The Bottineau Courant

LEAGUE TICKET SWEEPS MONT

Butte, Mont. (Special to The Courant).-Incomplete returns from 884 precincts out of 1,552 in Montana indicate that B. K. Wheeler, the Nonpartisan League candidate for the gubernatorial nomination and practically the entire League ticket, have won by a sweeping majority. The Old Gang has been overwhelmingly routed, Wheeler being 9,000 votes ahead already.

R. A. Haste, League nominee for secretary of state, leads his nearest opponent by 6,000 votes. The incomplete returns also show that Louis S. Irvin, who ran on the League ticket for the nomination as attorney general, is 2,000 votes ahead of his Old Gang rival. The names of the other Nonpartisan candidates and the majorities of each, reported thus far, are as follows:

Mrs. Ella D. Lord, state treasurer, 4,000; Ole Sanvik, state auditor, 2,000; J. P. Meadors, railway commissioner, 4,000; R. C. Arnold, lieutenant governor, 12,000; Harlow Pease and W. W. Palmer, supreme court judges, 2,000.

Five to One Majorities

The Nonpartisan nominees swept the majority of industrial centers, leaving the tools of the Anaconda Copper company far in the rear. At Missoula the count of the ballots showed a majority of five to one in favor of the League aspirants. Butte swung into the League column by a vote of 2 to 1. Substantial majorities were also rolled up in Great Falls and the rural districts.

For years Montana has groaned under the iron heel of the Anaconda copper kings, so that the nomination of the Nonpartisan ticket marks a new epoch in the political affairs of the state. The Old Gang politicians are already tumbling helter skelter down the toboggan.