Economic Exploitation
Despite North Dakota's success in promoting Progressive social and political reforms, the state was still under the economic control of out-of-state interests. Despite leaders’ attempts to build mining and manufacturing industries, North Dakota's economy was still dangerously dependent on wheat. Unfortunately, the brokers set both the grading and the price for North Dakota wheat and their allies the railroads set freight costs and shipping schedules. Financiers in the Twin Cities, Chicago and the east coast controlled access to capital.
As late as World War One, wheat farmers continued to be dominated and exploited by the cartels that, they believed, conspired to rob them of a fair market for their crop.
More than in any other state, North Dakotans raised an outcry against the unfair practices that left the state’s future in the hands of eastern bankers and financiers. By the end of World War One, with the establishment of the first farmer-owned cooperative elevators and terminal marketing agency, events were set in motion that would finally wrest economic control of their state from outside concerns, end the state’s colonial status, and develop a more robust economy.
By 1915, North Dakota was ready for revolt. Enter Arthur C. Townley.
A voracious reader, former schoolteacher, and bankrupt farmer by age 27, Townley embraced socialism and became one of the most successful organizers for the Socialist party of North Dakota.
Between 1900 and 1915, the Socialists had considerable success. The president of the Minot City Commission was a socialist. So were the mayors of Rugby and Hillsboro. The Socialists ran candidates for statewide offices, polling about 8 per cent of the vote at their peak of popularity. They held well-attended rallies, published a weekly newspaper, and created a system of grass roots activism.
As an organizer, Townley drove farm to farm, talking with farmers about the Socialist platform. He learned early that although there was popular support for many of the party's proposed reforms – state owned elevators, banks, and crop insurance – farmers didn't like the party. Townley set up a shadow organization to represent the socialist platform without the name, recruiting members who didn't know they were, in fact, joining the socialist party. He was phenomenally successful. Socialist Party leaders were furious and fired Townley and three other organizers he had recruited. 
Photographs from the collection of Chester Fritz Library, University of North Dakota and the State Historical Society of North Dakota