Biography
Arthur C. Townley was the founder of the Nonpartisan League, the agrarian political movement that swept North Dakota and the upper Midwest during World War I. A former Socialist Party organizer, Townley built the League into a force that captured the North Dakota state government in 1918. Because some League pamphlets questioned the war effort, Townley and League organizer Joseph Gilbert were convicted in Jackson County, Minnesota, in 1919 of conspiracy to discourage enlistments. After the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 1921, Townley served a 90-day sentence in the Jackson County jail. His prosecution is remembered as one of the signature political trials of the wartime hysteria against farm and labor radicals.
The Morning Oregonian’s contemporary chronology dates Townley’s arrest to March 12, 1918, indictment to March 21, 1918, guilty verdict to July 12, 1919 and ninety-day sentence before Judge Dean to September 15, 1919. It records repeated stays and appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to review on October 24, 1921, and his actual entry into Jackson County jail on November 2, 1921. The sentence was not served continuously from the 1919 sentencing date.
