Farm Loans Falter
Despite a slow start, the Bank began to increase the number of loans to North Dakota farmers. At its peak in 1924, the Bank loaned a total of $6.4 million to 2,213 farmers. But the North Dakota farm economy was still in the midst of a depression. Loan delinquencies increased throughout the late 1920s due to falling farm prices and declining land values. In 1929 on the eve of the great depression, the state now owned 151,982 acres of land through foreclosures by the Bank of North Dakota. In the 1930s, the state of North Dakota would become the second largest landowner in the state.
Even with the continuing agriculture depression, in 1929 the Industrial Commission announced the Bank of North Dakota had its first profitable year. Throughout the 1930s the Bank would continue to consolidate its financial stability, ensuring the continuation of the Bank as a state-owned institution. The IVA, avowed opponents of the League's Industrial Program, had managed to accomplish what the League could not – securing the future of the state-owned industries.
In 1932, the Non Partisan League again swept into power, gaining control of state offices, the Supreme Court, the House and the Senate. But it was a changed League. A.C. Townley and the rest of the Socialist old guard were no longer part of the League's leadership. The League-operated newspapers, stores, and supply credit institutions were closed or sold. The national grassroots membership association had closed in 1925. The Non Partisan League was a label that represented a political ideology rather than an actual organization.
Photographs from the collection of Chester Fritz Library, University of North Dakota