THE NORTH DAKOTA IDEA
Hildreth, Melvin D.
The North Dakota Idea The Farmers of a Great Agricultural State Win a Significant Political Victory Their Slogan: "It's Do It Ourselves, or Go Broke" By MELVJN D. HILDRETH FOR YEARS it has been...
...Paul...
...The North Dakota Idea has for its basic principle the proposition that the farmer, by CO-OPERATIVE effort, can control the administration of the state and so direct and enforce legislation that it will be impossible for the grain gambler or the non-producer to reap the result of the harvest...
...they seemed to feel that the intense opposition directed against them was but further proof that they were right...
...The North Dakota Idea The Farmers of a Great Agricultural State Win a Significant Political Victory Their Slogan: "It's Do It Ourselves, or Go Broke" By MELVJN D. HILDRETH FOR YEARS it has been the Wisconsin Idea that has inspired the West to progressive thought and action...
...The banners they carried bore thought-provoking epigrams...
...Democracy could not have been more democratic than the proceedings of the convention...
...It was said that Capital would not come into the state and that North Dakota was facing a crisis...
...Frazier was a mighty good farmer and that he was a University graduate...
...It started several years ago as a result of an agitation concerning unfair marketing conditions...
...He had not sought the office but like Cincinnatus of old was taken away from his plow and brought down to the convention to address them as its nominee...
...This will be dedicated in December of this year...
...If successful, its effect will be as widespread and advantageous as the Granger movement of 1873 which established the Interstate Commerce Commission and recognized the right of the state to regulate a common carrier...
...Never before in the history of North Dakota had so many voted at an election...
...The FARMER candidate for Governor received more votes than all of his opponents combined...
...As a last resort, he has taken control of the state and by means of legislation backed by the re-sources of a great commonwealth he will try to solve for himself those problems that immediately concern him...
...But the farmers made an effort to dodge the attack...
...IT WAS A FIGHT EVERY INCH OF THE WAY...
...Who are they who fear the people...
...while another, indicating the purpose of men who had waited long enough, said simply, "Its do it ourselves, or go broke...
...When, like a great pioneer army, they marched down the main streets of the city, those on the sidewalk paused and wondered at this strange phenomenon...
...AS SOON as the news got about, every one outside the convention hall asked, "Who is Frazier...
...of the taxes and so it happens that a FARMER'S STATE IS TO BE GOVERNED BY FARMERS FOR THEIR INTERESTS...
...And if the North Dakota Idea shou'd succeed in doing for the farmer what the ages have failed to do, then shall it not be said that Agriculture has seen the dawn of a brighter day...
...IF THIS unique experiment in North Dakota should result in failure and bankruptcy for the state, of course the Nation will know that the remedy for the grain-marketing problem must be found some other way...
...Every delegate was entitled to present the name of one man for each of the state offices...
...People generally thought that the farmers would do as they had always done on a bad election day—stay at home...
...But as the time went on it was found that Mr...
...of the population, maintain that as an element which has paid most of the taxes, they would be the ones to feel the result of careless expenditure and the seriously alarmed gentlemen who feel that the state is facing a crisis would ultimately be benefited rather than ruined by improved rural conditions...
...and the entire ticket, state officers, legislature, supreme court—everything—were elected by majorities unusual in the strongest Republican state (in proportion to its population) in the Union...
...Shrewd political observers had never expected that the Non-Partisan League (which was the official title of the farmers' party) would secure such a victory...
...By the erection of great terminal elevators it is expected that the abuses attending the marketing of grain will be abolished and that the grain gambler will no longer have an unfair advantage...
...Certainly the platform of the early Granger movement seemed even more impossible but the effect of their agitation is found in much beneficial legislation to-day...
...These stimulated aiscus-sion...
...They pay 73 per cent...
...Men who were candidates for the first time were elected by great majorities, winning from seasoned campaigners who imagined they had a life lease to the offices of the state...
...He has tried by every possible means to correct the abuses—and has failed...
...A special train carried the nominees to every corner of the state and through their newspaper (which reached a circulation of 40,000 copies each week) the message of the farmers' party was brought to every tiller of the soil...
...asked one...
...No one seemed to know, except that he was a farmer...
...Whether they will be able to complete so ambitious a program against adversaries firmly entrenched, is something that time alone will tell...
...Four-fifths of the population of North Dakota are farmers...
...The farmers, representing 86 per cent...
...BUT it must not be assumed that the victory was an easy one...
...Seven men were suggested for Governor but after the ballots had been counted it was found that Lynn J. Fra-zier of Hoople, who was not even at the convention, had been nominated for that important office...
...In the meantime the members of the Equity Co-operative Exchange, feeling that their efforts to establish a state-owned elevator would never materialize in time to give the needed benefit, started to erect by their own funds a terminal elevator at St...
...After they were through suggesting names they talked about them, discussed every man frankly, and then they voted, just as they used to do in New England when Uncle Sam was young...
...THE MOVEMENT which resulted in the astonishing victory of June 28 was really of slow growth...
...Through the efforts of the late George S. Loftus, who had for years fought the evils of grain marketing, the farmers secured a promise to resubmit the bill and the people will again vote on it this fall...
...The farmer wants a compulsory state hail insurance law so that his crop may not be wiped out with a total loss to him in an hour's storm...
...The idea of farmers meeting to nominate as candidates for office men who would run against the strongest campaigners in the state did, at first, seem somewhat absurd...
...Then, when primary day came—after weeks of preparation—a terrific storm washed out the roads and the bridges, tore down wires and spared not a county in its fury...
...They want to sell their wheat directly to the miller and the grain merchant...
...Thousands of dollars were spent in an effort to defeat the farmers who had adopted as their slogan: "The best man, regardless of party...
...IT WAS on March 29 in the Auditorium of Fargo that three thousand farmer delegates, representing forty thousand others, gathered, at their own expense, to attend the first convention of its kind...
...These names, as fast as they were called were placed on a black-board where every one could see...
...The candidates met the folks at great picnics, some of them attended by as many as six thousand people, and there they discussed thoroughly and frankly the problems of grain marketing...
...This condition would be brought about by the erection of state-owned terminal elevators that will provide a central independent market for grain,, eliminating those factors that prevent the farmer from securing the price to which he is entitled...
...But there was a quiet determination about it all that indicated men of purpose had met as a last extremity to do a necessary thing...
...The farmers admitted that they were working for state-owned terminal elevators where they could ship their grain and be sure of an independent open market and do away with the enormous profits that go now to the speculator and grain gambler...
...For example, S. A. Ols-ness, candidate for Insurance Commissioner, a farmer all of his life and never before a candidate for any office, received 36,000 votes, easily defeating a gentleman named Taylor who had held the office for years...
...The farmer believes that the problem will never be Solved until he deals with the grain gambler...
...To nominate such a one for governor of North Dakota was a bold stroke but the additional fact that he was an unknown farmer presented a preposterous situation...
...As a result of that inspiration "the North Dakota Idea" comes to liberate the farmer where he has been a "beggar in the midst of plenty, a pauper beside his golden gathered sheaves...
...Stimulated by the enthusiasm of the convention, after nominating a full ticket, the farmers went back to their homes, not to reflect on the great gathering they had attended but to build on the foundations they had prepared...
...In 1910 the people of the state first asked the Legislature to submit to them a bill providing for a state-owned elevator, and although it was approved by a great majority the Legislature attempted to repeal it in 1915...
...But when the returns came in, men were astounded...
...To the gentlemen who for years had controlled the political destinies of that state, a sacred precedent had been broken...
...They claim that if this is possible they will receive at least twenty five to forty cents more on a bushel of grain and, in which event, the "back-to-the-farm" movement will be lost in the rush of those who will return to the soil when a profit is to be found there commensurate with the effort expended...
...They were called "socialists...
Vol. 8 • September 1916 • No. 9
