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MT-ND | Or you can Google it and get it from the state's website. Prarie Public has a good video on YouTube too about it.
To quickly(lol) summarize:
The time is pre World War 1. The Great Dakota Booms are over, homesteaders are finding out that nutrients are not infinite as are the famous Bonanza farms. Yields decline, homesteaders start to go bankrupt, the Bonanza farms start shrinking and are slowly sold and broken up, as wheat prices also fall.
1910s: the socialist party of ND is gaining favor, they have a decently large newspaper too.
1914: a flax farmer, sometimes called the "Flax King of North Dakota" A.C. Townley is part of that party. There's only one problem: the party doesn't like his unconventional methods of knocking on doors and over promising, he gets kicked out.
Another problem: people actually like what he is saying. So he and a friend start the "Farmers Non Party League" and their own newspaper. Townley starts driving all over the state selling subscriptions to anyone and everyone for his political newspaper, in a borrowed Model T. $6 a year gets you a newspaper, weekly I believe, and a membership to the party, but the newspaper was the main selling point. Farmers all over the state agree with his platform and paper
1915: the state and all residents are basically controlled by Minnesota, Minneapolis to be more specific. Banks have to borrow from or are branches of banks there. All grain has to go through Minneapolis. The railroads are owned by companies in Minneapolis. Minneapolis takes advantage of their monopoly and lack of laws, extra interest charged and no give on any terms, unlike they would do to MN borrowers. Immediately discounting grain because it was from ND, charging up to 100% more for freight because it was from here. Court cases were fought and lost.
The NPL grows dramatically, on promises of schools, fuel for the winter at affordable rates(coal if mined in ND at the time still had to be shipped via rail and coal wasn't really mined at the time here. Same with firewood and kerosene), grain trading regulations, regulations on railroads, and many others that today you'd pass off as political hot air, and yet they have no one in government.
Side note: remember the required reading of "The Great Gatsby"? Remember the part of where it says Gatsby was a "...dirt poor farm boy from North Dakota..."? This is the time period where there was a mass exodus of bankrupt farmers and business families going east to Minneapolis for work, the same area where the author grew up. People from ND were seen as dirty, poor and dumb, as how did they manage to fail on the best farmland in the world?
Still 1915: the state government is run by Alexander Mckenzie. Name sound familiar? Mckenzie, ND, Mckenzie County, and Alexander, ND, are named after him. A political boss who started out as someone who couldn't even write his own name yet helped make two Dakota's, is now basically owned by the railroads and lives in St. Paul.
A related organization to the NPL has a meeting in Bismarck. A rumor spreads that a Mckenzie owned state representative tells the convention that consists of mainly farmers to "go home and slop the hogs" and "leave the politics to those who know what they're doing". Welcome to what would be a rallying cry for the NPL, courtesy of the ND Republican party, by someone who helped organize the first co-op and first gravel road, and helped get rid of the Mckenzie machine.
1916: the NPL runs on the idea that the state should own its own warehouses, its own elevators, its own banks, its own mills, its own railroads. They, however, do not run as NPL. They run as Republican-NPL. They capture the governor's seat and quite a state legislative seats.
1917: more campaigning, and a special election they get the US representative seat.
1918: the league as its known now, gains full control of the state government. Then they go to work:
A State owned terminal and harbor on the shore of Lake Superior is proposed. Minnesota promptly tells North Dakota where to shove their terminal, they're not going to have another state own land, let alone around the lake, let alone a harbor and terminal.
The State Bank is passed
The State Mill and Elevator is passed, as a result of the terminal failure.
The State Railroad is passed
The State hail insurance act is passed
The state workman compensation fund is passed
The state home building association is passed
The state tax code is overhauled on a graduated scale, with differentiation between earned and unearned.
Grain trading regulations are overhauled and passed
Railroad regulations are overhauled and passed
The Industrial council is created, a board of government, agricultural, and industry officials for regulating.
The US enters into WW1. North Dakota, a German state, doesn't want war. The NPL vocally proclaims that the war is for the rich, that we should have no part in it, all its doing is making the rich richer.
Side note: after WW1, there was a US congregational investigation into WW1 and profiteering, lead by...an NPL member from North Dakota. Their findings? Unclear, but this would lead to price controls during WW2.
The state buys a small unsuccessful mill, south of Bismarck I think. Its unsuccessful, go figure. As a result, the current North Dakota State Mill and Elevator starts being built, and after some political infighting, it ends up in Grand Forks for some reason, as compared to a central location like what was originally proposed, but its not on a Northern Pacific line. Great Northern was a bit easier and cheaper to work with.
The state starts trying to sell the needed bonds for the state bank. Its starts out poorly, who wants to be involved in a state owned bank?
The state railroad...disappears from attention at this time. Its still in our law today so why it never happened, I don't know.
All the regulations and associations? Now trapped in lawsuits.
WW1 ends. Grain prices crash. The NPL projects aren't in place yet. Everyone suffers.
1918/1919: the Independent Voters Association is formed as an opponent to the NPL. Some controversy happens regarding a bank and insurance company in Fargo with the NPL. No one takes it well.
1920 the NPL Republicans looses control to the IVA republicans. The IVA is ready to shut down everything-but one little problem. The Bank of North Dakota and their un sellable bonds? They got sold days before the IVA came into power. The Bank of North Dakota comes into existence days before they want to shut it down. The North Dakota State Mill and Elevator? Its fully funded and well underway, the cement bins steadily rising West of Grand Forks, the chimney and power plant steaming away. They quietly ignore their promises of shutting them down.
1921: the IVA forces a recall of the governor's the first in the nation's history, and wins, replacing the NPL governor. What good this did is questionable as the recalled governor Fraizer becomes a US Senator in 1922.
1922: The State Mill and Elevator starts production.
The later 1920s the NPL would see rises and falls in popularity and control but never again like 1916 to 1920. They would appear again during the 30s involved with the complete mess that was the 30s, with the foreclosure moratorium, way before Roosevelt thought of that, the delayed interest loans, that part is a whole novel that I'll do later if needed.
Later AC Townley would go and help organize the Minnesota Farm Labor, as neighboring states political groups wanted his help, after seeing the NPL's success. The Farm Labor, or whatever its called, was basically to follow the NPL but it just never caught on and after its supposed to be success, Townley was to go to Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, but he didn't want to abandon the Farm Labor so...the rest never happened.
Also later: Townley called the North Dakota Farmers Union "full of communists" in the 1950s and may have called the national farmers union the same or worse. He definitely was interesting.
The 1950s, the NPL was overrun by a new wave of different thinkers, the "insurgents" they overrode the old guard and made the merger with the ND democrat party for whatever disastrous reason, where then the NPL side never really did much of anything again. The D-NPl would go in and out if power, the latest being Heitkamp as a senator a few years ago, but now they're basically nothing. Side note: I have a small suspicion that Sheep Herder/German Shepard/whatever he's called, may have had family that was Leaguers.
Today the NPL-Republicans still have their great achievements surviving to this day:
The Bank of North Dakota is obscenely profitable while offering loans and programs to residents way below any private bank or federal government program. The Housing Association sorta merged into the bank. Its also called a "banker's bank" as dollar wise most of its dealing is with banks in the state and all over the country but you or anyone can walk in and open a checking or savings account if you wish, its a full service bank. Ever hear of a small little known tractor company called Steiger? Some of the money for their Fargo plant came from the state bank. What about a little company called Melroe? They made a few things, harrows, pickers, the first automatic self reset plows, and just a little thing called the Bobcat. Money came from there too. That goes for alot of ND industries, the Mandan Refinery, the Dickinson Refinery, the Beulah area coal mines and basin and other power plants. It may very well be why ND is industrialized compared to SD, Western MN, and Eastern MT.
The North Dakota State Mill and Elevator is the world's largest single unit mill. It is also very profitable, while paying sometimes above Minneapolis market price for grain and selling flour for under market price to consumers. The funniest part about it is you know Pillsbury, one of the big millers that basically helped force the creation of the State Mill and Elevator? There's a decent chance that the flour you buy with their name on it came from our state mill. Same with gold medal, and any brand really. The State Mill does alot of contract work, as in packaging their flour as other brands, and a pile of exporting flour. If you ever go to a fancy restaurant in Paris or any other place in Europe and order some bread or something with flour in it, there's a decent chance again that the flour came from the state mill as high end places in Europe are a top buyer of flour from the mill.
The industrial council is still here.
The regulatory bodies and regulations did escape the courtroom and basically were a precursor to modern grain grading and the like for regulations.
Then a bit of a stretch, but the anti corporate farming law, the NPL helped with it too, and it was overwhelming re-approved by voters a few years ago.
The NPL isn't a short subject and I skipped alot here. Perhaps when I or someone who knows more gets time a full write up can be done.
Also: the radical never left ND. See Hoven's campaign in NWND, getting booed out of places, nor did the NPL ideas. The state railroad idea has been floated in the last decade, along with state oil companies.
I apologize for any typos as I did this on a phone.
Edited by Kochia 10/4/2023 08:02
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LoL NDSU
