The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1921-11-04
NORTH DAKOTA RESULT.

After flirting with state socialism
for the past five years it appears from
incomplete returns from the recent
election that sanity and Americanisn
are once more dominant in North Ia
kota. In the recall election the Non
Partisan League incumbents appear
to have been beaten and turned out OF
office by some four or five Thousand
majority. This is a remarkable rever
sal from previous elections. Frazer
who has been repudiated and recall
ed' is serving his third term as gov,
einor and for the past three years en-
tire legislative, executive and judicial
control Of the state has been vested in
the league.
The Non-Partisan League captured
all of the offices and then entered
upon a program of state socialism, the
like of which has never been before
tried in America The state govern
ment embarked in the mill, elevator,
marketing, banking building and loan.
ing business. 1t was all to prove a
solution of all the evils of modern
| business. and in defiance of economic
laws the people and especially the
farmers of North Dakota, were to get
rich and happy through legislative leg
erdefmain. 1t was beautiful theory
but as is always the case with
schemes that ignore economic laws
NAT legislatures are powerless to re-
peal, it did not work. The credit of
the state was impaired, its obligations
went begging, many of the state banks
were forced to close their doors. A
desperate effort was made by the Non
Partisan League orators to make the
people believe that it was the machin-
atoms of Wall Street and not the
laws of supply and demand that prov
ed their undoing but evidently a ma
lority had sense enough to discover
the attempted deception.
1t is somewhat remarkable that a
state without single large city or
great industrial center, where the pop
ulation is largely rural. should have
been the first to experiment on large
scale with socialism. In this section
OF the country the farmers are the
bulWark of indiyiduaism; they are
the very stronghold of our instit,l
tions. They still believe in the Sdnda,
mentals of the American system. The
hold to the faith of the fathers. They
believe that wealth is created in the |
sweat of the face and that economic |
laws are more potent than legislation
They still adhere. to the rather old |
notion that the people who
are last governed are best governed
But 1t must be remembered that the
Anglo Saxon is not as -almerous in
many sections of North Dakota as 9th.
or and more alien races Germans
and Scandinavians make I'D a very.
cCDfiderable portion of the population
Of that state. They constitute a more
fertile field for the socialist. In fact
many of the socialist and communist
theories of the Non-P Partisan League
we're imported from overseas.
While the experience of the North
Dakota farmers with socialism has
been disastrous to them, in the end
t will be helpful to the country. With
he intelligent, genuinely American
vote it was not necessary to put the
,heories into practice to demonstrate
heir failure, but there is always an
element of the people who are ready
% listen to the siren Song OF the de
signing politician, and yield to their
;9ductiOns. For them the experience
IF Dakota should be an awful warning,