THE FARMERS IN CONTROL 



thing there but cataclysm was expected, and 

 so strong was this feeling that when the 

 legislature controlled by these disturbers of 

 the public peace assembled at Bismarck, the 

 capital of the state, in January, 1919, many 

 of the leading journals of the East sent special 

 correspondents to the spot to report the im- 

 pending disasters. 



The test, therefore, as reported by these 

 and all other chroniclers, may be regarded as 

 thorough and conclusive. Whatever might 

 be the ultimate aims of the men engaged in 

 conducting this movement, those aims must 

 be revealed when they had attained the full 

 measure of their power and could do as they 

 pleased. Wherefore these facts about the 

 *' League's legislature," as it was called, being 

 admitted by hostile as well as friendly re- 

 corders, must be taken as verified, as follows: 



It was the briefest regular session a legis- 

 lature had ever held in North Dakota and the 

 only one that adjourned short of the sixty 

 days allowed by the Constitution. 



It was the most business-like, introducing 

 only one-fourth the usual number of bills, 

 and adding to the statute-books none that 

 was not well considered and of importance to 

 the state. Outside of the appropriation bills, 

 the total number enacted was only about 360, 

 which was the lowest record made by any 

 legislature in North Dakota history. 



251 



