Details

Collection Summary
Collection: B - B Collection
Folder: 0000.000
Item: 0920-00001
Title: Fred B. Wood, McHenry County farmer and Socialist
Date: 1916
Creator: Unknown
Summary: Head and shoulders, full face studio portrait of Fred B. Wood, McHenry County farmer and Socialist. __[Bismarck_Tribune_Sun__Feb_26__1989_c01] Fred B. Wood was active in the North Dakota unit of the American Society of Equity, a group trying to get northwestern farmers out from under the heel of the Minnesota grain-buying (and price-fixing) cartel. “The Equity” was fighting back with cooperative, farmer-owned elevators, including one in Deering. In January 1915, the North Dakota Equity rallied in Bismarck to try to pressure the Legislature into establishing a state elevator. Voters had approved a constitutional amendment the previous fall so empowering the Legislature. According to a doubtful tradition, the farmers were told by one contemptuous lawmaker to “go home and slop the hogs.” In any case, they did not get their elevator. Before he returned home, Wood was cornered by A. C. Townley, a 35 –year-old Socialist, originally from Minnesota, who had gone broke farming in the Beach, N.D. area. Townley would go on to become a national (and legendary) figure. Now he was a middle-aged failure with yet another plan for organizing the farmers. Wood, who had had his ear bent by a lot of these types, told Townley to look him up in the spring. Townley couldn’t wait. In late February, having written ahead, he detrained at Deering and was met by Wood and Wood’s grown sons. Before starting by bobsled for the Woodlawn Farm five miles distant, the group stopped by Ole C. Haug’s general store. Haug’s son is Philip Haug, 78 years old now and a retired farmer living near Deering. “It was a cold day and, as Pa told the story, they came in the store to warm up. He said they were talking League business already,” Haug says. The elder Haug was “a very standard mainstream Republican merchant,” according to his son, and unimpressed by the NPL then or afterwards. Townley’s idea was to rally farmers around a five-point program and NPL anointed candidates that would run in the primaries of the existing parties. (Usually in the Republican primary, since the GOP owned most of the political action in North Dakota.) All around the state, organizers like Townley would get their foot in the door with the help of locals like the Woods.
Red ID: PH_I_90387 Image ID: 169690 Image Notes: B0920-00001

Collection: B Digitized Images from Collection
Title: B Collection
Date: XX/XXXX

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