"We all Leaguers by our house": Women, Suffrage, and Red-Baiting in the National Nonpartisan League

Abstract

In her 1918 letter to the Minnesota Leader, Mrs. Edwin A. Schact referred to the National Nonpartisan League, a populist farmers organization that flourished between 1915 and 1922, primarily in North Dakota and Minnesota. The League sought to influence state legislation through the election of representatives committed to League objectives. To accomplish this, the League supported and used the direct primary system, underscor- ing its deep faith in the power of the ballot. As its name suggests, the League was a nonpartisan organization, backing individuals of any party who adhered to League principles. In the Nonpartisan League, farm families affirmed their rural Ufe style and created a place to voice and address concerns. The League platform emphasized state-run programs designed to guarantee farm families greater economic clout: a state-owned bank with rural credit opportunities, state ownership of grain elevators and mills, a regulated grain grading system, and state-funded crop and farm insurance. These initiatives fright- ened people with various business and political interests into virulent anti-League activities. Within two years of its founding the League had more than 150,000 members in thirteen states. In the 1918 state election, League members swept the North Dakota state offices and legislature. By the end of 1919, League membership peaked at over 208,800 people; 90,000 in Minnesota and North Dakota. Membership in this case officially included only adult males. Since League activities were generally family affairs, the number of people who identified with the League was much larger.2 By 1921, however, the vitality of the League had ebbed; by 1924 it ceased to exist as a national organization. Charges of national disloyalty, sexual promiscuity, and immorality hurt the League. Legal charges did also—a state court convicted Townley of conspiring to discourage military