The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 4, 1918, Page 7

This is a picture of the farming country in Western Washington. fertile acres out of the stump fields that the lumber barons left after taking off the timber. SNOW-CAPPED MOUNTAINS Most of the land in farms was originally covered with timber. The farmers had to hew their Washington farmers have been intelligent enough to co-operate with union labor-in getting much favorable legislation, hut the big lumber, mining and fishing trust interests still pull too strong an oar in Washington politics. sides submitting initiative, referendum and recall amendments the legislature passed the first work- men’s compensation act ever put into effect in the United States, a full crew bill to promote safety in operation of trains and to give fair treatment to railroad workmen, a ‘revision of the grain in- spection act and a long list of minor measures that made its record a proud one. the people had been able to make a few dents in the program—they had prevented the recall from applying to judges; they had stopped the plan to allow the people to initiate their own constitutional amendments; they had prevented the making .of any allowance for expenses of medical treatment in the compensation act. The farmers and working men -hoped to get these inequallties ironed out at the -next session. . To make sure of working together in the fu- ture as they had at the 1911 session, the farmers and workingmen met at North Yakima in 1912 and organized a permanent body, known as “the joint legislative committee,” with one represent- ative each from the State Grange, the Farmers’ union, the State Federation of Labor and the Direct Legislation league, the latter organization being one formed for the purpose of having the initiative and referendum principles adopted in the cities of Washington, before there was a chance to write them into the state laws. POLITICIANS PAY NO ATTENTION TO. PLEDGES None of the organizations represented in the joint legislative committee were allowed, by their rules, to go into politics te the extent of selecting or indorsing candidates for the legislature. But such good progress had been made in 1911 that the farmers and working men thought that sue- ceeding legislatures would without hesitation enact into law the measures that the people wanted. But something happened that nobody had counted upon: ~Colonel Roosevelt, losing the Re- ~‘publican. presidential -nomination, called for the organization of the Progressive party. Most of _the progressive Republicans of ‘Washington went ~into _the new party—not quite ‘enough to elect The opponents of . " Zens, their ticket, but just enough to allow the stand- patters and the tools of the big corporations to control what was left of the Republican party. The standpatters helped the Progressive defeat by -encouraging the new party to select as its can- didate for governor a politician with a vulnerable record. When he had been selected the stand- patters exposed his past record, especially his - treatment of his former wife. Issues were lost sight of; the campaign became one of scandal. The Progressives were beaten by a narrow margin. The initiative, referendum and recall amendments carried by a big vote but when the legislature re- assembled it proved to be under the control of standpatters of the worst type. The joint legislative committee representing the farmers and workingmen went to Olympia again for the legislative session of 1913. Many of the standpatters, to insure their election, had pledged themselves to -vote for the people’s measures. There was a- wholesale breaking of pledges. Other members, who didn’t dare to - break their written pledges so baldly, were sent out of town when important votes were to be taken. Things came to a climax when L. D. McArdle, leader of the old gang Republicans, flatly. defied the farmers, and, _shaking his fist at C. B. Keg- ley, master of the State Grange, who was sitting in the gallery, shouted: “The best thing you farmers can do is to go back to eastern ‘Washington and raise wheat, in- stead of coming down here to raise hell.” The farmers and working men got nothing out of ‘the 1913 legislature except increased taxes. So next year, in 1914,’they resorted to the initia- tive to get the laws they wanted. They initiated seven bills known as the ‘“seven sisters.” “STOP—-_LOOK—LI STEN" - LEAGUE'IS ORGANIZED - - ; They had to get the signatures of 32,000 citi- In the cities, where registration was com- pulsory the signers had to .be reglstered voters. ‘They got them.. But the enemies of the’ people were not 'idle. One of the bllls ptovjded, medical attendance for 2 PAGE SEVEN 5 plédges and get away with it, workmen injured in accidents. This would mean an extra cost to the lumber magnates. Another bill required the fisheries to pay a license tax on fish that they handled. The state of Washington at this time was rearing the fish in its hatcheries and the scale of fish licenses’ was so low that it did not nearly pay the cost of operating the hatch- eries. These bills, particularly, raised the ire of the big interests. They organized what they called the ‘“Stop—Look—Listen league” to fight these measures. With millions behind the organization a cam- paign to buy space in every paper in the state was inaugurated. Speakers were put in the field. The friends of the initiative measures found it im- possible to get newspaper space to explain their measures—the papers were too generally controll- ed by“the purchase of space by the Stop—Look— Listeners. “THE OLD GANG GETS BACK IN THE SADDLE . The Stop—Look—Listeners attacked the initia- tive measures in the courts before the election, and succeeded in preventing two measures from going upon the ballot. In the election that fol- lowed first returns indicated that most of the measures had carried, but later returns gave vic- tory to only one measure, a law to put private employment agencies, which had been fleecing workmen wholesale, out of business. And this measure was taken to the courts by its opponents, and only a few months ago, after withstanding every other test, was declared unconstitutional by the supreme court of the United States, by a five to four vote. In the 1914 election the Progressives still stay- ed out of the Republican party and the result was that the Republican primaries were controlled by the standpatters and sent back the worst. type of old gang politicians that the state had seen since before the Populist days. The old gangsters thought they were securely in the saddle again. They had seen the last legislature break its They had seen the fisheries ‘and ‘lumber interests able to combine (Continued on page 20) T e e e e R Y TR W e e W W W . 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