THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



Brownsville and the "Creusa Farmers' Ele- 

 vator Company" of Cowgill were all owned 

 by the same persons in Minneapolis. He 

 learned that while he suffered a loss of three 

 pounds in a bushel for dockage all the foreign 

 material taken from his wheat had value and 

 the elevator owners calmly absorbed this 

 value for themselves. And he learned that 

 while this was taken from him without com- 

 pensation, he had nevertheless paid freight 

 on it to Minneapolis, because the deduction 

 for freight was assessed upon his full load, 

 dockage and all. And he learned to be more 

 than ever suspicious concerning the scales 

 upon which his wheat had been weighed. 



Also, one day long after he had been de- 

 feated, and when on the farm where he had 

 expended so much labor and money and lost 

 hope another man was struggling with the 

 like conditions, he fell upon a bulletin issued 

 by the North Dakota State Agricultural 

 College, giving the results of scientific experi- 

 mentation with wheat culture. And he read 

 there that while that year the North Dakota 

 farmers had received an average of 72 cents 

 a bushel for their wheat, the average cost 

 of producing a bushel of wheat in that state 

 that year had been 75 cents. And he saw 

 that the game was hopeless from the begin- 

 ning. He perceived that the 14 per cent, 

 interest he had paid on his money was a 



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