THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



have done a thing more to the liking of their 

 enemies. At once the cry was raised that the 

 Nonpartisan League was a disloyal organiza- 

 tion. The most innocent remarks of its 

 speakers were twisted and distorted into 

 something that could bear the suspicion of 

 inferential sedition. At this development the 

 League leaders made their next blunder. 

 They did not perceive what this portended 

 and their speakers, unwarned, sometimes 

 made stupid or careless remarks. The next 

 thing that was known, a large part of the 

 Northwest had been inflamed against the very 

 name of the League. 



Long after it had become apparent to every 

 thinking man that the League had been un- 

 justly accused and that its leaders were inno- 

 cent of any disloyal intent, meetings of League 

 adherents in some parts of the Northwest 

 were broken up by mobs, and the speakers 

 arrested or obliged to flee for their lives. 

 The chance to discredit and injure the move- 

 ment was golden and men saw it worked to 

 the utmost. All the fierce bitterness of 

 threatened profits and toppling privilege 

 came out in these intrigues. If the idea of 

 farmers' emancipation could be successfully 

 branded with disloyalty at a tune when the 

 country's feeling was at its height, the 

 League could be crushed and need menace 

 no one again. There is no doubt that agents 



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