The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 8, 1917, Page 4

& £ ¢ i e e ee——ecee————————————— e tion to pass the necessary measures enacting the farmers’ and Nonpartisan League program into law. : BETTER THAN SENATE -WILL OFFER FARMERS ; This is a better and surer procedure than any the senate will offer, and the people will do for themselves what the treacherous senate has re- fused to do for them. It will be a campaign that will put in the shade the now historic one of 1916. The people are not going to rise up in bloody revolution as they have done many, many times in the past under less provocation than the action of the senate on Bill 44. They will try once more the ways of law and order. God knows they have been patient. 'Six years of fighting for what everybody knows an overwhelming majority of the people demand and will eventually have in spite of everything. Six years, during which the people twice at the polls voted almost unanimous- ly for state-owned marketing faeilities—during - which they swept the state at a primary and gen- _eral election and put their men in practically every office to be filled. "All this, only to be balk- ed by a handful of “people-be-damned’’ hold-over senators who could not be reaeched at the election last fall! To facilitate initiating by petition the kind of constitutional amendment the people want, a bill will be before the present legislature, supple- menting the constitutional initiative precedure. The new plan to get a constitution for North Dakota along the lines demanded by the farmers means work. It means ‘“stick’’ as never before. indefinitely postponing House Bill 44 is allowed to stand it will be another b!ot on the record of the state, put there by the political gang. It will be a repudiation of the principle of a free people and that the people are sovereign. But this blot will be wiped out by the people by the new plan of action mapped out by the farmer members of the house and the senate at Bismarck. But it will win. If the action of the senate in This bill will correct the technical defects that the supreme court found in the constitutional initia- tive provisions in the New Rockford case.last year. It is not believed that the senate gang will d.a're to refuse to pass this bill, thus putting additional snags in the way of the people getting what they want. Wanton as they are in their disregard of the people’s will, senators will think twice before attempting to block the bill in this sessmn.am_ph- fying the initiative procedure of the constitution. NO GLOOM SHOWN OVER “44” DEFEAT S But if the present senate should go to that ex- treme, it will not stop the initiative petitions. The supreme court decision in the New Rockford case was technical and reactionary and there is every chance of the present new supreme court revising that decision, should anyone attempt to block the people’s initiative plan. o The conference of League representatives - and senators at which the initiative plan was de- cided upon was the most enthusiastic of any since this session of the legislature met. There was practically a unanimous agreement that this was the best and safest plan. There was no gloom over the defeat of House Bill 44 in the senate. That was merely looked upon as incentive for . further action. - Ringing speeches were made and the success of the new plan hailed as a ce_rtainty. It will mean another hard-fought campaign, but it will wipe out the last vestige of the gang and leave the people supreme at last. It Was the Same Old Gang Senators Who Voted Againt House Bill 44 Last W.eelngere the ~ Same Oges Who Killed Terminal Elevators in 1915 HE same old North Dakota legis- session and voted against House Bill I lative gang killed House Bill 44. 44 in the 1917 session: Allen, Englund, The same gang that for several Gibbons, Hyland, Jacobson, Kretsch- sessions of the legislature has sneered mar, McBride, McGray, McLean, Paulson, Putnam -and Young, who have always given for over-riding:the voted against the co-operative bill, and people’s will. They are always for the Lindstrom and Kretschmar, who op-- farmers and people, in general, but posed it by not voting when not excus- when it comes to a specific bill to aid at the people’s demands for a terminal elevator gave the fatal knife thrust to this new piece of pegple’s legislation last week. - The same politicians who voted against state hail-insurance and considered other farmers’ bills in past legislatures an uproarous joke, assassi- nated House Bill 44 which merely asked that the people be given a chance to adopt or reject a new constitution, per- mitting the carrying out of the farmers’ program. 2 The' hold-over -senators who served in the 1915 legislature and many of them in legislatures prior to that, were the boys who turned the trick again for Big Business in the 1917 senate. A glance at the record of past legisla- tures shows what short shift the men who voted against House Bill 44 gave the“people’s and farmers’ legislation at other sessions than the present one. It doesn’t take much study to prove that it was the-same old gang that killed House Bill 44, WERE ALSO AGAINST TERMINAL ELEVATORS After the people at two elections had practically unanimously = demanded terminal elevators, the 1915 house at Bismarck killed the terminal elevator bill, and the 1915 senate, as well as the house, passed an act repealing the tax authorized by the 1913 legislature to build terminal elevators. The senators who voted to repeal the elevator tax in 1915 were the senators—hold-overs— who voted against House Bill 44 last week at Bismarck. The following senators by their votes opposed terminal elevators in the 1915 Young, Ellingson, Gronvold, Kirkeide, Lindstrom, Murphy, Nelson of Grand Forks, Nelson of Richland, Paulson, Putnam, Rowe and Sandstrom. -Twenty-nine senators last week voted against House Bill 44. From the above list it will be seen that 21 of them were the same senators that helped knock out terminal elevators at the 1915 session two years ago.. And then they say there isn’t any. gang, or that if there was one it is dead! Twenty- one hold-overs out of the 29 sena- - tars who defeated the League con- stitution bill last week ARE.-NOT NEW ENEMIES OF THE FARM- ERS’ CAUSE. They were in at the killing of terminal elevators two ' years ago. Four of the 29 senators who opposed the farmers’ program last week by voting against House Bill 44, voted against state hail insurance in the 1915 session—voted against even giving the "people a chance to vote on a hail in- surance measure. These four sena- tors are Allen, Hyland, Lindstrom and Rowe, leaders in the senate in the fight on Bill 44. VOTED AGAINST S INSURANCE BILL o Eight of the 29 senators who voted against House Bill %4 last week, voted in 1915 against the bill to permit the incorporation of farmers’/co-operative companies on a liberal plan, one of the important farmers’ measures be- fore the 1915 session. These eight senators are Allen, Hyland, McGray, ed from voting for cause. Senators Jacobson, Paulson and Eng- lund, who voted against House Bill 44 last week, wereion the committee in the 1915 session which killed one of the bills to lower the interest rate. Nine of the hold-overs who voted against House Bill 44 last week oppos- ed, in the 1915 session, the bill to curb the insurance trust—in 1915 they voted against allowing the state insurance _commissioner to examine and investi- gate insurance rates and enforce equal premiums for the same risks through- out the state. These nine are Eng- lund, Ellingson, Gibbons, Hyland, Jacobson, Kirkeide, Putnam, Sand- . strom and Lindstrom. DID NOT CHANGE FORMER VIEWS If necessary, some of the records of these 1917 opponents of the farmers’ cause could be traced back through the 1513 or other sessions of the legislature, or a more exhaustive count .on them could be given from the 1915 session journals. But it needs no exhaustive - study-of the record.to prove they are reactionaries and PID NOT CHANGE THEIR VIEWS OR TAKE ANY DIF- FERENT POSITION LAST WEEK THAN THEY + HAVE ALWAYS TAKEN ON FARMERS! AND PEO- - PLE'S MEASURES: Some of them claim to be farmers’ friends and to:be for what the people want, but they claim House Bill 44 was not what the people wanted. That was merely their excuse.. ‘It was the ex- cuse they gave for killing terminal ele- . vators in 1'9115; it'is the excuse they FOUR the farmers_or people, it is never the kind of a bill they will vote for. Another legislature in North Dakota will see the final death of this gang that has so long fooled andd defied the people.~ This is Senator W. E. Martin, one of the hold-overs in the N. D. senate who' supported. the farmers’ program last week by voting for House Bill 44. -