THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



the fold of regularity. Besides, we argued, 

 there was the matter of dues; farmers were 

 not likely to go on to tax themselves at this 

 rate when most of the things they had wanted 

 seemed to have been won. 



Also, such had been the history of all these 

 movements. The American people are in 

 politics molded to the two-party system, and 

 not likely in our time to depart from it. The 

 League, it is true, did not get away from that 

 system, but in fact kept carefully along with 

 it; still the League was an exotic, it was not 

 the regular, accustomed thing; it was not 

 hallowed by tradition nor sanctioned by the 

 fathers. Many similar segregations into the 

 Cave of Adullam had been known, and none 

 of them had lasted more than a year or two. 

 Hence, any tolerably facile seer in politics 

 could see the end of this. 



But the Farmers' Nonpartisan League 

 showed no sign of going to pieces. Instead, 

 it grew stronger than ever. The name was 

 changed to the National Nonpartisan League 

 and the organizers moved with their never- 

 resting automobiles upon the neighboring 

 states. State branches began to form in 

 South Dakota, Montana, and Minnesota. 

 The membership in North Dakota continued 

 to increase with hardly an effort made to 

 spread it. What was still more wonderful, 

 and amounted to a portent in the eyes of any 



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