For their defection, the Nonpartisan League (NPL) labeled William Langer (Attorney General), Thomas Hall (Secretary of State), and Carl R. Kositzky (State Auditor) as traitors. During the 1919 special session, the NPL-controlled state legislature called for impeachment. However, they backed off from this idea.
Instead, the legislature decided to retaliate by slashing the appropriations of their respective departments. Additionally, the Secretary of State and the State Auditor would both be removed from the State Auditing Board and replaced with pro-NPL officials (Senate Bill 40).
State Auditing Board members before the new law:
State Auditing Board members after the new law:
The State Auditor was also removed from the State Board of Equalization and the Emergency Commission. In a further attack on Langer and Kositzky, the legislature passed the "False Statements" law (Senate Bill 20), which made it a felony for a state official to purposefully "publish any false statement in regard to any of the state departments, institutions or industries" with the intent to "deceive the public and create a distrust" or with the intent to "obstruct, hinder and delay the various departments, institutions and industries of the state." Any state official violating this law would be subject to a $500 fine and/or 1 year in prison.
On December 11, 1919, the special session of the legislature ended in a fittingly dramatic fashion. The NPL-controlled Senate passed a resolution (introduced by NPL Senator A. A. Liederbach of Killdeer) calling for the resignation of Langer for his role in investigating the Scandinavian American Bank in Fargo. Not one to be bullied, Langer ignored the calls for his resignation.
Additionally, Liederbach and Kositzky got into a fight in the halls of the Capitol over another issue. This was not the first time the combative Kositzky got into an altercation during his political career.
A week after the special session ended, the State Auditing Board met.
Although Charles E. Stangeland had been removed and the Board of Administration and the State Library Commission had been exonerated by the House Book and Library Investigating Committee, the State Auditing Board rejected one of the invoices of books that had caused so much trouble. Presumably, this was to get back at the NPL.
On December 18, 1919, Langer, Hall, and Kositzky (making up a majority of the board) complicated the book issue further by voting to reject the publisher's invoice. The recent law removing Hall and Kositzky (as Secretary of State and State Auditor respectively) from the State Auditing Board had not yet come into effect.
The invoice, dated November 8, 1919, included a list of books ordered from the Charles H. Kerr Company in Chicago. The invoice had about 30 titles, some of which had multiple copies ordered. The invoice included:
The bill was about $34, equivalent to less than $600 today.
An anti-NPL cartoon depicting the 1919 state legislature tying the hands of Kositzky, Langer, Hall, and Nielson. A. C. Townely, leader of the NPL, carries a large club labeled "power," and he says, "I got it! I got it!"
Carl R. Kositzky, State Auditor, circa 1919
Invoice for books rejected by N.D. State Auditing Board, 1919
Many of these resources and programs are funded under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.