Page 6 -- The Journal & Tioga Tribune Changing Colors Wednesday, October 7, 2020

EDITOR’S NOTE: In the early 1900s, the state had a “live free or die” culture that encouraged self-reliance and independence from fiercely loyal politi- cal partisanship. Now, an overwhelming majority identify as Republicans. How did the electorate change from voting for a Congressional delegation of Democrats?

This series, produced by Forum News Service and the North Dakota News- paper Association Education Foundation, seeks to answer that question. North Dakota is a deep-red Republican state, but one with a state bank and a state mill and elevator — artifacts of a socialist past. It’s a land of sprawling farms, but increasingly tied to the petroleum industry. Its history runs through angry wheat farmers and Air Force bases and floods, nestled between mountains and Midwestern sensibilities.

Over the next two weeks, Journal Publishing -- The Journal and Tioga Tri- Journal Archive bune -- will be particpating in this project, presenting parts 1-3 this week A huge throng gathers outside the Divide County Courthouse in June 1918, to hear A.C. Townley. The photo is one of a series by early and Parts 4 and 5 next week, reviewing the political landscape from North Wildrose photographer A.M. Thompson. As interesting as some of the faces in the crowd -- nearly all male -- is the backdrop of the photo, Dakota’s early days, through the Great Depression and into the Cold War, which looks north across the old railroad tracks, from the courthouse grounds. oil development and present day. Mr. Townley goes to Washington By Sam Easter There are very few surviving photos of Arthur C. Townley — the North Dakota socialist, or- ganizer and political boss who Journal Archive shaped the state in the 1910s. Another photo in the But in one of them, he is do- series by A.M. Thomp- ing what he did best: working a son, this one show- crowd. Townley is in a suit, his dark ing the gazebo in the hair slicked back, caught mid- background, which sentence and with his hand now sits at Pioneer blurred as he gestures at the Village in Crosby. In this rough-faced men before him view, a few women are — a sepia-toned sea of news- visible, but politics was boy hats and folded arms and primarily considered a drooping mustaches. The open male’s domain at the prairie stretches beyond, past time, with women hav- rail cars and a depot and a few ing not yet attained the lone buildings. right to vote. According It’s impossible to know, at to previous reporting that moment, what Townley in The Journal, sum- was saying. The undated photo- marizing Townley’s ap- graph is from the 1920s — past pearance in 1918, the the peak of Townley’s power — but he was on the record as visit was not portrayed an opponent of big business, particularly favorably, and of the rail companies or even though an NPL the grain elevators stealing governor, Lynn Frazier, from the pioneers who worked was seated in 1916. In such a hardscrabble life. To the 1919, the state Legisla- common farmer, those were the ture adopted the NPL basic truths of plains living, and program leading to Townley made a career of fight- the formation of North ing against it. Dakota’s state- owned It’s hard to imagine as much bank, mill, grain eleva- today, but during the 1910s, tors and hail insurance North Dakota was the cen- company. ter of an American “socialist experiment.” Historian Elwyn Robinson’s famous book on This is the first in a series of articles, cratic Party in 1956, when the the state recalls farmers from partisan politics of North as far as Norway and German produced by Forum News Service and Dakota started to look like they Russia traveling the world to the North Dakota Newspaper Association do today. arrive in a place that looked Education Foundation, that seeks to answer The rest of Townley’s career almost nothing like home, doing that question. North Dakota is a deep-red, was bizarre. A state Historical intensely hard labor to feed Republican state, but one with a state bank Society account of his life re- themselves and their families, calls him running for Congress rising at 3 o’clock and working and a state mill and elevator — artifacts in 1930 on an anti-prohibition until dark. In the winter, they of a socialist past. It’s a land of sprawling platform (so the government might be forced to make break- farms, but increasingly tied to the petroleum could hop into the beer and fast wearing their mittens. industry. Its history runs through angry liquor business). But by the All that to find themselves wheat farmers and Air Force bases and floods, 1950s, he had renounced social- cheated by the corporations ism, supported Sen. Joseph Mc- — especially the grain eleva- nestled between mountains and Midwestern Carthy (the famous red-baiting tors, which often played dirty sensibilities. What built it? And why do its demagogue) and thought the at weighing and paying for their politics work the way they do today? private sector could do a better crops. Robinson also recalls One answer is Townley. job than the state bank and a key statistic from elevators Courtesy State Historical Society of North Dakota — Item #2010-P-024-06 state mill. Townley died in a car at the head of Lake Superior: The North Dakota Mill and Elevator was one of the triumphs of the crash in 1959. That in 10 years, they shipped Nonpartisan League. An unnamed family is pictured at the facility in Townley joined up with lo- as quickly as it won votes. By “As Townley’s life spiraled nearly 27 million more bushels 1932. cal socialists, and then, when 1918, J.D. Bacon, the owner of downward, his schemes be- his relationship with the local the Grand Forks Herald, wrote of wheat than their books had greed,” and said they “exact so again in November. came stranger,” the society’s party fell through, turned to a scathing pamphlet about logged them receiving. exorbitant toll from the farm- account recalls. “He became a And early socialism had How did we get here? his own devices. He and his Townley and the NPL, calling ers when grinding their wheat A Minnesota native, Townley faith-healer for a while. When plenty of proponents, especially political allies criss-crossed the Townley the movement’s “sole or exchanging flour and other was born around 1880, near oil was discovered in western among Norwegian immigrants, state of North Dakota in a Ford ruler, the dictator, the czar. All commodities for their wheat, the Minnesota-Dakota Territory North Dakota in 1951, Townley who were used to such politics Model T, whipping up support authority of the league was (and) the sacrifice which border and was a farmer by tried to sell ‘doodle-bug’ ser- back home. By 1912, Robin- for what would become the in his grasp, and he did not farmers have to make to them, his late 20s. But North Dakota vices to petroleum engineers. son recalls the state socialist Nonpartisan League. loosen a particle.” Business without any law regulating their winters were as hard then as Townley said that a doodle-bug party had a weekly newspaper And farmers and the Nonpar- interests closed ranks against traffic, is greater than they can they are now, and he was could find oil underground by based in Minot. “It attacked and tisan League had the momen- the League’s socialist policies, bear.” crushed by a sudden frost. The means of a … rod that would ridiculed the National Guard, tum. Demands to do something and League officeholders were The world that Townley costs he racked up on farming tip downward when passed the Reserve Officers’ Train- on behalf of the farmers had recalled. Just a few years later, walked in was primed for leftist equipment left him $80,000 in over the oil pool.” ing Corps at the University of been growing for years, and Townley served 90 days in jail politics to sweep through the debt (in 1916 dollars). He was But the institutions Townley North Dakota … and a deity there was enormous farmer on a 1919 conviction for alleged state. “Socialism” was far from bankrupt — and quite badly. helped build are still some of which presided unfeelingly over anger over the failure to build anti-enlistment activities amid a political dirty word back then. “You know, $80,000 in the the state’s defining features. capitalist injustice,” he wrote. It a state grain elevator. By 1916, fervor for World War I, and he But today that kind of so- hole is a devil of a ways down And Porter, the UND historian, even called the Boy Scouts the the League was strong enough never found his way back to his cialism is far from the norm. today. Being that far down 100 said the same blue-collar spirit “hired Hessians of capitalism.” to seize the levers of power in stranglehold on North Dakota Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, years ago, I can’t even fathom of the early NPL still echoes In fact, farmers’ grievances, the state. In just a few years, politics. Robinson recalls fears perhaps the country’s most it,” UND historian Kim Porter through American politics. and the tension between farm- they set about laying the foun- of “Bolshevism” sweeping the famous socialist, may have said. “He’s left without a job “You still see that today,” ers and corporate interests, dation for the Bank of North state, with one newspaper call- won the recent Democratic- — he’s left without activities. she said. “Farmers, laborers was one of the most powerful Dakota and the State Mill and ing him “Comrade” Townley. NPL presidential primary. But He’s hanging out there with who are laboring for them- political forces in the early Elevator, the latter of which In a diminished state, the President Donald Trump, who nothing to do and no money selves, maybe a carpenter or a state. An 1893 petition, signed would open in 1922. Nonpartisan League lived on has fashioned his career on his and — well, not even no money, plumber, somebody who says, ‘I by nearly four dozen Barnes But the Nonpartisan League — influencing and even upend- big-business acumen, carried he’s down there with negative worked hard, I sweat, I get dirty, County farmers, described fell out of power as quickly as ing North Dakota politics for the state in a Republican tidal money. And people chasing his I smash my thumb, but nobody grain millers’ “unbounded it had found it, making enemies decades. But it was eventually wants to give me a fair shake.’” wave in 2016 and will likely do tail.” folded into the state Demo- Wednesday, October 7, 2020 Changing Colors The Journal & Tioga Tribune -- Page 7 The Great Depression and rising prairie populism By Sam Easter This is the second tion program.” by something like 5 million In 1933, journalist Lorena story in a series, The day the lights came on tractors. Hickok got to see — up close — That electrification program, Former Sen. Byron Dorgan just how bad the Great Depres- produced by Forum one of a sudden explosion of began his political career in sion had become. She was trav- News Service and government programs meant 1969 at age 26, when Gov. Guy eling the country on behalf of the North Dakota to invigorate the economy, appointed him tax commission- President Franklin Roosevelt’s Newspaper Associa- was one of the greatest leaps er. Dorgan remembers many administration, and that year, tion Education Foun- in technology anyone on the of North Dakota’s mid-century she passed through western farm had experienced. Created changes well. None of them North Dakota. The state’s farm dation, about North by President Roosevelt in the stand out quite so much as the communities were fully unravel- Dakota’s history that 1930s, the Rural Electrification transformation of small towns, ing, beleaguered by droughts untangles how the Administration offered low- going from small farmers’ com- and crop-eating grasshoppers state’s modern poli- interest loans to turn the lights munities to relatively empty and a bank crisis. on in rural farm country. spaces, where one might “fire a In a letter to Washington tics came to be. A Lois DeFord was a schoolgirl cannon through main street and — collected in a 1981 book — lot of that story runs in January 1948 when electric- not hit anybody.,” he said. Hickok said she visited a “relief through the North ity came to her western North “The larger farmers in many office” in Williston where she Dakota countryside -- Dakota home, she recalled in cases are not buying from small came upon a farmer, middle- where farmers, once an interview with the state towns,” Dorgan said, mean- aged, with “skin like leather, historical society. Her father ing that farm supplies — like (and) heavily calloused, grimy under the thumb of was a director of an electric co- fertilizer and equipment — are hands.” He cut a strange figure, corporate interests, op near Richardton, and their suddenly routed through small though, in a young man’s suit, like railroads and farm’s electrification would town businesses far less often. with a “flashy blue sweater” grain elevators, soon help celebrate the electric “It’s a profound impact on small and a topcoat and a cap. Hickok found themselves poles and wire stitching the town life. No question.” recalls the man explaining that state together. Taken together, the Depres- the clothes belonged to his son. embroiled in the “As we left, Mom was busy sion and the years that fol- “They’re all we’ve got now,” lowest points of the cooking up food to feed the lowed were really the process the farmer said. “We take turns Great Depression. dignitaries, and Dad was grin- of the old North Dakota giving wearing ’em.” ning and pacing,” the historical way to a new one. The nadir of Things would eventually get society account remembers. the Great Depression destroyed so bad in North Dakota that, “[When school let out, the a way of life. But the coming as historian Elwyn B. Robinson day was overcast] cloudy and decades would bring new farm noted, statewide cash farm in- Courtesy State Historical Society of North Dakota, Item #00351-02 said. “And the state was kicked dark enough that we could technologies and electricity. come dropped to $61 million in Dust storms further complicated the economic hardships of North on its hinder. North Dakota, see LIGHT in the house as the Beyond the economy, they’d 1932 — despite never dropping Dakotan farmers throughout Depression era. statistically, was one of the school bus turned off the high- both alter the political fabric of below $200 million during the hardest-hit states, not just by way. What a glorious feeling!” the state, too. 1920s. The crisis in North Da- al relief simply wasn’t covering Census records put the state at the economic depression, but At the same time, farming Jacobs said a key part of the kota was aggravated by drought what people needed. Working more than 680,000 residents in by the truly desperate situation was changing. The total num- state’s modern prairie populism years, with most of the 1930s with a local official, she calcu- 1930; but by 1950, that figure in American agriculture.” ber of farms in North Dakota was made in kitchens and living seeing less than average rain- lated that it would cost about was only at about 620,000, tal- Former Gov. Bill Guy, the has plunged since the 1930s, rooms where locals organized fall, and grasshoppers that tore $40 to give the farmer’s family lying up a nearly 10% loss in first of the three, held office but the average farm size has their own electric co-ops to through crops. And the crisis of nine what they wanted. But population. The figure wouldn’t from 1961 to 1973. He’s widely grown enormously. According take advantage of the New Deal. was worse in the upper Mid- federal aid would only stretch recover until the early 2010s. credited with modernizing the to federal records, the state’s But as those days faded — and west than in many other places; so far. The crisis would fundamen- state, and helped build the total number of farms fell as farms got bigger — much of Robinson also notes that per “We’ve got 450 families on re- tally reshape the state and the Democratic apparatus that nearly 60% from 1930 to 1997, the community-minded, small capita income was less than lief in this county now, and the country, leaving in North Da- would rule North Dakota for but the average size of a farm town state began to slip out of 40% of the national average in number is increasing every day kota the animating spirit of the decades, notably appointing a grew almost 240%. That shift — living memory. 1933. The family that Hickok at the rate of about seven,” a next five decades of state poli- 26-year-old Byron Dorgan as tax seismic in scale — has changed For decades, the memory of found was feeling the brunt of local official told Hickok. “Some tics. As Mike Jacobs, the former commissioner in 1969 — one what it means to live and work the New Deal, and of commu- what North Dakotans around days we have as high as 15 new Grand Forks Herald publisher of the latter-day titans of state in the state. nity political identity, persisted, the state were feeling, too. cases. Six thousand dollars a and editor, points out, North Democratic politics who would A 2005 report from the U.S. shaping politics around the “They needed AT ONCE a suit month isn’t anywhere nearly Dakota’s three Democratic-NPL eventually retire as U.S. senator Department of Agriculture sums country and in North Dakota. of underwear apiece, overshoes enough to feed them decently governors all lived their early in 2011. up the breadth of the changes. “I do a lot of oral history,” and stockings all around,” and buy fuel — let alone pro- years during the Great Depres- After Guy’s death in 2013, In the early 1900s, more than Jacobs said. “And I remember Hickok wrote (the capital let- vide clothing.” sion, their perspectives forever his obituary recalled his list of half of Americans lived in rural talking to an old lady who said, ters are hers). “He wasn’t even Shaped by the shaped by it. the three most consequential regions home to “small, diversi- she knew — as much as one mentioning shoes. (He) said knows these things — that she Great Depression “People like Bill Guy and events in state history: the poli- fied farms.” By the 2000s, only they could get along if they had Perhaps the most consequen- (subsequent governors) Art cies that shaped homesteading about a quarter of Americans would not have been able to overshoes and socks to wear tial change in North Dakota Link and George Sinner — all of and settlement, the rise of the lived in rural farming areas. keep her family ... without aid inside.” during the Depression was its them have significant Depres- railroads, “and President Frank- About 22 million beasts of bur- from the federal government.” A problem there, Hickok hemorrhage of people. U.S. sion-era experience,” Jacobs lin Roosevelt’s rural electrifica- den had been greatly displaced would write, was that the feder-

Cold War brings power to ND By Sam Easter On Feb. 19, 1949, Major Donald C. Jones was skimming over the snow-covered plains of North Dakota in an F-51, the single-engine fighter plane that’s come to symbolize the early years of American air power. Temperatures statewide hovered close to zero or well below, and the icy wind flowing over the wings was surely tugging at his controls. Jones was the commanding officer of the state’s Air National Guard, and he was leading during a crisis. That winter’s snow hemmed in ranchers and their herds from Nevada to the northern plains. The Air Force — faced with an agricul- tural calamity — scrambled planes and bombed American farms with the feed the herds needed. The mission was dubbed “Operation Haylift.” Jones died that day when his plane crashed. It was a tragic moment in North Dakotan flight — and, as American air Courtesy State Historical Society of North Dakota, Item #2004-P-006-0350 power grew, would mark only an early This bird’s-eye-view of Grand Forks Air Force Base was taken in 1962, the same year of chapter in its story. Operation Haylift the Cuban Missile Crisis. Below, several Cold War listening posts like the Fortuna radar showed what airplanes could do just as base, below, brought a positive economic impact to North Dakota communities. For- the Berlin Airlift, the famous air mission tuna’s base closed in the early 1980s. to break a Soviet blockade, played out in Europe. Both events, historian David This is the third installment Mills argued, underscored the potential in a five-part series on North of American air power — just as the Cold Dakota’s history, produced War began in earnest. by Forum News Service and Robert Branting supervises the histori- cal nuclear missile launch site near Coo- the North Dakota Newspaper perstown, N.D. He points out that as the Association Education Foun- Cold War began, North Dakota had a good dation. The series explores deal of geographical luck: It was perfectly what’s made North Dakota into poised for interceptor and bomber squad- what it is today: A deep-red rons that could be quickly flown into the tense, over-the-pole nuclear standoff with GOP stronghold with socialist the USSR. institutions -- one foot firmly The bases at Grand Forks and Minot, planted firmly in oil, and the founded during the 1950s, grew over the other agriculture. This install- following decades to include those fight- ers and bombers that were so integral to ment explores the Cold War, national defense. The landscape of North which transformed the state’s Dakota grew dotted with nuclear mis- economy and made it a military sile sites, too. And military investments linchpin. proved a bonanza in North Dakota. In both Grand Forks and Ward counties, the population surged between 1950 and 1970 — by 55% and 68%, respectively. Mean- Forks Mayor Mike Brown, who was once a while, the rest of the state saw a 3% drop Cold War capabilities have been phased missile launch officer. “That gave stability in its population. out in Minot). to the economy. Because farms have ups By the early 1990s, the Cold War came But the importance to the state econ- and downs. Tourism has ups and downs. to a close. Over the coming decades, omy — no matter the mission — has But the military was a consistent source Grand Forks' bombers departed, and remained constant. of people.” so did nuclear weapons, replaced by “When I was in the Air Force, we (Next week -- Oil is discovered in Tioga unmanned aircraft and the aerospace bought our furniture in town, we bought and the rise of GOP dominance in the companies that traffic in them (far fewer our cars in town,” said former Grand state.)