swept aside practically all the grain trade legislation enacted by the first legislature.16

Undaunted, the agrarian classes moved to remedy the situation in the legislature of 1891. Demands for platforms had increased immensely in the interval but the Senate was able to block most effectively any legislation which had for its object the amelioration of marketing conditions for the individual. Perceiving the strength of the opposition the Alliance concentrated its efforts upon securing the passage of a bill which would force the railroads to desist from discrimination in the matter of distributing elevator sites, only to have the bill vetoed by the governor on the ground that since it provided no means by which the railroads might be reasonably compensated, it was unconstitutional.17

Exasperated beyond endurance by such tactics of robbery and political trickery the Alliance, although it had been defeated on a semi-independent ticket in 1890,18 decided to put a ticket in the field in 1892.

16 See above, note 13.

17 He further declared that the law was similar to a law passed by the Minnesota Legislature and declared unconstitutional by their courts. The law was passed the last day of the session and it appears now that it was clearly unconstitutional. The action of the Governor in using his veto in the face of the wishes of the majority of the people was poor politics. See The Bismarck Daily Tribune, editorial, Oct. 2, 1892; Oct. 23, 1892.

During 1891 and 1892 a movement was set on foot among the Alliance members to build cooperative elevators. The eleven elevators operated cooperatively during these two years appear to have been organized by the Alliance. A large number of them contain the word "Alliance" in their corporate name (Elevator lists; Report of the R. R. Commissioners, 1891, 1892).

18 The Daily Plain Dealer, Grand Forks, N. Dak., Sept. 4, 25, 1890. Mr. Walter Muir, President of the Alliance, was nominated for Governor. Several other independents were nominated for office and several Democrats endorsed. They united with the Prohibitionists and solicited the Knights of Labor and Union Labor societies for support. The call for the convention concluded thus: "Let this convention show the world that the farmers, prohibitionists and friends of reform generally in North Dakota can no longer be driven by political bosses and ring masters in the State." The platform adopted included a promise to demand from the Federal Government twenty year farm loans and other funds which were to be loaned on warehouse receipts. No mention was made either of elevators or railroads.

Alarmed by the strength of the Alliance, and the indignation of the people in general, Governor Burke called a special session of the legislature which remedied the platform laws.19 However, abuses had been carried so far that the people were not satisfied with the rectification of a single law. They determined upon a complete overhauling of the whole state government both for the purpose of securing a more equitable enforcement of the existing laws and also for the purpose of committing the State to a policy of state ownership of marketing facilities primarily for the purpose of securing fairer grading of North Dakota grain at the terminals which lay outside the jurisdiction of the state government. To accomplish this end, the Alliance-Populist-Democrat fusion promised the farmer state-owned terminal elevators.20 Holding out such promises of reform, and pointing to the veto of the elevator bill by Governor Burke as an example of political corruption, the Fusionists swept the State.

In the legislative session following the election, we find the same tactics of delay and deception followed by the corporation interests that were practiced by them at previous sessions, and now, seemingly helped on more than ever by the simplemindedness of the farmer legislators themselves. The terminal elevator bill which was to provide a state terminal elevator either in Minnesota or Wisconsin, whose storage receipts could be used as collateral for short time loans was so constructed

1 To meet the emergency the railroads came out openly for platforms even before the special session had enacted the platform law. Some of the railroads began building platforms at once. Where there were but thirty-eight platforms on June 30, 1892, the number increased to 147 in 1893 and from then on to 1900 as follows:

1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900

38 147 185 235 228(a) 250 263 274 293

(a) 1896 decrease is due to inaccurate reports. From 1900 the number of platforms increased until now (1924) there is at least one at almost every station in the State.

20 The North Dakota Alliance was by no means the only State organization of the Northwestern Alliance which demanded that the State enter the terminal elevator business. The Minnesota organization based its campaign upon a similar platform (The Minneapolis Tribune, Jan. 30, 1893).

that it was impossible of operation.21 Furthermore, the way of all legislation was effectively blocked by the introduction of measures favoring resubmission of the prohibition clause of the constitution and a concurrent resolution granting women suffrage. In the ensuing struggle it was made possible for occult forces or other influences to make way with some of the best measures presented during the session. This was true of a revised platform bill and twelve other bills affecting the corporations.22 The opposition used every means and method at its command to force the movement to miscarry. The newspapers vilified the leaders, conjuring up some terrible monster, who by forcing the elevators and railroads to adopt fair methods of dealing with the public would ruin the whole commonwealth. No name was too vile, nor plot too revolting but that it was readily laid to the Alliance-Populist forces. The farmer movement, however, left the producer in far better circumstances than he had previously enjoyed. He had been able by means of his appeal to the legislature to establish the fact that the privilege of shipping grain over any railroad was to be enjoyed equally by all persons irrespective of their connections with the common carriers. The establishment of this right brought the elevator companies face to face with the problem of paying a fair price or seeing the farmers' grain loaded over the platform and shipped to the terminals.

During this period of agitation for the improvement of marketing conditions the attention of the farmer was not con

21 The bill carried $100,000.00 appropriation but failed to provide the treasury with funds wherewith to meet it. To make matters still more difficult the bill provided that no elevator could be built until the State in which it was built should cede absolute political control of the territory upon which the elevator was to stand to the State of North Dakota. This was to secure the freedom of action of the grain inspectors of the State of North Dakota (Sess. Laws of N. Dak., 1893, Chap. 61, p. 165). The bill was drawn by the Attorney-General who was generally known to the opposition as Standish, "the hairbrained Populist." Standish assured the Legislature that the bill was constitutional (The Grand Forks Plain Dealer, Mar. 3, 1893; N. D. House Journal, Mar. 2, 1893).

22 The Grand Forks Plain Dealer, Mar. 6, 1893.

fined alone to the activities of the railroads and elevators at country points. The North Dakota farmer's faith in the terminal market was no greater than the trust he was willing to put in the elevator companies of his own locality. There existed a grave suspicion that the terminal market was not all it claimed to be. There were rumors that the weighing and grading of grain had not been fairly done. As a result of such rumors, the Minnesota Legislature in 1891 directed an investigation of the grain business at Duluth to ascertain the facts giving rise to the accusation that there were large overages of grain accruing to the elevators there.23

Influenced by these activities the North Dakota Board of Railroad Commissioners visited Duluth in August 1891 in an endeavor to secure the adoption of North Dakota grades by the board of trade. Failing in this venture, the commissioners went to St. Paul to persuade the Minnesota Railroad and Warehouse Commission to allow North Dakota inspectors to grade North Dakota grain into the terminals, leaving to the Minnesota inspectors the task of grading and inspecting the outgoing grain. The Minnesota Commissioners, however, were unable to see their way clear to accept such an arrangement, legal difficulties, seemingly, were insurmountable.

Their efforts coming to nothing, the Board returned to Bismarck and in summing up the results of their investigation said:

It appears that there is a profit in wheat over and above handling and freight of thirty cents a bushel, due to short weight, excess dockage, low grades and commissions."4

The question is asked, How is this state of affairs to be met? We answer by legislative enactment if such a thing is possible, if not then the farmers,-the grain growers,-must organize and control their own products. True, the farmers have their Alliance,—a

23 The Committee, however, heard only one side of the case and in their report advised that the railroad yards be better policed. No attempt was made to investigate actual conditions in the grain trade proper. The report in no way treated of the charge that the elevators were in the habit of obtaining large overages (The Minnesota Senate Journal, 1893, p. 466; The Weekly Northwestern Miller, Apr. 24, 1891, p. 564).

24 Report of the Railroad Commissioners, 1891, pp. 460-461; Appendix XI.

worthy organization,-but the trouble with the Alliance is that it allows itself to get switched off upon the side track of impractical ideas that will take years to carry out, losing sight of the main issue of how to secure the best returns for their labor.

If the farmers would set aside one cent per bushel of the price of their grain, they could build an elevator at West Superior, handle their own grain and keep agents at Liverpool and Edinburgh to take care of their interests.

This is not a new idea, the millers of North Dakota are organized and do business in the same way. The grain grower would receive his money upon shipment, as soon as it was billed, upon a draft drawn upon the foreign agent.

This entire subject has been outlined to the Honorable E. C. D. Shortridge, President of the Farmers' Alliance of this State, who has fully investigated the same and is in entire accord with the views of this Board.

In the matter of grain grades, we are in favor of delegating that to the Federal Government, so as to secure a more uniform system. Further the Board has at its disposal a valuable elevator site at West Superior which will be donated by the citizens of West Superior to the Farmers' Elevator Company."

The Board had made a thorough investigation of the profits of the grain trade and its advice, though slightly radical, as compared with the ideas of the time, was more than warranted by the facts disclosed. Under such circumstances, cooperative marketing appeared to them to be the solution of the whole situation.

West Superior in its eagerness to obtain a grain market had offered the farmers an elevator site. To her business men the time seemed ripe to deprive Duluth of the grain business. Superior possessed the advantage of being outside the jurisdiction of the grain inspection laws of Minnesota, should she so desire. North Dakota hard wheat was in great demand in Europe and the East, but it was claimed that no pure hard wheat such as the farmers of North Dakota raised ever reached the Eastern and European millers unmixed. Superior, therefore, aspired to provide a market where the pure North Dakota varieties of number one hard wheat would be sold unadulterated. Minnesota would thus be forced to cease collecting fees for inspecting North Dakota wheat on Wisconsin soil.

This propaganda coupled with the belief that the terminal

25 Report of the Railroad Commissioners, 1891, p. 460.