THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



situation of the gravest moment for the 

 League. In the first place, under the condi- 

 tions prevailing for grain-growers, if it could 

 not accept postdated checks no one could say 

 how it could be financed at all. In the next 

 place, it had thousands upon thousands of 

 these postdated checks on deposit in banks 

 through North Dakota and other states. If 

 these were now to become worthless the 

 League was struck a deadly blow, for it could 

 not by any means raise the cash to make these 

 checks good, and yet if this position of the 

 banking board was correct, or should be sus- 

 tained, every bank hi which it had such de- 

 posits would instantly reject them or demand 

 other collateral. 



In the next place, such an organization pro- 

 ceeded, and must proceed, largely on the basis 

 of its credit and prestige, and if this ruling 

 should prove correct its credit and prestige 

 were annihilated. 



The news agencies sent by telegraph full 

 accounts of the closing of the bank, and the 

 next morning it is likely that every newspaper 

 in the United States that had a news first 

 page displayed this upon it, many with large 

 head-lines written in what was undeniably a 

 tone of jubilation. All about the country the 

 impression was that the League would never 

 recover from the blow. I was at the time in 

 a city fourteen hundred miles away, and a 



312 



