The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 22, 1917, Page 9

i e s y (e e A PR RN B e % AL /— e /////l My, 4 R =\ 2 R ) R N V\{WE'LL STICK L p'THE BOYS ARE MARCH NG E : : » Q Stk oni T S THE BOYS ARE dO{NIN NG W.ITH/I/\?L'ERS OF “THE "5615, = | Z_ 4 e HOUTING THg FAHE'? ALL AS ONE, = tealing the L.eague’s Thunder Old Guard Quashes Measures by Farmers’ Men and Cribs Ideas for Bills of Their Own Framing fiy Ralph L. Harmon, Leader Staff Correspondent to popularize some of the old guard senators who have won distinction by voting against the peo- ple during the present session of the legislature, members of the senate have got together behind Senator Kirkeide BISMARCK, Feb. 17.—In an effort of Benson county to give him the prestige of introducing a bill for the establishing of North Dakota grades for grain.. The way this was done is interesting and shows how Nonpartisan League senators with good measures which the people are demanding are held bound by the anti-League majori- ~ ties and chairmanships on committees, and their own measures smothered, while the anti-League senators appro- priate the gogd points and put them out as their own. On February 3 Senator Drown of Cass county, a . leading "Nonpartisan League senator, finally perfected his bill for grain grading and introduced it in the senate. It was assigned to the committee on agriculture, of which Senator Kirkeide was chairman, and Senator Kirkeide promptly put it in his pocket and kept it theré until he got a chance to father a bill of the same kind with his own name to it. A week later, no meeting of the agricultural commit- tee having been called to deal with Senator Drown’s bill, althéugh the ses- gion is near its close gnd an immense amount of work remains to be done, a number of farmers from Stark county, interested in grain, brought a rough draft of a bill for this purpose to Bis- marck. § STOLE DROWN'S IDEAS TO MAKE NEW BILL _Senator Kirkeide decided his oppor- tunity had come, and he got together with these men, the bill was framed, and on Monday, February 12, seven days after the regular time for intro- ducing new bills had expired, and two days after the extended time had ex- pired, he got unanimous consent of the senate to introduce his own grain grading bill. At this time he still held Senator Drown'’s bill in his possession, and had never called a meeting to dis- cuss it. He asked that Senator Drown's bill be taken from the agricultural com- mittee and referred to the committee on state affairs, and his own bill for grain grading was referred to the same committee. . On Monday night there was a con- ference of senators and others inter- ested in the grain grading matters, and Senator Drown's bill was taken as the foundation of a new measure, which ° will go under the number and title of Senator Kirkeide’s bill, but will em= brace the main points of the bill that Senator Kirkeide refused to handle while it was with his committee on agriculture. A bill introduced by Rep- resentative Stair (League) in the house, was also drawn upon for a few fea- tures, and it is the intention of the old guard senators to make Kirkeide's bill so good that all others will be with- drawn, and he can go home to his constituents with the credit for having introduced and pushed through . the legislature the only bill for grain grad- ° ing. This might help to lift the odium of his having vdted against House Bill 44 and having blocked terminal ele- vators, state owned flour mills, packing plants and other constitutional changes. In order not to arouses opposition and conceal the real purpose of the strate- ‘:A!Try'gg Saw gem, Senator Drown's name is to be coupled with Kirkeide's. B This new bill is being drawn by the committee on state affairs and will be submitted as amendments ‘to Senate Bill 314, as there is no further oppor- tunity for introducing new bills. This method of introducing different mea- sures after the time limit for such in- troduction has expired, is practiced in all legislatures. It will be reported for action and will undoubtedly pass with little or no opposition'in the senate, and very little or none in the house, for’ the League members of botly houses are interested in getting such a measure through. Why Senator Drown’s original bill was referred to the committee on agri- culture instead of to the committee on warehouses and grain grading, is not a for Himself Farmer Member of League Goes to Bismarek, At- tends League Conference and Legislature Bismarck, N. D. Editor Nonpartisan Leader: I have been a member of the Non- porusan Teague and an interested reader of the Leader since January 18, 1916, and would have joined before but the organizers never struck my place _for -some reason. And now for the first time I wish to write a few words of appreciation of the good work which is being carried on by the League as a whole; the conscientious officers of the same and the patriotic and loyal senators and repgesentatives whom the farmers sent to do their bidding at the fifteenth legislative assembly of North Dakota. I attended the sessions for several days and . alSo 'the League caucuses in the evenings and can truthfully say that the kind, straight- forward and honest tactics used by Mr. Townley are certainly commendable and also proof of the fact that he is a natural leader and a real man of the people. I was at the caucus when Bill 44 was acted on and can see no reason why this bill should 'not be passed and the new constitution submitted to the peo- ple in June. It is true that the old constitution makes “no provision for such action, but neither does it pro- hibit such action, and on the other hand Section 2 says that “all political power is inherent in the people; gov- ernment is instituted for the protec- tion, security and penefit of the people and they have a right to alter and re- from the same whenever the publio good may demand.” To my mind there is no possible doubt as to the demand of the people for a revision of the constitution when we stop to consider the fact that this was practically the Leagué program, although not stated in so ‘ma.ny words, for which the people so strongly went on record at the last election. With the pressure of the thousands of petitions which had flooded the senate for the last couple of weeks, voicing the prayers of the people all over the ‘state, these 28 men men who have taken it upon themselves to op- pose an overwhelming majority of the people of the state, cast their votes last Tuesday in such a way as to kill the farmers’ plans for at least two more years, and give Big Biz that much more time to bleed us poor suckers on the farm. ‘What does Lawyer Divet or Lawyer Tenneson or Senator McBride or Sena- tor McGray or any of the rest of the opposition care about the - hardships which we have to go through out here on the farms, so long as they are get- ting their share of the boodle? A bunch of men who will so deliber- ately tramp on the people’s will as did the majority opposition to Bill 44 are certainly traitors to their country, if any,one ever was. However, at the next. election I believe that the people will see fit to elect these men to stay at home and do something which is more in their line of work than to rep- resent the people of North Dakota in the senate. DAYVID TRYGG. . NINE - mystery. The committee on ware- houses and grain grading is the only one of any importance on which the Nonpartisan ILeague has a majority, and it is the only committee in the senate organized for the purpose of handling these matters. The commit- tee on state affairs is the strongest anti-League commiftee in the senate, the one that killed House Bill 44 and the one that gets the most respectful and loyal service of the old gang sena- tors when it malkes a report. The committee on warehouses and grain grading is made up of .the fol- lowing seven League members and four” non-League and anti-League members: Welford, Wenstrom, Levang, Mortenson, Hamerly, Hamilton, and Pendray of the League; and Thoreson, Kirkeide, Gibbons and Gronvold, not of thé League. Senator Thoreson, chair- man of the committee, voted for House Bill 44 and 'has been regarded as friendly to much of the League’s pro- gram. So this is a strong farmers' committee, and it contains some of the leading senators of both sides of the house, especially of the League. But it did not get the grain grading bill for consideration. RECORD WON'T GIVE FARMERS THE CREDIT ‘When this bill is reported to the sen- ate, it will be with the approval of the most reactionary senate committee, that on state affairs, so that people wishing to know who fathered the grain grading bill and what senators prepared it in committee, will find in the record that it was the senators who fought the League ha.rdess and that the League senators had very little to do with it—so far as the record will " show. This method of making political capital for themselves out of the good ideas that ILeague members have brought into the senate has been fol- lowed all through the session. They attempted it in the Fargo terminal ele- vator bill, two constitutional amend- ments for things demanded by the League, and they have further tried to make themselves solid with the people by bringing in bills for grain and live stock scales at railway sta- tions, things that the.people through the Nonpartisan Leader were demand- ing. But they have not voted for many” of the things that League senators have put in, until they could change it or steal it and put their own names on instead of League names. IEven Sena- tor Kirkeide's bill is the substance of Senator Drown’s bill, with Dr. Ladd’s tests relative to the quality of wheat added. This was a feature that was contained in the bill brought in by the Stark county farmers.