THE ORGANIZATION OF RURAL INTERESTS 565 



farmers are in a healthy majority in North Dakota, South 

 Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Montana, and in 

 every State in which the League is active. The history of these 

 States, from the days of the Ocala platform down to the last 

 election, shows that the farmers have never failed to have their 

 rights recognized and their wrongs redressed by legislative action. 

 They are and have always been in the majority in these States, 

 and the claims of the League leaders to-day assume the form of a 

 plea by the majority to be protected from the wiles and machina- 

 tions of a wicked minority. 



The cuttlefish when attacked sheds ink to becloud the waters 

 and elude pursuit. The League leaders are playing the role 

 of political cuttlefish just now and trying to becloud the polit- 

 ical waters by claiming that the wicked interests are trying to 

 prevent the farmers from organizing. There is not and has not 

 been anywhere in Minnesota or the Dakotas the slightest oppo- 

 sition to farmers' organizations. The opposition to the Non- 

 partisan League, an opposition that in Minnesota is assuming 

 menacing form, is caused, not by the organization of farmers, 

 but by the secret or open disloyalty of leaders of the League. 

 The line is being closely drawn in Minnesota between the loy- 

 alists and the disloyalists, and no less a person than the Governor 

 of the State, J. A. A. Burnquist, elected by farmers' votes and 

 by the largest majority ever given a Governor of the State, 

 has openly placed the leaders of the National Nonpartisan League 

 in the disloyal class. The president of the League is under 

 indictment in two Minnesota counties for obstructing the draft. 

 The manager of the League has been convicted of a like offense, 

 and other organizers and representatives of the League have been 

 charged with obstructing the draft. 



BUSINESS INTERESTS SCENT SOCIALISM 



It is true that the business interests, both big and little, of 

 the Northwest are opposed to the Nonpartisan League and fear 

 it. This opposition and fear are based on the League's record 

 in North Dakota, where only the existence of a hold-over State 

 Senate, not elected by the League, prevented North Dakota 

 from going "whole hog" into the experiment of a Socialist State 

 government. The League attempted to adopt a new constitution 



