THE FIRST VICTORY 



efforts of a large part of the press; yet scarcely 

 any farmer that ever signed one of these 

 pledges averred he did not fully understand 

 or approve of what he had signed. 



The only innovations in this program likely 

 to 'disturb seriously the peace of the conser- 

 vative-minded were those connected with state 

 enterprises. But the people had voted for 

 state elevators and state hail insurance, and 

 the state flour-mills and packing-houses might 

 be deemed a tolerable experiment if the state 

 was to have its elevators. Wherein the other 

 reforms could be viewed by reasonable men 

 as "anarchistic," "of the torch and ax," "ex- 

 travagant," "destructive," or "vilely radical" 

 I think no one will be able to say, but all of 

 these terms and others still worse were applied 

 to them. You would have thought that 

 North Dakota had been invaded by a band 

 of furious, ravening, uncouth savages bent 

 upon the uprooting of civilization itself. I 

 assure you that statement will seem no exag- 

 geration to any one that will take the trouble 

 to read the press of the Northwest after it 

 had been successfully awakened to the fact 

 that the League was likely to carry the state. 

 A majority of the people, American citizens, 

 purposed to exercise their constitutional right 

 to govern, and at the bare idea the founda- 

 tions seemed to rock. 



But the real cause of the excitement was 



215 



