North Dakota Nonpartisan League | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Arthur C. Townley |
| Founded | 1915 (1915) |
| Dissolved | 1956 (1956) |
| Preceded by | Socialist Party of North Dakota |
| Succeeded by | North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party |
| Headquarters | Patterson Hotel,Bismarck |
| Ideology | Left-wing populism[1][2] Democratic socialism[3][4] Agrarian socialism[5] Laborism Agrarianism[6][7] Localism |
| Political position | Left-wing[1] |
| National affiliation | Socialist Party of America |
TheNonpartisan League (NPL) was a left-wing political party founded in 1915 inNorth Dakota byArthur C. Townley, a formerorganizer for theSocialist Party of America. On behalf of small farmers and merchants, the Nonpartisan League advocated state control of mills, grain elevators, banks, and other farm-related industries in order to reduce the power of corporate and political interests fromMinneapolis andChicago.[8]
The League adopted the goat as a mascot; it was known as "The Goat that Can't be Got".[9]
By the 1910s, the growth of left-wing sympathies was on the rise in North Dakota. TheSocialist Party of North Dakota had considerable success. They brought in many outside speakers, includingEugene V. Debs, who spoke at a largeantiwar rally atGarrison in 1915. By 1912, there were 175 Socialist politicians in the state.Rugby andHillsboro elected Socialist mayors. The party had also established a weekly newspaper, theIconoclast, in Minot.[10]
In 1914,Arthur C. Townley, aflax farmer fromBeach, North Dakota, andorganizer for theSocialist Party of America, attended a meeting of theAmerican Society of Equity. Afterwards, Townley and a friend, Frank B. Wood, drew up a radical political platform that addressed many of the farmers' concerns, and created the Farmers Non-Party League Organization, which later evolved into the Nonpartisan League. Soon, Townley was traveling the state in a borrowedFord Model T, signing up members for a payment of $6 in dues. Farmers were receptive to Townley's ideas and joined in droves.[citation needed] However, Townley was soon expelled from the Socialist Party due to this method of rogue operating.[10]
The League began to grow in 1915, at a time when small farmers in North Dakota felt exploited by out-of-state companies. One author later described the wheat-growing state as "a tributary province ofMinneapolis-St. Paul."Minnesota banks made its loans, Minnesota millers handled its grain, andAlexander McKenzie, North Dakota'spolitical boss, lived inSaint Paul, Minnesota.[11] Rumors spread at a Society of Equity meeting inBismarck that astate representative namedTreadwell Twichell had told a group of farmers to "go home and slop the hogs." Twichell later said that his statement was misinterpreted. He had been instrumental in previous legislative reforms to rescue the state from boss rule by McKenzie and theNorthern Pacific Railroad around the start of the 20th century.
Proposing that the state of North Dakota create its own bank, warehouses, and factories,[11] the League, supported by a populist groundswell, ran its slate asRepublican Party candidates in the 1916 elections. In thegubernatorial election, farmerLynn Frazier won with 79% of the vote. In 1917,John Miller Baer won aspecial election for theUnited States House of Representatives. After the 1918 elections, in which the NPL won full control of both houses of thestate legislature, the League enacted a significant portion of its platform. It established state-run agricultural enterprises such as theNorth Dakota Mill and Elevator, theBank of North Dakota, and astate-owned railroad. The legislature also passed a statewidegraduated income tax, which distinguished between earned andunearned income, authorized a state hail insurance fund, and established aworkmen's compensation fund that assessed employers. The NPL also set up a Home Building Association, to aid people in financing and building houses.
DuringWorld War I, Townley demanded the "conscription of wealth", blaming "big-bellied, red-neckedplutocrats" for the war. He and fellow party leaderWilliam Lemke received support for the League fromisolationistGerman-Americans.[11] However, the NPL's initial success was short-lived, as a drop in commodity prices at the close of the war, together with a drought, caused an agricultural depression.
As a result of the depression, the new state-owned industries ran into financial trouble, and the private banking industry, smarting from the loss of its influence in Bismarck, rebuffed the NPL when it tried to raise money through state-issued bonds. The industry said that the state bank and elevator were "theoretical experiments" that might easily fail. Moreover, the NPL's lack of governing experience led to perceived infighting and corruption. Newspapers and business groups portrayed the NPL as inept and disastrous for the state's future.
In 1918, opponents of the NPL formed theIndependent Voters Association. In 1921, the IVA organized arecall election which successfully recalled Frazier as governor. Frazier lost the recall election by a margin of 1.8%, becoming the first U.S. state governor to be recalled. However, a year later he was elected in the1922 United States Senate election in North Dakota, serving until 1940.
The 1920s were economically difficult for farmers, and the NPL's popularity receded. However, the populist undercurrent that fueled its meteoric growth revived with the coming of theGreat Depression andDust Bowl conditions of the 1930s. The NPL'sWilliam "Wild Bill" Langer was elected to the governorship in1932 and1936. Langer was later elected to the U.S. Senate, serving from1940 until his death in 1959.
By 1950, two factions divided the traditionally left-wing NPL; on one side were the Insurgents, and on the other were the Old Guard.[10] The Insurgents alignedliberally with pro-farmers' union,organized labor, andDemocratic Party groups. The Insurgents wanted to merge the NPL with theNorth Dakota Democratic Party. In1952, the Insurgents formed the Volunteers for Stevenson Committee, to help electAdlai Stevenson II, thegovernor ofIllinois and Democratic nominee forpresident. The Old Guard, also known as theCapitol Crowd, were moreconservative, anti-farmers' union, anti-labor, and pro-Republican segment of the league, these members wanted to keep the Nonpartisan League aligned with the Republican Party; they supported GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential race. Over the following four years, legislative polarization grew and the Nonpartisan League eventually split in two. In 1956, the Nonpartisan League formally merged with the state Democratic Party, creating theNorth Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party, while much of the League's base joined theNorth Dakota Republican Party. The Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party introduced a unified slate of candidates for statewide offices and adopted a liberal platform that included the repeal of theTaft–Hartley Act, creation of aminimum wage of $1.25 an hour, and a graduated land tax on property worth $20,000 or more. In May 1956, the Democratic Convention accepted the Nonpartisan League's candidates and adopted its platform, fully unifying the two parties into one.[10]
Although the Democrats were still in the minority in the state government, the number of Democrats in the state legislature increased greatly. Before the league moved into the Democratic Party, there were only five Democrats among the 162 members of both houses of the legislature in 1955. By 1957, the number grew to 28, and in 1959 the numbers continued to grow, reaching 67.[10]
In fact, the program that La Follette ran on — taxing the rich, cracking down on Wall Street abuses, empowering workers to organize unions, defending small farmers, breaking up corporate trusts, strengthening public utilities — fueled a resurgence of left-wing populist movements across the upper Midwest: the Non-Partisan League of North Dakota, the Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota and the Progressive Party of Wisconsin.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) is one of only two state-level parties affiliated nationally with the Democratic Party to use a unique name. The other is the North Dakota Democratic–Nonpartisan League Party. These two parties actually share a common history, and this history explains the reasons for the distinction. Now, decades later, these names are all that remains of that history and of the populist movement that once flourished in the upper Midwest.
In addition, those opposed to the NPL used its socialist principles against it, labeling all members "Bolsheviks."
[…], while North Dakotans started a socialist political organization called the Non-Partisan League.
[…] the Nonpartisan League, a new protest movement containing strong elements of agrarian socialism.