The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 11, 1918, Page 5

its school funds when it loans them to farmers. _-But the most powerful of all the trasts that run the state-of Idaho is the power trust—a thing of recent years. 'One after the other the available power sites of the state have been grabbed up by one company and another. There have been sales, trades and combinations, to which the people -at the time paid comparatively little attention. Now they have waked up to find that all the power de- velopment in Idaho, north and south, has come into the hands of the great national power trust—the General Electric company—while congress, in the Shields and Ferris bills is planning to give to the power companies whatever is left in the way of hydroelectric sites. The power trust—and the other interests in Idaho —keep a pretty close hold on both of the main political parties. The power people have as their principal attorney. in Idaho James H. Haw- ley, former governor of the state and Democratic leader. Besides looking after legal business for the power people ex-Gov- ernor Hawley is expected to keep the Democratic party in line. The Idaho Power company, which Hawley represents, has issued a sworn statement showing total assets of $29,155,806. However, it was valued for taxation purposes last year at only $5,500,000, and they say that Hawley wept real tears trying to get a lower valuation yet. But, the power people don’t place all their reliance upon the Democratic party. Governor Hawley has a son who is a Re- publican — he helps the power trust too, by keep- ing the Republican party in line. It is real handy to have all kinds of politics in the same family. WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM Time after time the people of Idaho have been shown that the interests and not the people dominate both big parties at present. Take the case of the initiative and referendum.” In 1911 there was such a demand for the initiative, referendum and recall that the legislature ot that year, against its will, was forced to submit proposed constitutional amend- ments to the people. They balled them up as much as possible in submitting them, hedging them about with restrictions, requiring, for instance, that any initiative measure, to be carried, must get, not merely a majority "of votes cast on the measure, but a majority of the total number of votes cast for governor. As the total vote on initiative and referendum measures, ordinarily, runs about 80 per cent of the vote for governor, this would mean that an initiative measure, to be carried, would have to get better than five out of every eight votes cast. But in spite of the unsatisfactory condition of the amendments the people of Idaho at the election of 1912 voted for them by an enormous majority— 43,658 “yes” to 13,490 “no” in the case of the first amendment, and only slightly smaller majorities in the cases of the. other amendments. The amend- ments all provided that the legislature should pass the necessary laws to' carry the initiative, refer- endum and recall into effect. The 1913 legislature, which met after this vote by the people in favor of direct legislation, was Republican, It failed absclutely to carry the will of '‘the people into effect. No attempt was made to do so. > In the next campaign ‘the Democrats selzed this as an issue. ' They promised to do better if they in, They elected a Democratic -governor, but the legislature was Republican again. Governor: Aleéexander “recommended” some action on the initia- tive, referendum and recall, but nothing was done.. In the next campaign, 1916, the Democrats: made more of an issue of the initiative, referendum and . recall than they had done before. They succeeded in electing not only their governor; but a legislature Democratic in both its branches.. cratic legislature of 1917, despite its promises, did no more toward putting into ‘effect the initia- tive, reterend_um ‘and recall than had:the Repub- This is a typical orchard scene in south Idaho. making money. The commission men, however, are all making nice profits. But .this Demo- e e lican legislatures of 1913 and 1915. North Dakota farmers got pretty mad because one legislature, in ° 1915, turned down a_proposition that théy had voted for, by a big majority. How would they have felt if they had seen three-legislatures—two Republican and one Democratic—turn them down, one after the other? CONTROL BY THE INTERESTS MEANS CORRUPT GOVERNMENT The special interests that are in the saddle in Idaho are looking only for certain things for them- selves—favorable tax laws, low assessments, pro- tection from prosecution. They are not interested in the general business of state government; they are willing to turn this altogether over to the politicians. The result is that Idaho is one of the worst governed states in the nation today. The writer of this article recently read- a history of pioneer Idaho written by former Governor Jerry McConnell. It is an account of one robbery, assault and murder after another, the holding up of stage coaches, the assassination of peace officers, arson, rapine and pillage. Yet it is doubtful if there is any crime chronicled in the early history of Idaho that can not be dupli- cated in its political history inside of the last ten years. Idaho politicians will tell you, without a Thls is. the ldaho ltate capltol at Boiaé. a beautiful building to look at but one which represents prob-' ably a quarter of a million dollars worth of graft. ‘“This story tells ‘how the big graft in the state treasurer’s offlce ‘was uncovered. : " PAGETFIVE PRI X "’W R‘:" Idaho produces fine apples but few of the orchardists are %3 ,‘ ‘4’%‘2}’:’""‘&,{7—‘ VIR O — blush, just how a candidate for governor was “counted out” in 1910 and how a candidate for president was counted out in 1912, just where the votes were stolen and how many of them in each instance. The state laws, which entail an expense that would run up to $30,000 to $40,000 to secure a recount, made a legal contest impractical. When, in 1912, one Boise paper published a news dispatch containing a criticism by Colonel Roosevelt upon the supreme court of Idaho, the supreme court turned around and threw the editor, publisher and bond holder of the paper into jail for contempt of court. The statutes,é of Idaho prescribed that 10 — days shall be the maximum imprisonment for con- . tempt of court; the supreme court, however, made a new law for itself and inflicted a 20-day sentence This sort of “rough stuff” has been going on so long that people in Idaho, a good many of them, have gotten pretty well used to it. But a few years ago a stranger, a public accountant from Boston, named Clarence Van Deusen, came to Boise. They were build- ing a new state capitol in Boise then, to cost about a million and a quarter, and it was com- mon talk on the street that better than a quarter of a million was graft. Everybody seemed to be getting a piece of it. The "contract called for Italian scagiola marble as an in- terior finish — the com- tractors were making a kind of imitation marble on the ground and put- ting it in instead. The contract called for a-high grade mahogany wood- work—they were using a “cigar box” mahogany, a cheap grade of cedar, in. stead. The state treas. urer, O. V. Allen. who was in the furniture busi- ness, took the furniture contract (under another name) and palmed off a cheap grade of furniture and rugs upon the state at a fancy price. MY, BUT THIS VAN DEUSEN .WAS A MEAN SORT OF CUSS Everybody in Boise seemed to take this as a mat- ter of course. That is, everybody except this fellow Van Deusen. He was a cantankerous sort of a cuss. They didn’t pull any rough stuff like this back in Boston, and he just naturally had to holler about it. But it didn't seem to alarm the state authorities much. They issued a statement telling the people that all the cheaper stuff that had been substituted in the capitol was really better than what the con- tracts called for. The state of Idaho had issued some bonds to finance the capitol building and for other purposes. One day the State Treasurer Allen took $1,100,000 worth of these bonds off in his valise with him to Chicago. weeks later and announced that he had made a fine deal—he had sold the state's 20-year, 41-2 per cent bonds at a premium of 1 per cent. Now Van Deusen and a few other men who had been following the bond market knew that this must have been wrong. Bonds were much higher at this time and a 4 1-2 per cent state bond should have brought a premium of at least 4 per cent and probably of 5 per cent. It was clear to these men that Allen must have pocketed thousands of dollars out of this bond sale. But they lacked proof and none of the state authorities seemed to have any disposition - to investigate. ’ Van Deusen kept on hollering “Stop thief”’ and lost most- of his business and a good part of his reputation for his pains. The papers of Idaho said he was insane and should be confined to an asylum. Business men, who evidently thought the politicians were entitled to a little “honest graft” boycotted Van Deusen so that his yearly earnings as an ac- kept on fighting. In 1912 he offered himself as a > He came back a few. ‘countant dwindled from $3500 to $900. Van Deusen stump speaker to the Progressives, but such a tor-. rent of abuse had been heaped upon him that’the Progressive candidate for governor refused to let Van Deusen speak from the same platform with him ' WHAT HAPPENED WHEN s T ‘THE EXPERTS INVESTIGATED e But Van Deusen didn’t seem to be discouraged.. ‘Such efforts were made to head him off that he . » (Continued on . page 26) g i