THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



Mr. Creel afterward gave unequivocal tes- 

 timony to the loyalty of North Dakota under 

 the farmers' administration. In a magazine 

 article recalling the work of his department, 

 he wrote: 



Three successive crop failures, and yet the farmers 

 of that state oversubscribed the first Liberty Loan 140 

 per cent.; the second, 70 per cent.; and the third 76 

 per cent. With only one regiment at the outset, North 

 Dakota promptly recruited a second, and 3,887 men 

 entered the service as volunteers. The draft records 

 show that the cost per certified conscript in North 

 Dakota was $1.83 against an average of $4.23 for all 

 other states. In the last Red Cross drive North 

 Dakota's allotment was $200,000, and it subscribed 

 $575,000. Its Y. M. C. A. allotment was $100,000, 

 and it subscribed $175,000. 



In 1918 North Dakota increased its wheat acreage 

 over 630,000 acres at the request of the government; 

 it was one of the first states to decree that all persons 

 between the ages of eighteen and fifty must be employed 

 in essential industry; also to provide a moratorium 

 protecting soldiers from foreclosure of loans. 



Long after the crux of all these things had 

 passed Mr. Creel sent me the following still 

 more explicit testimony, which I am author- 

 ized to make public: 



MY DEAR MB. RUSSELL, I am not at all unwilling to 

 give you my opinion with respect to the war attitude 

 of the Nonpartisan League. Never at any time did I 

 consider it a disloyal organization. On the contrary, 

 the war record of the state of North Dakota, con- 

 trolled by the League, proved conclusively that the 



244 



