these things there had always been 

 elsewhere a certain percentage of what may 

 be termed bluff; reformers demanded the 

 millennium that they might get a water-pipe 

 mended; and we felt that in this case the 

 actual assets of the concern were so far ahead 

 of any other such effort that the farmers 

 would probably be satisfied and go back to 



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