9/30/2011:
The Grand Forks American, a Non-Partisan League daily newspaper, commenced publication on this date in 1918. The paper joined the Fargo Courier-News to become the second Non-Partisan daily in the state.
The Non-Partisan League was a powerful political entity on the Northern plains in 1918. Begun in 1915 by failed Beach, North Dakota, flax farmer A. C. Townley, the League promoted the interests of independent farmers and challenged the influence of big-business interests to the east. Major initiatives promoted by the League included state-run mills, banks and railroads, state hail insurance, worker’s compensation, and the popular recall of elected officials.
Edited by Paul Green, the American was sponsored and owned by a group of 1,000 Red River Valley farmers calling themselves the Grand Forks American Company. The paper’s General Manager, John B. Brown, erected a new building in Grand Forks to house the American, along with state-of-the-art printing equipment. Its main purpose was to rival the Grand Forks Herald, which was vehemently against the Non-Partisan League and its views. The Herald had become the League’s largest obstacle in the northern Red River Valley, and the League’s publication manager had convinced the Non-Partisan Publishing Company to invest in a Grand Forks daily. At the time, hundreds of both pro- and anti-League pamphlets and weeklies were in circulation in the state; most of the pamphlets anonymous, to protect the identities and reputations of the authors.
The League believed that a unified, daily publication was needed to educate the public and its members with up-to-date and unbiased information. At first, the paper, like the League itself, met with great success. In fact, the paper is largely credited with bringing the State Mill and Elevator to Grand Forks, and its success even led to a Norwegian-language off-shoot, the Nord Dakota Tidende. After only three years, however, the paper was forced to suspend publication. The League was losing considerable influence, accused of being too socialist and anti-American due to its anti-war and isolationist views. The admission of the United States into World War I and post-war declines in farm prices further crippled the organization. Despite its short-lived success, however, several features of the state continue as legacies to the Non-Partisan era, including the Bank of North Dakota and the North Dakota Mill and Elevator.
Dakota Datebook written by Jayme L. Job
Sources:
Gaston, Herbert Earle. 1920 The NonPartisan League. Pp. 240-41. Harcourt, Brace and Howe: New York.
Morlan, Robert Loren. 1955 Political Prairie Fire: the NonPartisan League, 1915-1922. University of Minnesota, Lund Press: Minneapolis.
Lovoll, Odd S. 2010 Norwegian Newspapers in America: Connecting Norway and the New Land. Pp. 269-71. Minnesota Historical Society: St Paul, MN.
The New York Times. “Townley Papers Suspend: Two Non-Partisan League Publications in North Dakota Quit.” January 4, 1921: p. 8.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_League