Here’s a tale of two progressive parties – the NPL from North Dakota and the Farmer Labor Party from Minnesota. A few months ago, I wrote a reply to something and someone said, "You should write a diary about this." So here it is.
In North Dakota, Democrats call themselves "The Democratic-NPL party." NPL means "Non-Partisan League," and it’s one of the progressive parties from the early 1900s. Just to the east, in Minnesota, Democrats call themselves the "Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party" (DFL), because of a merger with the Farmer-Laborites, another progressive party from the early 20th century.
What follows is a brief history of the Non-Partisan League (in North Dakota) and the Farmer-Labor Party (in Minnesota). I threw in a short history of me, too.
I grew up in Fargo, ND, and Moorhead, MN, two cities separated by the Red River of the North. You might remember the stories and pictures from the Red River flood of 2009.
My father was a professor at Concordia College (a Lutheran college in Moorhead) from the 1960s to the 1990s. He died a couple years ago. He ran for public office twice and lost both times. I volunteered to work for my dad both times (because he was my dad and you gotta help out your dad). When we lived in Fargo, my father ran for the North Dakota House of Representatives as a Democratic-NPL candidate (he had a catchy slogan: "Send Heimarck to Bismarck"). Then, after we moved across the river, he ran for Mayor of Moorhead as a DFL candidate. I forget what his slogan was, so maybe it wasn’t a very good slogan. My father taught me it’s good to be a Democrat.
There’s a French phrase from the 18th century that was once popular– laissez-faire. It can be translated roughly as "Let it be" or "Allow us to make" or "Leave us alone." Wikipedia says this:
Laissez-faire activists support little or no state intervention on economic issues, which implies free markets, minimal taxes, minimal regulations, private ownership of property and free circulation of labor.
In more recent times, we might call it "deregulation" or "trickle-down economics" or "Reaganism" or "supply-side economics" or "a market-based capitalist economy" or "small government" or "the rich get richer and the poor get screwed." It's the philosophy of the Republican party.
Progressive parties aren’t laissez-faire. Democrats aren’t laissez-faire. Thinking people aren’t laissez-faire.
Here’s the history:
The Non-Partisan League (North Dakota)
The NPL was a grass-roots effort started by farmers in North Dakota. They were pissed off because they were getting screwed by three groups of rich people: bankers, railroad companies, and milling companies. Farmers borrowed money from bankers (on the East Coast), paid railroads (in Chicago) to ship their wheat and other crops to Minneapolis, and got paid low prices by Minneapolis milling companies (such as General Mills and Pillsbury). The banks would raise their interest rates when farmers needed money. The railroads would raise their rates during the shipping season. The mills would look at the grain and say "Grade C," but magically it would become "Grade A" when it arrived in Minneapolis.
The NPL was started in 1915 by a guy named A.C. Townley, who borrowed a car and drove around the state, signing up other farmers to join his cause for six dollars a year. His detractors called Townley’s followers "six-dollar suckers." But in 1916 and 1918, they were successful in gaining control of the state legislature and then they elected a Governor. The NPLers enacted laws that established a state bank and a state mill (socialism!) to take power away from the laissez-faire corporations. What would Rush Limbaugh say?
The NPL party started to fade in the 1920s, when crop prices were high and farmers were getting rich and feeling less inclined to favor a populist/progressive party. Then, an NPL governor was recalled (the first state governor to be recalled until Gray Davis in CA in 2003). Although the NPL party began as an offshoot of the Republican party, they ended up merging with the Democrats.
The NPL was a rural party for a rural state. The rich people and rich corporations they were fighting were in big cities like Minneapolis or Chicago or New York.
The Farmer-Labor Party (MN)
There is a strong liberal/populist/progressive streak in Minnesota politics. I recommend that you read this link, which connects Al Franken and Paul Wellstone and Hubert Humphrey:
The Farmer Labor Party
The Farmer-Labor Party began in in Minnesota in 1918. It was an attempt to unite farmers and labor unions. They wanted fair wages, fair agricultural prices, and lower retail prices.
According to Wikipedia, the Farmer-Labor party as a national force peaked in 1924:
The June 1924 Convention of the Farmer-Labor Party (in which the Federated Farmer-Labor Party participated as a member organization) was attended by over 500 delegates representing 26 states. The convention discussed the upcoming run of Sen. Robert LaFollette, Sr for President. LaFollette, a bitter opponent of the Workers Party of America, did not seek the endorsement of the convention, which proceeded to nominate its own candidates for President and Vice President of the United States -- Duncan McDonald and William Bouck, respectively. The National Committee of the FLP met in Cleveland on July 4 and elected delegates to the Conference for Progressive Political Action. W.M. Piggott of Utah was re-elected as National Chairman and Bert Martin of Denver as National Secretary. On July 10, 1924, after the endorsement of LaFollette by the CPPA at Cleveland, a majority of the National Executive Committee withdrew the nominations of MacDonald and Bouck and pledged support to an independent campaign of the Workers Party. By the end of 1924, the Federated FLP had ceased to exist.
As a national party, the Farmer-Laborites faded away, but they had a continuing influence on Minnesota politics (from Wikipedia):
Governors of Minnesota who were Farmer-Labor
o Floyd B. Olson (1931–1936)
o Hjalmar Petersen (1936–1937)
o Elmer Austin Benson (1937–1939)
United States Senators from Minnesota who were Farmer-Labor
o Henrik Shipstead (1923–1941); later became a Republican
o Magnus Johnson (1923–1925)
o Elmer Austin Benson (1935–1937)
o Ernest Lundeen (1937–1940)
United States Representatives from Minnesota who were Farmer-Labor
o William Leighton Carss (1919–1921, 1925–1929)
o Ole J. Kvale (1923–1929)
o Knud Wefald (1923–1927)
o Paul John Kvale (1929–1939)
o Henry M. Arens (1933–1935)
o Magnus Johnson (1933–1935)
o Ernest Lundeen (1933–1937); had previously served as a Republican Representative (1915–1917), also served in the Senate
o Francis Shoemaker (1933–1935)
Minnesota's DFL is a remnant of the Farmer-Labor party. By the way, Hubert Humphrey led the fight to combine the Democrats and the Farmer-Labor Party in 1944. Four years later, it was Humphrey's fiery speech at the 1948 national Democratic convention that led to an anti-segregation platform plank and the defection of the Dixiecrats. Other notable Minnesota DFLers have included Eugene McCarthy, Walter Mondale, and, more recently, Paul Wellstone. Al Franken has big shoes to fill.
And Let’s Mention A Few Others
Don't forget The Progressive Party in Wisconsin (most notable for "Fighting Bob" La Follette and The Progressive Magazine, which recently turned 100 years old). In 1924, La Follette (Senior) ran for President and got 17% of the national vote. And he won Wisconsin's electoral votes – which is cool, because not a lot of third party candidates have gotten electoral votes.
Here's what Wikipedia says about Fighting Bob La Follette:
La Follette's platform called for government ownership of the railroads and electric utilities, cheap credit for farmers, the outlawing of child labor, stronger laws to help labor unions, more protection of civil liberties, an end to American imperialism in Latin America, and a referendum before any president could again lead the nation into war.
All of which still sound pretty good to me.
The Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World) were another progressive group (a labor union) trying to change the world in the early 20th century (again from Wikipedia):
The IWW's first organizers included William D. ("Big Bill") Haywood, Daniel De Leon, Eugene V. Debs, Thomas J Hagerty, Lucy Parsons, Mary Harris Jones (commonly known as "Mother Jones"), William Trautmann, Vincent Saint John, Ralph Chaplin, and many others.
The IWW's goal was to promote worker solidarity in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the employing class; its motto was "an injury to one is an injury to all," which improved upon the 19th century Knights of Labor's creed, "an injury to one is the concern of all." In particular, the IWW was organized because of the belief among many unionists, socialists, anarchists and radicals that the AFL not only had failed to effectively organize the U.S. working class, as only about 5% of all workers belonged to unions in 1905, but also was organizing according to narrow craft principles which divided groups of workers.
Progressives have been around for more than 100 years, fighting against big corporations and big monopolies and small government, fighting for progressive policies and for justice for the people (votes for women, minimum wage, labor unions, civil rights, health care, gay marriage, and so much more).
And that’s the end of this diary. I hope you liked it.