THE FAMOUS BANK CASE 



the fate of this bank. If postdated checks 

 had been ruled illegal the League could hardly 

 operate; if the League went to wreck the old 

 system would return and, in the farmers' be- 

 lief, bring the false scales with it and all the 

 other practices that had made farming in 

 North Dakota an unprofitable business. No; 

 I am wrong. It was not truly a business at 

 all, but a form of drudgery for the bare bones 

 of existence. 



But the battle was saved and the bank re- 

 opened. And now remains to be recorded a 

 strange fact. I have said that the news of 

 the closing of the Scandinavian-American was 

 telegraphed to every corner of the country 

 and printed everywhere. One would natu- 

 rally think that the news of the reopening 

 w^ould be at least as interesting. Yet this 

 news, if telegraphed at all, was scarcely 

 printed anywhere, and to this day the public, 

 in the eastern part of the country at least, 

 still beheves that as a result of the extrava- 

 gant and impracticable schemes of the Non- 

 partisan League the bank was permanently 

 ruined. There may be some just and inno- 

 cent explanation of this, but I do not know 

 what it is. 



In such conditions it is not to be wondered 

 at if some of the League members gathered 

 bitterness and beheved that, in their own 

 words, the cards were stacked agamst them. 



321 



