THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



put forth all their strength, for they knew 

 that this contest was decisive. The bogy of 

 disloyalty was worked to its utmost, for the 

 war was still on while the campaign was 

 waged, and the opportunity afforded by the 

 indictments, however unsubstantial these 

 might be, and by the carefully worked-up 

 feeling in some quarters of the state, was 

 naturally too good to be lost. Nevertheless, 

 the League carried the state by 17,784 on this 

 severe test of its strength, and, with the full 

 state ticket, elected a majority of senators and 

 representatives, thus obtaining complete con- 

 trol of the legislature. 



All legislative obstacles to the carrying out 

 of its program were now removed. There 

 w^ere no hold-over senators to block the will 

 of the majority of the voters of the state. 

 What in the opposition newspapers had been 

 called "Townleyism" was triumphant at last 

 and the rest of the country was in a position 

 to judge of its devastating purposes. It had 

 been described to the uninitiated as "anar- 

 chistic," "bolshevistic," "red radical," as the 

 dream of madmen and the plot of depraved 

 enemies of all social order. Its leaders had 

 been drawn to the complacent East as wild 

 men of the woods, unkempt and shaggy, de- 

 scending with blight upon civilization. Com- 

 ments by even the most deliberate part of 

 the Eastern press showed plainly that no- 



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