| 
| 
| 
| 
ND Nonpartisan League - A History
Background to the Nonpartisan League
On November 2, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison approved the admission of North Dakota to the Union. The new state was a Republican Party stronghold. The first Governor, John Miller, presided over a turbulent initial legislative session that, among other issues, fought about the question of legalizing lotteries and prohibition.
Political life revealed an insurgent tendency that has continued to the present day. In 1890, the cooperative Farmers Alliance formed an Independent Party to challenge the "McKenzie Gang" that dominated the Republican Party. The Independents fused with the minority Democratic Party in 1892 and captured state government with a platform promising significant reforms. Their efforts, however, were frustrated by political inexperience, and in 1894 the Republican Party regained power. Controlled by conservatives, North Dakota government encouraged investment by establishing liberal banking, regulatory, and taxation policies; to support their policies, conservatives argued that capitalists would not invest in North Dakota unless state government did its part to diminish risk and enhance profits.
Though severely criticized by progressives, the strategy did result in some industrial development. Large lignite mines opened near Beulah and Wilton, and local brickworks and flour mills soon dotted the state. The railroad industry, bolstered by completion of both James J. Hill's Great Northern Railway in 1887 and the Soo Line in 1893, built branch lines and fostered new towns. Rail expansion peaked in 1905 when the GN and Soo squared off in a "railway war" in northern North Dakota.
Evidence of development, however, did not quiet the progressive opposition. In their opinion, the state provided too many incentives, and they pointed out that huge profits were being taken from North Dakota, that the distant leadership of rail and commodities companies were often arrogant and unresponsive to the needs of their customers, and that rural people were often taxed out of proportion to their means. Most galling, however, was the frequent evidence that out-of-state corporate interests dominated North Dakota government, using it to further private goals rather than the general welfare of the citizens.
By 1905, the swelling chorus of protest caused a political upheaval. Republican progressives united with Democrats to elect John Burke as Governor, and his election commenced a reform era. In the next decade, a series of other movements surfaced. For example, in 1907, a new cooperative movement, the American Society of Equity, came to North Dakota and by 1913 had procreated well over 400 marketing and purchasing locals throughout the state. Among the many new settlers who immigrated during the second Dakota "boom" after 1905 were radicals, and they united into the North Dakota Socialist Party.
Both the cooperative and radical movements questioned the preference given to out-of-state corporations, called for fair taxation, and demanded better services from state government. For these movements, the goal was returning control of North Dakota's government and economy to the people, and they were not afraid to demand that state government organize and operate banking, insurances, and processing businesses in order to bring the benefits of competition, lower costs, and better services to the people.
These movements procreated the Nonpartisan League, North Dakota's greatest political insurgency. The NPL, born in 1915, united progressives, reformers, and radicals behind a platform that called for many progressive reforms, ranging from improved state services and full suffrage for women to state ownership of banks, mills and elevators, and insurances. Led by A. C. Townley, the NPL used the primary election to take control of the Republican Party in 1916, dominated all state government by 1918, and enacted its program in 1919. It's administration, headed by Governor Lynn J. Frazier, instituted many reforms in state government; among them were re-organization of state services, expansion of educational services, development of health care agencies, and improved regulation of public services and corporations. However, it's core program generated fierce opposition fueled by funds from out-of-state corporations; those interests used every means to obstruct the NPL program, including lawsuits and extreme propaganda.
The anti-NPL movement gained strength during and after World War I. Charging that the NPL's leaders, many of whom were former Socialists, were opponents of American participation in World War I, the anti-NPL forces coalesced in late 1918 into the Independent Voter's Association. Vitriolic political infighting followed. The IVA attacked on many fronts, rapidly sowing disunity within the NPL and splitting the coalition of cooperative groups that had helped support the League. Economic distress caused by the precipitous decline in grain prices after World War I and a drought in western North Dakota helped diminish NPL support. In 1920, the IVA took control of one legislative house and in 1921 forced a recall election that deposed Governor Frazier and other members of the Industrial Commission that governed state-owned industries. The NPL era, one that significantly altered North Dakota government, had ended.
The NPL left an indelible mark on the state. The Bank of North Dakota at Bismarck, opened in 1919, has become a large and powerful economic force; the State Mill and Elevator at Grand Forks, completed in 1922, provided a market for grain and a source of feed and seed; the state hail insurance program benefitted many farmers until its elimination in the 1960s. Perhaps most importantly, the NPL established an insurgent tradition in the state that blurred party lines for four decades, and both the League and the IVA elevated a generation of leaders to power. Each official recalled in 1921, for example, later regained public office.
For North Dakota the 1920s and 1930s proved to be watersheds. An economic Depression, starting with the 1920 collapse of wartime prices for grain, punctured the economic expansion of previous decades. More North Dakota banks closed in 1921 than in any other year; the resulting contraction of credit caused many farm foreclosures. Simultaneously, farm sizes increased, and many farmers mechanized their operations. A dramatic shift to motorized transportation placed greater emphasis on better roads and bridges. As the times changed, new devices entered the state's homes; radio, especially, became commonplace after the first stations went on the air in North Dakota in 1922. Likewise, motion pictures attracted thousands, and many theaters were built in towns across North Dakota. These economic and social factors had by 1930 made North Dakota a different place than a decade earlier. The fire that destroyed the old state capitol building on December 28, 1930, symbolized the end of an era.
BACK TO TOP
NPL article taken from the ND Democratic-NPL web site
People still ask questions about North Dakota's Non-Partisan League (NPL). Why was the NPL started? Why did this progressive-liberal organization end up joining the Democratic Party? To find out, read on...
By Buskshot Hoffner
People still ask me questions about North Dakota's Nonpartisan League (NPL). Why was the NPL started? Why did this progressive-liberal organization end up joining the Democratic Party?
From statehood in 1889 to 1915, there was really only one party in power in North Dakota, and that was the Republican Party. They had complete control of the State House and Senate and the governor's office. In all that time, there were many progressive, liberal-thinking people in the Republican Party with little or no voice. These progressives were not only fed up, but just plain angry.
In 1916, this North Dakota group sold $16 memberships and started the Non-Partisan League. That year they had a convention, passed a platform and selected candidates, which they file in the Republican column in the primary election. They elected Lynn J. Frazier governor and made gains in the legislature. In his message to the legislature, Governor Frazier asked that farmers and small businesses be allowed to pay their taxes in two increments of six months each, that interest rates be reduced, that women be given minimum wage and safer working conditions, that state employees be considered civil service, that rural schools be improved, and the list goes on. The message was taken from the platform and adopted by the NPL.
In the 1918 election, the NPL took control of the North Dakota House and Senate and re-elected Governor Frazier. This amount of NPL control resulted in the establishment of the Bank of North Dakota, the State Mill and Elevator, a three-person Industrial Commission, state hail insurance, and many other programs.
As years went by, the NPL's control gradually eroded and the Republican money in the primaries was too much to overcome. In 1956, the NPL took a major step and filed its candidates in the Democratic column in the primary election.