North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie State

by Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of North Dakota

HISTORY

The Atlantic seaboard Colonies still constituted the American frontier on the April day in 1682 when the intrepid Sieur de la Salle, in the presence of a company of uncomprehending red men, took possession of the lands drained by the Mississippi River "in the name of the Most High, Mighty, Invincible, and Victorious Prince, Louis the Great, by the Grace of God, King of France and Navarre, Fourteenth of that name."

His words figuratively raised the flag of France over a vast territory which included more than half of what is now North Dakota. Two other European nations were to own parts of this State, and it was to be identified with nine United States Territories before actually becoming a member of the Union in 1889.

La Salle's Procès Verbal claimed for France the vast lands in the drainage basins of the Mississippi and its tributaries. All of this territory was ceded to Spain in 1762, to repay her for losses suffered as an ally of France. Adjustments of territorial possessions having been made between Spain and England, however, France "suggested" that Spain cede back the lands, which she reluctantly did in 1800.

The Louisiana Purchase was negotiated in 1803, and the United States came into possession of the Mississippi basin, including the southwestern half of North Dakota. The northeastern part of the State, drained by the Red and Souris Rivers, was acquired from Great Britain in 1818, when a treaty fixed the Canadian-United States boundary at the Forty-ninth Parallel.

As the growth of the Nation extended westward, this State successively became part of the Louisiana, Great Northwest, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and finally Dakota Territories. For the three years from the formation of Minnesota to the creation of Dakota Territory, from 1858-61, almost all of the present State lying east of the Missouri was unorganized territory, without formal government of any kind.

Dakota Territory extended from the Canadian border to the Forty-third Parallel, and from Minnesota and Iowa to the main ridge of the Rockies. When Wyoming Territory was created in 1868 the present western boundary of the Dakotas was fixed, and the southern boundary of the Territory was settled in 1882. In the general election of 1887 residents voted that the Seventh Standard Parallel divide Dakota Territory into two States. President Benjamin Harrison signed the bills admitting North and South Dakota to statehood November 2, 1889: while he signed them, both documents were covered except for the signature space, so that it can never be known which of the twin Dakotas is the elder.

The two States derive their names from the Santee Sioux word dakota, which means "allies."

THE EARLY WHITE EXPLORERS

Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Verendrye, was the first white man known to have entered what is now North Dakota. Like so many others of his time, Verendrye, a French-Canadian, was in search of the westward route to India. When the liberal Louis XV came to the throne of France he granted Verendrye permission to explore and claim new lands for France, in return for which Verendrye was to receive exclusive fur trading privileges. With a fur monopoly to back him Verendrye succeeded in obtaining financial support for his venture, and in 1731 he and his party left Montreal for the explorations which were to occupy the remainder of his life.

It was in 1738 that, having established several forts in what later became Manitoba and Saskatchewan, he decided to visit the Indians called the Mantannes (Mandans), of whom he had heard. Accordingly he journeyed south and west, past the Pembina and Turtle Mountains, and eventually reached a Mandan village located a day's journey from the Missouri. Until 1936 this village was believed by historians to have been near Sanish, but in the light of recent discoveries at a site near Menoken, the latter is now thought by many historians to have been the village visited by the Verendrye party. This theory is substantiated by the journal of Verendrye in which he states that he sent his sons to visit another village on the Missouri, a day's march distant (see Tour 8).

Of this trip to the Mandans, Verendrye wrote that their village consisted of 130 earth lodges, and added, "Their fortification ... has nothing savage about it." The people he described as "of mixed blood, white and black. The women are rather handsome, particularly the light colored ones; some have an abundance of fair hair." But later he records that he reproved his Assiniboin guides for telling him the Mandans were light-colored, and asserted they had lied to him, whereupon they said the fair people of whom they spoke wore metal (armor) and were a summer's journey down the river.

The French party left the Mandan chief a lead tablet claiming the land in the King's name. What became of the tablet is unknown; a similar one, buried by a son of Verendrye on an expedition in 1743, was unearthed in 1913 at Fort Pierre, S. Dak.

This visit of Verendrye to North Dakota was his only trip into the region. Two of his sons passed through North Dakota again in 1742, on which expedition they reached either the Black Hills or the Big Horn Mountains. Unable to make any satisfactory progress toward the ocean, they returned to their friends the Mandans and thence to Fort la Reine in Manitoba.

Fifty years elapsed from the visits of the Verendryes to the next important exploration of North Dakota. In November 1797 David Thompson, an English geographer in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, was sent out to survey the boundary and visit the company posts. It was an unusually cold winter, and the party suffered intensely during the 68-day journey. They explored along the Assiniboine and Souris Rivers and the west edge of the Turtle Mountains, then turned southwest to the Missouri, where they visited the Mandans, and Hidatsa.

Thompson in his journal has given a thorough account of the homes, manners, food, dress, and agricultural activities of these Indians. He noted that, while their villages were much alike, the Mandans were a more courteous and better behaved group. Called "the greatest practical land geographer in history," Thompson later helped survey the boundary line between Canada and the United States in accordance with the Treaty of 1818. In commemoration of his exploration of this State a monument has been erected to him, in the shape of a large masonry sphere, at Verendrye (see Tour 7).

The same year that Thompson explored central North Dakota, Charles Chaboillez, a fur trader, came to Pembina to establish the first North West Company post within the present boundaries of this State. Both the Hudson's Bay and the XY Companies established posts in the same vicinity in 1801, and with three great companies in deadly competition, life at Pembina was colorful and dangerous. Excusing their own lack of scruples on the grounds of competition, the companies bought furs with liquor, giving rum to the Indians until they agreed to sell or until they were too stupefied to know when the pelts were taken from them.

Three years after the establishment of Chaboillez's post, Alexander Henry, a partner in the North West Fur Company, built a post on the Red River near the mouth of Park River, and shortly afterward moved down to the mouth of the Pembina. He made frequent trips to the Grandes Fourches (Grand Forks) and established depots there and in the Hair Hills, or Pembina Mountains. On one occasion he made a trip to the Missouri to visit the Mandans, and his journal says of their farming methods: "The whole view was agreeable and had more the appearance of a country inhabited by a civilized nation than by a set of savages."

Liquor flowed freely at the Henry post. Traders found it profitable to deal with Indians who were in a drunken stupor. Henry's journal gives evidence that brawls were an everyday occurrence. One entry reads: "Feb. 9, 1806. Men and women have been drinking a match for three days and nights, during which it has been drink, fight—drink, fight—drink, and fight again—guns, axes, and knives their weapons—very disagreeable." Henry left Pembina in 1808 for the Saskatchewan River.

At his post were born North Dakota's first two children of other than Indian parentage. The first, the daughter of Pierre Bonza, Henry's Negro servant, who had formerly been a slave in the West Indies, was born March 12, 1802.

The first white child was born December 29, 1807, to the "Orkney Lad", a woman who had worked at the post for several years in the guise of a man, until the birth of the child betrayed her sex. Abandoned by the father of the child, John Scart, she remained at the post until a collection was taken up and she and the baby sent back to her home in the Orkney Islands.

President Jefferson for some time had been eager to have a party explore the Missouri, cross the Rockies and reach the Pacific. In 1803 the Louisiana Purchase facilitated completion of his plans, and his secretary, Capt. Meriwether Lewis, with a friend, Capt. William Clark, started out on the journey of exploration.

On October 13, 1804, the expedition came up the Missouri River into what is now North Dakota. Near the present site of Stanton, where the Knife River joins the Missouri, Lewis and Clark discovered villages of the Mandans and Hidatsa. Having been well received, they decided to establish winter quarters. Fort Mandan was built and the flag of the United States of America raised for the first time on North Dakota soil. It was here that the explorers secured the services of Charbonneau, the French interpreter, and his wife Sakakawea, the Shoshone Indian girl who guided them successfully through the Rockies to the Pacific (see Bismarck).

After spending the winter with the friendly Indians, the expedition in April 1805 set out along the river again, following its course into Montana. Their journey through the mountains to the Pacific, led by Sakakawea, is one of the most thrilling adventures in American history.

The party returned in September 1806 to the Hidatsa village on the Missouri where Lewis and Clark, taking leave of their faithful guide, set out for St. Louis and home. The careful observations recorded in the journals of their party are a valuable contribution to the history of this region.

Lewis and Clark were not the only explorers to visit the Missouri region in the early nineteenth century. A decade before they came traders were already ascending the river, and in the succeeding year naturalists and military men added their presence to the growing, if transient, white population. Among the many who left interesting records of their explorations and travels were Charles le Raye, who spent three years as a captive of the Brulé Sioux; Manuel Lisa, one of the most important fur traders on the upper Missouri; Gen. William Ashley, Col. Henry Leavenworth, and Gen. Henry Atkinson, who subdued the Arikara; and Wilson P. Hunt of the Astorian Overland Expedition. Two royal adventurers visited here: Paul Wilhelm, Prince of Wurttemberg, who is said to have taken Sakakawea's son back to Germany with him; and Maximilian, Prince of Wied, who brought with him the Swiss artist Carl Bodmer, whose paintings preserve much of the life and customs of the Mandans. George Catlin, a native artist, was aboard the first steamboat to reach the Yellowstone. He painted and wrote about the Missouri Indians, and left hundreds of pictures of their life. John James Audubon, noted naturalist, spent several months in present North Dakota studying the larger types of North American mammals.

ON THE FRONTIER

The earliest attempt at colonization in this State was the Selkirk settlement in 1812 at Pembina in the Red River Valley. The Earl of Selkirk had arranged for the transportation of a group of evicted Scotch and Irish peasants to the Hudson Bay region in Canada, and some of the emigrants had followed the Red River south and settled at Pembina. The fur traders in that vicinity, however, were not eager to have the wild country inhabited. They made life miserable for the Selkirk settlers, and finally succeeded in driving most of the newcomers out.

Among the fur companies of that time were two famous competitors, the Hudson's Bay and the North West Companies. Others were the Missouri Fur Company, Chouteau and Berthold, Northwestern, Columbia, and Sublette & Campbell, the latter company establishing a post, Fort William, on the site later occupied by Fort Buford military post. John Jacob Astor established the American Fur Company, and for years Fort Union, on North Dakota's western border, was that company's principal post. (See Side Tour 6B.)

Some of northeastern North Dakota's most noted pioneers came into this region as fur traders. Joseph Rolette was sent to Pembina by the American Fur Company in 1842. A member of the Minnesota Territorial Legislature, he was responsible for keeping the capital at St. Paul. Norman Kittson, who established a fur trading post at Pembina in 1843, became the first postmaster, in 1851, in what is now North Dakota. He, too, was a member of the Minnesota Territorial Legislature. Charles Cavileer, while not a fur trader, was a contemporary of these men, and acted as collector of customs at Pembina.

The coming of settlers marked the decline of the fur trade, but at its height it had been colorful. Lewis Crawford, a North Dakota historian, has written:

"In this early race for empire none except fur seekers entered. Their rhythmic paddle blades swished up every stream of the West to its rivulet head; every mountain height and forbidding gorge knew their intrepid feet.... Every nationality had a part.... These were the true pathfinders, the true explorers, the heralds of empire. Their fur-laden vessels floating down the familiar waters of the Missouri and its tributaries represented the wealth, the adventure, the romance of the Northwest."

In the time of the fur trader the Missouri River, the "Smoky Water" of the Indians, was navigable, though as turbulent and capricious as it is today. It was the highway of the trader and later of the gold seeker. The first steamboat to navigate the Missouri through North Dakota was the Yellowstone, which in 1832 ascended the river to Fort Union. To operate a boat on this river required great skill.

Famous pilots in the heyday of the steamboat who wrestled with the wiles of the Missouri included Joseph LaBarge, Grant Marsh, and C. J. Atkins. In 63 years as a pilot Grant Marsh wrecked but one boat on the Mississippi and never had a wreck on the Missouri or Yellowstone.

The yellow gleam of gold, discovered in Montana in 1863 and 1864, drew a rush of prospectors. The railroads had not yet penetrated this territory, and the Missouri was the pathway to the gold fields. Precious cargoes of yellow dust floated down through Dakota, bound for St. Louis. It is said that one boat, the Luella, carried gold dust to the value of $1,250,000 down the river in 1866.

It was not the coming of the railroads to Bismarck in 1873 that marked the decline of the steamboat on the Missouri, but rather the extension of the railroad westward to Montana in 1883.

The Red River of the North was the important channel of traffic for northeastern North Dakota. Steamboats were not as numerous as they were on the Missouri, nor were they operated at such an early date. Fleets of barges and scows were used to transport provisions. The steamer Selkirk commanded by Capt. Alexander Griggs, best known of Red River pilots, brought passengers down the river to settle at Grand Forks the year after he and his crew had unexpectedly spent the winter there (see Grand Forks).

In Territorial days United States military posts were numerous but short-lived. Fort Abercrombie on the west bank of the Red River, about 12 miles north of the site of Wahpeton, was established in 1857. Supplies for this post were brought from St. Paul. When the Sioux went on the warpath in 1862, Minnesota settlers sought refuge here during a seven weeks' siege. The fort was abandoned in 1877 (see Tour 1).

Fort Rice, on the west bank of the Missouri, came next. Gen. Alfred H. Sully's men cut cottonwood trees to build it in 1864. The fort housed four infantry companies. It was to Fort Rice in 1870 that Linda Slaughter, young, talented, followed her husband, Dr. Frank Slaughter. Her writings, depicting the frontier life, found their way into many eastern papers, and today constitute some of the best material on that era of State history. At Fort Rice she buried her first-born child, her only son, in the bitter cold of January. She heard the arrows of hostile Indians whizzing dangerously near. Her luxuriant hair, which she always wore long over her shoulders, was coveted as a scalp lock, and she came near leaving it with the red men on one of her horseback jaunts from the fort. A woman who could paint, write, or lecture at will, she could also cook or nurse as the occasion demanded. In later days she wrote the first telegram that was sent to the world from Edwinton, the village which became Bismarck.

Fort Rice was dismantled in 1878 when Fort Yates, to the south, took its place. Fort Ransom on the Sheyenne was established in 1867. In 1872 Fort Seward, first called Fort Cross, was built at Jamestown. The military reservations of Fort Abercrombie and Fort Seward were opened to homestead entry in 1880.

Fort Totten, near Devils Lake, was constructed in 1867 and served until 1890, when the buildings were turned over to the Indian school. Fort Stevenson on the Missouri at the mouth of Douglas Creek was maintained from 1867-83. Fort Buford was built in 1866 opposite the mouth of the Yellowstone on the north bank of the Missouri. After his surrender in 1877 Chief Joseph was taken through Fort Buford en route to Fort Leavenworth, Kans., and Chiefs Gall and Sitting Bull went there to surrender after their escape into Canada (see Side Tour 6B). The fort existed officially until 1895, but sometime before its abandonment the garrison had been transferred to Fort Assiniboine in Montana.

Established on the Red River near the site of Pembina, Fort Pembina was maintained from 1870 to 1895. Fort McKeen, established in 1872, became, the same year, part of Fort Abraham Lincoln, garrisoned until 1891. It was from Fort Abraham Lincoln that Custer and his Seventh Cavalry marched to death and disaster on the banks of the Little Big Horn in 1876 (see Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park). After 25 years of occupation, Fort Yates was abandoned in 1903, when the new Fort Lincoln was built near Bismarck with facilities for four companies of infantry and supporting detachments. (See Tour 8.)

These early forts were established to protect the settlers along the frontier and to keep the Indians in order. It was after the Sioux outbreak in Minnesota in 1862 that Gen. Henry H. Sibley was sent to punish the Sioux. In June of 1863 he headed his army west from Minnesota toward the Devil's Lake region, where he arrived to find the Indians had gone south. He pursued them and on July 24 engaged them in battle at Big Mound about seven miles north of the present town of Tappen. They retreated, and he followed them to Dead Buffalo Lake, northwest of Dawson, where July 26 another engagement was fought. Two days later he met them again at Stony Lake northeast of Driscoll, but the Sioux retreated rapidly and there was no fighting. Moving on toward the Missouri, Sibley encamped on Apple Creek, seven miles east of the present site of Bismarck, and again near its mouth. The Sioux fled across the river.

Sibley, all along the route, had thrown up defensive earthworks at each of his camps. All of these camp sites which were not plowed under have been definitely located under direction of the State historical society.

Gen. Alfred H. Sully was to have met Sibley on the Missouri, but no contact could be made and Sibley set out for Minnesota on August 1, 1863. Sully came up the river from Sioux City, and was near Long Lake when he learned that Sibley had gone home and the Sioux had recrossed the Missouri and departed for the James River. Sully gave chase—he had been sent out to fight Indians, and fight them he would. The Battle of Whitestone Hill, near Ellendale, followed. Whether the Indians Sully fought had taken part in the Minnesota uprising is today regarded as dubious, but the battle is said to have been the fiercest ever fought on North Dakota soil. The field is now marked by a monument of a cavalry trooper (see Tour 2).

Sully returned to Sioux City but was sent back the following year to deal out still more punishment to the Sioux. After Fort Rice had been established a scouting detachment was sent after the evasive red men, and soon reported Sioux near Killdeer Mountain. Here an engagement was fought July 28, 1864, in which the Indians were severely punished, although afterwards it developed that few of them were Minnesota Sioux.

The troops proceeded up the Little Missouri, where Indians were discovered near Medora. With difficulty Sully traversed 12 miles of Badlands buttes and gullies, continually harassed by the sniping fire of Indians along the route. The fighting of this day is known as the Battle of the Badlands. Following this encounter Sully reached the Yellowstone and returned down the Missouri.

Before he arrived at Fort Rice, he was informed that Capt. James L. Fisk, with a party of immigrants, was in danger. Fisk, who had made expeditions through North Dakota in 1862 and 1863, on this trip followed Sully's trail, and in the Badlands was attacked September 1 by Indians, with the loss of several men. During the next few days several other attacks were made, although no one was killed. Messengers were sent to Sully for aid, and meanwhile the party threw up what fortifications they could in the form of sod walls, and, awaited help. After several days the soldiers arrived and brought the immigrants back to Fort Rice, whence most of them returned to their homes. The remains of their impromptu fortification, known as Fort Dilts, can still be seen (see Tour 9).

One of the most valuable expeditions made through this State was the Stevens Survey of 1853, sent out to discover the most advantageous routes to the Pacific for future railroads. The party was financed by a Federal appropriation, and the northern route, through present North Dakota, was under the direction of Gen. I. I. Stevens.

The guide on this expedition was Pierre Bottineau, one of the outstanding personalities in the history of North Dakota and Minnesota during this period. Of him it has been written that

"It was the guide Bottineau who walked from Winnipeg to St. Paul with James J. Hill, it was the scout Bottineau who headed Jay Cooke's first Northern Pacific survey across the continent, it was the chief Bottineau who gave his name to Bottineau County, and it was the gambler Bottineau who had three queens in his hand, staked Nicollet Island, and lost."

In 1871 the Whistler expedition went up the Little Missouri and into Montana in search of the most practical route for a railroad to the Pacific. Two years later the Stanley expedition, accompanied by a large military escort, conducted another western survey. Engagements with Indians cost this expedition a number of men. One Sioux, Rain-in-the-Face, claimed to have had a part in killing two civilians on the Stanley Survey, and as a result was imprisoned at Fort Lincoln until he escaped. He gained his revenge at the Little Big Horn (see Side Tour 8C).

The Northern Pacific Railway received its charter from the Government in 1864. Magnificent Federal land grants were made: still the road found it difficult to raise the necessary capital to finance the venture, and Jay Cooke & Company undertook the sale of Northern Pacific securities.

On the last day of the year 1871 the line was completed to the Red River at Moorhead, and early in March of the next year it was extended to Fargo. Cooke went into bankruptcy after the financial panic of 1873, but was able to obtain private funds to complete the road to the Missouri that year. Bismarck remained the western terminus of the line until 1879. During the next two years rails were laid to the Montana border, completing the line across the entire State.

In 1870, just before the advent of the railways, the estimated white population of present North Dakota was not more than five hundred. Pembina County, extending the length of the Red River Valley and to the western population limit, was the only organized county in the State.

The Northern Pacific was completed to the Pacific Coast in 1883. Squatters preceded the railroad, settlers followed it, trying to guess future town sites so they could force the company to buy them out at the most profitable price.

The Great Northern was the second important railroad to come into the State. By 1882 James J. Hill, the "Empire Builder," had extended a line up the Dakota side of the Red River to Canada. Hill had a vision of a great railroad connecting the Pacific Coast with the Great Lakes, whence produce could be cheaply transported to New York. Construction began in 1880 and the Great Northern was extended westward across northern North Dakota and in 1893 reached the Coast.

The railroads linked Dakota with the East and civilization, but to the west was the frontier. Here Sioux warriors were beginning to resent the encroaching whites and the appropriation of their hunting grounds. It was imperative, therefore, that soldiers be kept at Fort Abraham Lincoln.

To understand the campaign of 1876 against the Sioux, in which Gen. George A. Custer met his tragic end, it is necessary to go back to the Indian treaty of 1868. The Government by this pact promised to abandon and destroy Forts Reno and Phil Kearney in Wyoming and Fort Smith in Montana. This having been done, the Sioux were guaranteed their freedom in the territory between the North Platte and the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. But, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills by a Government reconnaissance expedition under Custer in the summer of 1874, white settlers and prospectors begged for admission to the coveted territory. Military guards at first attempted to keep them out, but when the Indians refused in a treaty council in 1875 to sell or lease land to miners, the Government withdrew the guard and settlers poured in by thousands.

RING-BILLED GULLS

Photo by Russell Reid

PASQUES

Photo by Russell Reid

FLICKERTAIL

Photo by Russell Reid

A MODERN INDIAN

Photo by Russell Reid

SCAFFOLD BURIAL, FORMERLY USED BY SOME INDIAN TRIBES

Government officials were well aware, when the treaty of 1868 was violated, that an Indian war was inevitable; but although the Government had clearly brought the war down on its own head, it sought the appearance of righteousness.

It was the practice of many Indians to leave their reservations because they wanted to hunt or visit, or because the practices of dishonest agents made life on the reservation unbearable. The Department of the Interior sent out orders for all Indians to be back on their reservations at a certain date, but for many it was impossible to return within the time limit set. The Department designated these people as "hostiles" and turned them over to the War Department, which now had a pretext for taking punitive action.

The campaign of 1876 was planned to force the Indians onto reservations, in order to obtain the relinquishment of the Black Hills. Generals Crook and Gibbon, with their forces, were to meet Generals Terry and Custer with their troops near the Rosebud River in Montana. All were then to move southward against the Indians who were in the hills along the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn.

On the morning of May 17, 1876, the eastern division of the expedition started out from Fort Abraham Lincoln. The cavalry marched about the parade grounds to the tune of Garry Owen, then set out to the strains of The Girl I Left Behind Me. Mrs. Custer accompanied her husband on the first day's ride, returning to the fort as the troopers continued west.

The tragic outcome of the Battle of the Little Big Horn is well known. Not a man of Custer's immediate command survived. The reasons for the annihilation have been debated far and wide. Gen. E. S. Godfrey, who participated in the battle as a lieutenant, in Custer's Last Battle summarizes the affair as follows: "The causes of Custer's defeat were first, the overpowering number of the enemy and their unexpected cohesion; second, Reno's panic rout from the valley; third, the defective extraction of empty cartridge shells from the carbines.... A battle was unavoidable."

Grant Marsh had pushed his supply steamer, the Far West, up the Big Horn to within 15 miles of the battlefield. Reno's wounded were placed aboard and Marsh made the trip of 710 miles down to Bismarck in record time. At midnight July 5 the Far West docked. Colonel Lounsberry, editor of the Bismarck Tribune and correspondent of the New York Herald, gave the story to the world. Mark Kellogg, special correspondent of the Herald and the Tribune, who had accompanied the expedition, had been killed with Custer. Twenty-six widows wept at Fort Lincoln. With Custer's death the frontier era in Dakota history had ended. Although Sitting Bull's forces were undefeated, they took refuge in Canada and remained there until 1881, when they voluntarily surrendered.

They were returned to the reservations. Wishing to keep them there, the authorities took horses, saddles, and arms from both hostile and peaceable Sioux. This move, while it did not pacify the Indians, put an end to the Indian wars.

TERRITORIAL SOLONS AND STRATEGY

At the time of the Little Big Horn campaign Dakota's Territorial Government had functioned for 15 years and was destined to continue 13 years longer. The Territory had been organized in 1861 and President Lincoln had appointed his family physician, Dr. William Jayne, first Governor. As first laid out the new Territory included the present States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, but after a series of changes it was reduced in 1882 to the area of the present Dakotas.

Yankton, in the southern part of the Territory, was the capital city, and there the first legislature met in 1862. It was an assembly representative of every type in the Territory—all with great and varying ideas of how the ship of state was to be kept afloat.

Thirteen members composed the house, while the senate or council had but nine. In attendance at the session for various reasons were Jim Somers, frontiersman, "armed like an arsenal"; Father Turner of New York; George Kingsbury, newspaperman; Dr. Walter Burleigh, later connected with the Indian Service and the Northern Pacific Railway; and Gen. T. C. Campbell.

Territorial Dakota displayed no small interest in politics. Campaigns were periods of great excitement, with long parades of ardent supporters following the candidates, with cheering and shouting and bragging and fighting by office seekers and votaries alike. It took a brave man to campaign in those days. When Moses Armstrong ran for Congress on the Democratic ticket his friend, Gen. T. C. Campbell, invited him into his part of the Territory to speak. During the general's speech his hat was shot off, but his oratory did not falter. When it came Armstrong's turn to speak he hesitated about addressing such a boisterous crowd, but the general informed him that the time to do his praying was before he crossed the county line, not after.

County seat removals were a prime source of political interest, and the cities in the Territory fought tooth and nail for the privileges of the county capital. Stuffing ballot boxes was not uncommon, and in many instances where removal was voted the defeated city would refuse to give up the county records, and guards would be posted against nocturnal raids of the courthouse vaults by citizens of the victorious town. When the Emmons County Record defeated a plan to move the county seat from Williamsport in 1888, it took full advantage of its success. Beneath the decoration of a crowing cock heading the column, these headlines, typical of the county seat controversies, appeared in the Record November 9 of that year:

ELI

And Billsport Hath The
Appellation Earned,
For Lo! She Doth Get There
With Both Feet.
And She Moppeth the Earth
With the Cohorts of the Wicked.
Yea, Verily, of the Wadites,
of the Bumstedites, and
the Vanbekites,
And They Shall Gnaw a File and
Flee Into the Mountains
of Hepsidam.
FE! FI! FO! FUM!

The entire edition, in celebration of the occasion, was printed in red ink.

Territorial Governors and other high officials were not popular with the people. They were usually from the East and had no interest in the country, their salaries or political advancement being their chief concern. Just after the first legislature had adjourned an Indian uprising disturbed the settlers. It did not take the Governor and other officials long to quit the Territory. Moses Armstrong, later a Congressman, wrote, "With such rapidity do they fly, pale and breathless, that a boy could play marbles on their horizontal coat tails."

Dakota Territory covered about 150,000 square miles and had 36 representatives in the legislature during the 1880's for its population of 300,000. Four judges and three prosecuting attorneys administered matters of Territorial justice.

The second legislative session was no quieter than the first. Because of disputed delegations there were two houses—one met on the levee by the Missouri and the other on the hill above the river. After much time had been lost the differences were compromised and business proceeded.

In 1863 Newton Edmunds of Yankton was appointed Governor of Dakota, the only resident of the Territory ever to hold that office. The next Governor was Faulk of Pennsylvania, then followed Burbank of Indiana, Pennington of Alabama, Howard of Michigan, Ordway of Vermont, Pierce of New York and Illinois, Church of New York and Indiana, and Mellette of Indiana.

The northern and southern parts of the Territory had little in common, and they kept growing farther apart as time went on. In the session of 1883 removal of the capital from Yankton was the big question. Yankton wanted to keep it, Bismarck, Huron, Mitchell, Pierre, and Chamberlain wanted to acquire it, and Fargo or Jamestown would have taken it if offered. A bill was finally passed providing that the Governor appoint nine commissioners to choose a capital city; they were to accept an offer of not less than $100,000 and 160 acres of land on which the capitol was to be built. The land remaining after the capitol grounds were provided for was to be sold for the benefit of the building fund.

The commissioners named were Milo Scott of Grand Forks County, Burleigh Spalding of Cass, Alexander McKenzie of Burleigh, Charles Myers of Spink, George Mathews of Brookings, Alexander Hughes of Yankton, Henry de Long of Lincoln, John P. Belding of Lawrence, and M. B. Thompson of Clay.

The commissioners must, according to law, meet and organize at Yankton. Feeling ran high; the city did not intend to part with the capital without a struggle. Yanktonians awaited the commissioners.

But unknown to the citizens of Yankton, the commissioners had chartered a special train, leaving Sioux City April 3, at 3 a. m. The commissioners' coach was dimly lighted as the train pulled into the city limits of Yankton. The meeting was quickly called to order, officers were chosen, and the meeting adjourned until that afternoon in Canton. The train had still a half mile to go to the city limits when the meeting was over. The commissioners had satisfied the law, having met, organized, and adjourned in Yankton.

The commission thereafter made the rounds of several towns, and was royally entertained by prospective capital cities. Bismarck's offer of $100,000 and 320 acres of land was the best bid received. Thus Bismarck became the Territorial capital.

The cornerstone ceremonies took place September 5, 1883. Many high officials and prominent citizens from the East were guests of the Northern Pacific on the Villard "gold spike" excursion, and were present as guests of honor at the laying of the cornerstone. Among them were Henry Villard, president of the Northern Pacific Railway; General Grant; General Haupt; Henry M. Teller, Secretary of the Interior; the Hon. Sackville West, British Minister; members of the Austro-Hungarian, the Danish, and the Norwegian-Swedish Legations; the Imperial German Minister; Territorial Governor Ordway; and numerous United States Senators, Governors, and mayors.

The next great task was to convince Congress that the Territory was ready for statehood. As early as 1871 the legislature had requested Congress to divide the Territory, and in 1874 Moses Armstrong, while in Congress, had petitioned that the northern part be made into a new Territory named Pembina. Nearly every year a petition was sent to Congress praying for admission as two States. In 1860 it was suggested that the northern part be called North Dakota. The Territorial legislative assembly in 1889 provided that a constitutional convention be held for North Dakota, and February 22, 1889, Congress passed an enabling act for North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Montana.

Delegates to the State convention were elected May 14, 1889, and the convention met in Bismarck July 4 of that year. A parade in which Sitting Bull and other famous Indians participated was part of the entertainment afforded the delegates. Election to approve or disapprove the proposed constitution was held October 1, 1889, and as it was a certainty that the constitution would be accepted, legislators, State officials, and Congressmen were elected at the same time. President Harrison on November 2, 1889, declared North Dakota a State, and John Miller at the same moment became first Governor of North Dakota.

Hand in hand with the political development of the Territory had gone social and economic progress. By the time statehood was attained farmhouses and towns had broken up the barren loneliness of the prairies. Sod shanties, the pioneers' first homes, were being replaced by solid frame structures. Huge bonanza farms were employing hundreds of men and using advanced farming methods that had not yet been introduced on farms in the East (see Agriculture & Farm Life). Schools were being built in every community. Six years before statehood one private college had been established, and the University of North Dakota had opened its doors and was offering courses in the arts and sciences to ambitious pioneer youth.

POLICIES AND POLITICS SINCE STATEHOOD

When the constitutional convention for North Dakota completed its work on August 17, 1889, the product of its labors was a document six times as long as the Federal Constitution. Based upon a model constitution drawn up by Prof. James Bradley Thayer of the Harvard Law School, it contained extremely advanced and enlightened provisions, 217 sections included in 20 articles. To these have since been added 49 amendments.

The civic pattern adopted was very similar to that in force in the older States. The legislative branch in North Dakota consists of a bicameral legislature which meets in January each odd-numbered year. The executive branch is headed by the Governor, who is elected for a term of two years. He has the general veto power and authority to reject any item in an appropriation bill. The judicial department consists of a supreme court of five members, elected for 10-year terms; district courts, county courts, and justices of the peace. The State is divided into six judicial districts, each one under an elective district judge. County courts are courts of record concerned with such matters as probate and guardianship, but in counties having county courts of increased jurisdiction such courts have concurrent jurisdiction with district courts in certain cases.

The State is divided into counties whose administrative functions are carried out by boards of commissioners elected every two years. Any city or village of 500 population or more may choose either the commission form of government or the mayor and council type.

The framework of government is perhaps not very different from that in many other States. It is the legislation in North Dakota that has been anything but a copy of that in any sister State, and the outcome of some of her political experiments has often been of Nation-wide interest. The economy of the State is preponderantly rural, and the tendency has therefore been to try anything that seemed likely to help in the solution of the farmer's problems.

The legislature of the State of North Dakota met for the first time November 19, 1889. This session lasted 120 days, but the length of all subsequent sessions was fixed by the constitution at 60 days. The first men this State sent to the United States Senate were Gilbert Pierce of Fargo and Lyman Casey of Jamestown. H. C. Hansbrough of Devils Lake was the first Congressman. The supreme court had for its chief justice Guy C. H. Corliss, and Joseph M. Bartholomew and Alfred Wallin were associate justices.

In this first session the legislature instituted a department of agriculture for "the promotion of stock-breeding, agriculture, horticulture, manufactures and domestic arts." A school law enacted at this session was an enlightened and detailed piece of legislation. North Dakota had at the beginning of statehood a well-organized school system of 1,362 public schools with 1,741 teachers; a State university at Grand Forks; Catholic schools at Fargo, Grand Forks, and Bismarck; a Congregational college at Fargo; a Presbyterian college at Jamestown; and at Tower City a Baptist college, which, however, failed to survive.

One of the most exciting battles of the first legislative session was the bill to license the Louisiana Lottery. Rumors circulated to the effect that bribery was being practiced, that the lobbyists for the lottery were making liberal offers for votes. The Governor and his friends had hired detectives from the Pinkerton Agency to mingle with the legislators and lobbyists. When the detectives had all the information they needed, they revealed their identity to the lottery supporters. Fearing exposure, the lottery enthusiasts gave up the fight and the bill was killed.

North Dakota was faced with the drought problem during the administration of Gov. Andrew Burke (1891-92), and the people looked to the legislature for some solution to their problems. Their petitions were not at all times considered seriously. One member offered a resolution praying Congress to pass a law establishing a scientific rain bureau and a law offering a reward to anyone discovering a practical system of producing rainfall. The house referred his resolution to the temperance committee.

At the beginning of statehood North Dakota had been subject to a rather autocratic form of government in spite of decidedly democratic constitutional provisions. The State had been economically dependent on the East. The directing powers in the early State government were centered in St. Paul and Minneapolis. Eastern wealth had furnished capital for the railroads, and the railroads had been responsible for the settlement of the State. Likewise, the farmer's crops had also to be sold in the East, and his machinery and supplies must necessarily be purchased there.

At the time North Dakota was admitted to the Union the Republican Party was in control. Democrats at that time in State history and for long afterward were few and far between. These two old-line parties were the only two worthy of note in this early period, although the Populists polled a large vote in the first Presidential election and North Dakota divided its first electoral vote, one vote going to the Democratic, one to the Republican, and one to the Populist candidate.

The railroads and financial interests of St. Paul and Minneapolis had very early begun interfering in North Dakota politics. Judson LaMoure and Alexander McKenzie were the lords of this era, both representing railroad interests in State politics, and the favors they were able to bestow were a safeguard against legislation hostile to the companies. In time they came to be the protectors of other interests, including banks, insurance companies, line elevators, and lumber companies.

The first revolt against this system came in 1892. Gov. Andrew Burke had vetoed a bill favored by the Farmers' Alliance which would force railroads to lease sites or rights-of-way for grain elevators and warehouses. The Farmers' Alliance, Democrats, and Populists fused, and Eli C. D. Shortridge was elected Governor.

In Governor Shortridge's administration the legislature passed a bill for highway improvement. Money was appropriated to enlarge the State capitol building.

The tendency of legislation during the session of 1893 was definitely toward the principles of the Populist platform. During Shortridge's administration North Dakota attempted its first State ownership venture. One hundred thousand dollars was appropriated to build a State elevator at Duluth, Superior, or West Superior. The panic of 1893 came on and the plan was not carried out. In 1894 Roger Allin, regular Republican, was elected Governor, and with that election the first brief rebellion against Eastern capitalism was ended.

Governor Allin felt it necessary to veto several appropriations in order to keep within the probable revenue, and State institutions had practically no funds for operation. In the case of the university, salary was provided for the janitor but not for the faculty. President Merrifield and the faculty preferred to serve without any pay rather than close the institution, and necessary expenditures were met by private subscription. Other institutions were kept open in the same way.

During the administration of Gov. Frank Briggs (1897-98) the Spanish-American War broke out. The entire National Guard volunteered its services, but many members could not be accepted because of the quota set for North Dakota. North Dakota volunteers took part in 30 engagements and skirmishes during the Philippine insurrection.

Governor Briggs died in July 1898 and his term was completed by the Lieutenant Governor, Joseph M. Devine, who later served several years as commissioner of immigration. Both Briggs and Devine were Republicans, and they were succeeded in 1898 by another member of their party, Frederick B. Fancher, a leader in the Farmers' Alliance. Fancher declined a second term, and was succeeded by Maj. Frank White, who had served in the Philippines. White found the State debt the chief problem of his administration. He served two terms and yielded his office to E. Y. Sarles.

Legislation during Sarles' term tended toward control and regulation of corporations. A board was created to supervise State banks, and the manner of organizing insurance companies in the State was prescribed.

Sarles was defeated for reelection by "Honest John" Burke, a Democrat, and the only Governor of this State to serve three terms. From the governorship he left North Dakota to become United States Treasurer under President Wilson, later served as chief justice of the North Dakota Supreme Court, remaining a member of the court until his death in 1937. Crawford, in his history of North Dakota, has said, "The legislative history of the Burke administrations is an instructive illustration of the ideals and motives which were so characteristic of the [Theodore] Roosevelt era." State institutions were liberally provided for, a primary election law was enacted, prohibition laws were enforced, schools were improved, and various regulatory offices and boards were created.

A second revolution in North Dakota political history was ushered in with the election of Burke. The Progressive Republicans, enthusiastic supporters of the so-called "LaFollette reforms," had formed a coalition with the Democrats to elect this first Democrat Governor of North Dakota. "It was," according to Judge Andrew Bruce in his book The Non-Partisan League, "the revolution which laid the foundations for the present Non-Partisan League, for in it the farmers found a new war cry and new objects of anathema. The war cry was 'North Dakota for North Dakotans' and the objects of their anathema were 'Big Business, McKenzie, and McKenzieism.'"

Gov. Louis B. Hanna succeeded Burke in 1913. In 1912, a Presidential election year, North Dakota's electoral votes went to Woodrow Wilson. New apportionment gave this State three representatives in Congress instead of two. Governor Hanna asserted his belief in businesslike administration of government offices, and revised the accounting methods in State departments. Throughout this period tendencies in the State were progressive: social legislation was favored; the State grew rapidly in population; new towns were springing up; the automobile age had arrived.

Through all this ran the thread of the second political revolution which Burke's election had begun, and which was continued through the Hanna administration. It was directed principally against injustices in the grain trade. Farmers were incapable of developing their own marketing facilities. Millions had been invested in the mills and elevators of St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Duluth, and in the "line" (corporation) elevator companies throughout North Dakota. The farmers complained of unfair methods of grading and docking their grain; they claimed that the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce was a closed corporation, and that its members were identified with the big milling and elevator interests. Even conservative Senator McCumber of North Dakota protested in 1916 before the United States Senate against abuses in the grain trade.

The Equity Exchange had been organized in 1909 to act as a farmers' general selling agency in St. Paul, but had been denied membership in the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce. The Society of Equity and the Equity Exchange tried to get a bill through the 1915 legislature for the establishment of a State-owned elevator, but the attempt failed. Indignation at the defeat of the bill resulted in the birth, in February 1915, of a new political party, the Nonpartisan[1] League.

[1] The party name was originally spelled "Non-Partisan" but through usage has been changed to its present form.

A. C. Townley, a genius in the art of organization, spread the league gospel through the State. Townley had begun life in poverty, had failed in a large-scale flax-growing enterprise, and had for a time been identified with the Socialist Party. A. C. Bowen suggested the formation of the league. Charles Edward Russell was the first editor of the newspaper, the Non-Partisan Leader, and Walter Thomas Mills drafted many of its laws. All three of these men were Socialists.

After winning the support of a prominent farmer, Fred Wood, and his two sons, the movement spread rapidly. Before the end of the first year the league had 30,000 members. Its platform embodied five planks:

1. State ownership of terminal elevators, flour mills, packing houses, and cold storage plants.
2. State inspection of grain and grain dockage.
3. Exemption of farm improvements from taxation.
4. State hail insurance on the acreage tax basis.
5. Rural credit banks operated at cost.

"Practical salesmanship, a program of immediate and forceful action and the use of the Ford automobile are the factors principally explaining the rise of the Non-Partisan League," declares Herbert Gaston in his book The Non-Partisan League.

Most of the league membership was Republican; it was therefore an easy step to the use of the machinery of that party. In the primary election of June 1916 and again in the fall the league was successful. Lynn J. Frazier became the first league-elected Governor, and three league-endorsed candidates, R. H. Grace, James E. Robinson, and L. E. Birdzell, were placed on the supreme court bench.

Three hundred thousand dollars was appropriated by the legislature to carry out the provisions of a Terminal Elevator Commission bill, but Frazier vetoed the act, declaring the appropriation insufficient. Among the progressive legislation enacted at this session were bills providing for the creation of a State highway department, land title registration (never enforced, however), increased funds for rural schools, reduction of rate of assessments on farm improvements to 5 percent of the true value, and guarantee of deposits in State banks.

Entry of the United States into the World War brought new activities to North Dakota in the spring of 1917. National Guard units were sent, a Council of National Defense was created to aid in the work of mobilization, Liberty Bonds were sold, and the State went $200,000 over its quota in the United War Work campaign.

The World War interrupted, but did not deter, the progress of the league program. Governor Frazier was reelected in 1918, and seven initiated amendments were added to the State constitution, forming the basis for the league program. The law for initiated petitions was changed to require only 20,000 signers; the $200,000 debt limit of the State was abolished and the State was allowed to issue or guarantee bonds not to exceed $10,000,000.

The league's industrial program was established at the 1919 legislative session. The industrial commission, composed of the Governor, the attorney general, and the commissioner of agriculture and labor, was to manage the industries and enterprises undertaken by the State. Under authority of the new legislation, the North Dakota Mill and Elevator Association was established. A small mill was purchased at Drake and later a mill and elevator were built at Grand Forks with a capacity of 3,000 barrels per day and a storage capacity of 1,659,500 bushels (see Tour 1).

In the March primary of 1920 an unusual initiated measure was the center of interest. It was the "recall", which provided for the removal of any elective officers, even judges. The measure became Article 33 of the constitution.

The elections of 1920 again saw the league victorious. In the Republican primaries Dr. E. F. Ladd, president of the State agricultural college, defeated Senator Gronna for the nomination as United States Senator. William Langer, who had been elected attorney general in 1916 with the endorsement of the league, opposed Governor Frazier in the primary and was defeated by a small margin. Frazier and Ladd were elected in November.

Two important initiated measures were passed, one providing for a board of auditors to audit the accounts of the State treasurer, the Bank of North Dakota, and all State industries, the other amending a previous measure so that although State funds and State institution funds must be deposited in the Bank of North Dakota, county, township, municipal, and school district funds need not be deposited there.

In 1920 deflation of the league's boom set in. The United States Supreme Court declared the grain grading law unconstitutional. The Independent Voters Association, anti-Nonpartisan, argued that the cost of government had greatly increased under the Nonpartisans. In the 1921 session of the legislature committees were appointed to investigate. The minority of the Senate committee reported that the industrial commission had practiced a policy of favoritism in affairs of the Bank of North Dakota in distributing public funds to private banks, so that the bank could not at that time meet its obligations; that the commission had failed to exercise proper control of the North Dakota Home Builders' Association, so that its affairs were hopelessly muddled; that it had approved contracts between the Drake mill and private merchants, especially the Consumers United Stores Company, a subsidiary corporation of the Nonpartisan League, resulting in losses to the State; that it had approved a policy of the Bank of North Dakota by which $2,000,000 of a total $5,200,000 in live claims against solvent banks were against 37 institutions mostly classed as "league banks" or "friendly" politically; that it had allowed officers of the bank to deposit public funds in private banks with the result that $1,400,000 of these funds were tied up in insolvent banks.

The recall was exercised for the first time in the United States against the governor of a State. In a special election of 1921, Frazier was defeated by R. A. Nestos, Republican, a member of the Independent Voters Association, or I. V. A.'s, as they were popularly called. The other two members of the industrial commission, Attorney General William Lemke and Commissioner of Agriculture and Labor John Hagan, were also recalled. But measures initiated to curtail the industrial program failed; Governor Nestos had to administer a program to which his party was opposed. Nestos was reelected in 1922. In the same election former Governor Frazier, running for United States Senator, defeated J. F. T. O'Connor, Democrat, who later became comptroller of currency under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Governor Nestos was defeated by the Nonpartisan candidate, Arthur G. Sorlie, in the primary of 1924 while I. V. A. Republicans won several of the State offices. Senator Ladd died in office and a Nonpartisan newspaperman, Gerald P. Nye, was appointed to fill the vacancy. He holds that office at the present time (1938). When Governor Sorlie died, Walter Maddock, Lieutenant Governor, filled out the term.

In 1928 George Shafer, an I. V. A., who had been attorney general under Nestos, was elected Governor, and in 1930 he was reelected.

The debt limit having been increased at various times, North Dakota's bonded debt in 1930 was estimated to be $36,357,200; $1,000,000 represented in capital stock of the Bank of North Dakota; $4,000,000 in mill and elevator construction and milling bonds; the remainder in various real estate bond series.

By 1930 North Dakota's population was 680,845, more than double the figure at the opening of the century. Large foreign immigrations accounted for the approximately 88 percent rise in the 1910 census over that of 1900, and by 1920 the figure had risen to 646,872. Statistics of the U. S. Bureau of Census show North Dakota to have been the only spring wheat State having an increase of population during the period from 1930-35. The growth has been almost entirely rural; from 1920 to 1930 no new urban centers (above 2,500) have appeared in the State.

The State capitol building was destroyed by fire December 28, 1930, and plans were immediately laid for building a new statehouse. A $2,000,000 building, unique in that it is North Dakota's only skyscraper, today stands on Bismarck's Capitol Hill.

An initiative measure in the election of 1932 repealed the prohibition clause in the State constitution, making North Dakota, dry since it became a Territory, a wet State.

William Langer, who had been elected attorney general on the Nonpartisan ticket with Frazier and later was defeated as I. V. A. candidate for governor by Frazier, was elected Governor in 1932, once more running as a Nonpartisan.

The period following proved a trying one for the rural population of North Dakota. The farmers suffered because of low market prices for farm products, low land values, bank failures, and crop failures. The situation was acute at the beginning of Langer's administration because many farm mortgages had been based on pre-depression valuations. Farmers feared foreclosure and the wastage of their life efforts.

To prevent foreclosure Governor Langer declared various farm mortgage moratoriums by executive order. For a time an embargo was in effect on agricultural products, forbidding shipment of them from the State in the hope that prices would be forced up. A law enacted to extend the period of redemption on real estate mortgages was held unconstitutional by the North Dakota Supreme Court as applied to existing mortgages. In 1933 laws were passed outlawing crop mortgages and deficiency judgments.

A stormy period in State history ensued when Governor Langer was removed from office July 18, 1934, having been held disqualified under the State constitution by the supreme court because of his conviction on a Federal charge of conspiracy, arising from solicitation of contributions from State and Federal employes for support of his political newspaper, the Leader. (The Federal Courts later reversed the conviction.) Ole Olson, Lieutenant Governor, served the remainder of the term.

Thomas H. Moodie, first Democratic Governor to be elected in 24 years, took office in January 1935, only to be declared ineligible by the supreme court February 2, because of insufficient residence in the State. Walter Welford, Nonpartisan Lieutenant Governor, became acting Governor, the fourth to occupy the gubernatorial chair in little more than six months.

The legislature of 1935 created a State Planning Board to make investigations and surveys relative to the conservation and utilization of the State's natural resources, and a State Welfare Board to act as official agency of the State in any social welfare activity initiated by the Federal Government and to allocate State and Federal funds available for such purpose. The planning board has since cooperated with the Federal Government in work which has involved development of natural resources and building of dams to overcome effects of drought.

Other legislation of the 1935 session provided for a retail sales tax which resulted in greatly increased revenues for education and public welfare purposes, a drivers license law, and a two-year mortgage foreclosure moratorium. Two radical changes in public policy effected through initiated measures in 1935 were provision for manufacture, sale, and distribution of beer, and for Sunday motion pictures.

Former Governor Langer, defeated by Acting Governor Welford for the Nonpartisan nomination for the governorship in 1936, surprised opponents in both the league and other parties by polling a majority in the election, the first governor of any State elected in the individual column on the ballot. In the same election North Dakota put liquor control in the hands of counties, municipalities, and villages.

Indicative of the increasing responsibilities of State Governments, the social-minded legislature of 1937 made the largest appropriation for public welfare in the history of the State—more than $6,100,000 for the 1937-39 biennium.