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

railroads and let the farmers take care of themselves. The co-oper- - ation of this railroad has been reasonably fair until this year. About all the satisfaction I have been able to get reads like this: “Have taken the matter up and will always be glad to co-operate with you, ete.” 3 Monday they set a fire in two places near Kettle River and yes- terday they set another fire near Automba. In neither case did they offer to try to put them out. The fire which has done practically all the damage at McGregor is a Soo fire also. If we permit, or if nothing is done to compel them to take care of fires they set, we may as well quit fighting fires for, as I have al- ready stated, they set them much faster than we can get at them. ‘In view of the existing conditions along their lines, from the Wisconsin state line west on all lines, I consider it now necessary to ask the Minnesota Public Safety commission to stop the Soo from running their small standard engines during the balance of the fire season. : If the present weather continues, the fire question will soon be beyond all control, unless this railroad can be muzzled. In a few days there will be just one continuous fire through this - district along the Soo. : I would ask you to take this matter under immediate consider- ation. I have held off making this kind of a report, but I realize that . something must be done. .- - The state forester has not yet made public in what form this request was presented to Governor Burnquist and the state public safety commission, or what they were preparing to do about it. The public does know, however, that 10 days later the forest rang- er’s prediction came true; that a gale sprang up and made a huge and irresistible conflagration out of these scattering fires; that a thousand people sacrificed their lives and that the property loss RA(SING A BUNCH OF pUST: . not afford to meet it. ' The governor controls the public safety commission. He is also the superior officer to whom the state forester reports. 'The safety.commission was granted by the last legislature a million .dollars to “provide for the public safety” during the war. The safety commission had the authority to stop the Soo railroad from running its trains altogether if the public safety demanded it. It had the power to employ thousands of men and to put them into the woods to fight the fires when they became menacing. The people of Minnesota and the people of the whole nation are entitled to know just what the governor and the public safety commissien were doing about these fires, especially in the 10 days after Forest Ranger Swedberg of Moose Lake sent out his desperate appeal for help. e It will not do to try to saddle all the blame onto the legislature for not having appropriated enough money, nor will rumors about I. W. W. and spies any longer fill the bill. There has been a general demand, especially from up around the timber country, that the governor call a special session reached to many millions, distributed among poor people who could of the legislature to meet the emergency and to relieve suffering. - Fearing damage to his political fortunes from such a session the " governor has given it out that a special session is “not necessary,” adding that he and the safety commission “can take care of the situation.” The governor -and the safety commission could have taken care of the situation when;thére was still a chance to put out the fires without serious damage. They did not. Was it because at that time they were too fully occupied in putting out campaign literature in the interest of Burn- quist’s re-election? Or was it because they did not think it proper _ to issue any orders against the Soo railroad ? THE HOLOCAUST IN MINNESOTA T THE véry moment when the hearts of farmers all over the- land and the hearts of all Americans were being gladdened by news of great victories in the cause of democracy on the - .bat,tlefieldsof France, a terrible blow has plunged the Northwest inte mourning.: The state of Minnesota -has Sutfered the most i . fearful calamity it has known in many years. - Forest fires, driven before a gale of wind, swept over timbei'ed .. regions‘of northern Minnesota, consuming as in a furnace town e after town, devastating thousands upon thousands of acres and leaving behind them a track of ruin more complete even than the trail of t Belgium and northern France. illages wer: " for life. Mr. Townley could speak! Finally, after he got “all balled up” i - th_is manner, the influenza epidemic stopped all pubh(q assemblag flames, and more than 1,000 persons lost their lives. The ruin and slaughter were the most tragic among the small farmers on the cutover lands in the northern part of the state. They were caught, hundreds of them, without any warning. Struggling pitifully to get away they were cut down by ones and twos, by tens and twen- ties, and their charred bones left in the path of the flames after they had swept by. Here and there men, women and children dragged themselves to a lake shore or threw themselves into some stream and escaped with their lives. In hundreds of cases, men, women and children came out of the holocaust blinded and maimed "“.:@ R Ty S — GERM — THe EORI!;‘E é’fl ADVANCE Many suffered for days before relief could get to them. Many, escaping the fire badly burned, died of exposure in the wastes of ashes. ) : It is useless to harrow our feelings over such a tragedy unless something can be done about it. What does the state of Minnesota owe to these farmers and village and town dwellers in northern Minnesota? Did not the state put them on the land or permit them to go upon it? Were . they not paying taxes for the support of their state government? Did not the state assume to give them protection from such dire menaces? : The danger of forest fires has been prevalent for years in northern Minnesota. It is a danger well understood and well dis- _cussed. The state operates a department whose especial care it is to provide against forest fire danger. The people of northern Minnesota had a right t6 expect protection. They had a right to expect that in time of abnormal danger unusual methods would be taken to protect them. What does the state owe to these people? We say that it owes thera not merely temporary relief, not merely physicians and medi- cine and caskets and graves, a little food and a few castoff gar- ments; we say that it owes them far more. We say that it owes them restitution; full restitution such as we are demanding from Germany for Belgium. We say that the state must and should build those little homes again, buy back stock and equipment and -food and give them means to put in another crop. We say that the state should and must give back as far as possible every material thing which its failure to protect them has taken away from these people. It can not give back lives; it can not restore health. Let it restore what it can. : The farmers of the Nonpartisan league are fighting for a new deal in state government. They are fighting for the recognition of a broader duty on the part of the state to all its people than it has understood before. Here is something immediate to begin upon in northern- Minnesota. - Let the state make good for this tragic failure of its protéctive_rheasures to protect. Let the state restore what never would have been lost if the state had not failed in one of the functions it had voluntarily assumed. - Let the people of Minnesota demand that the fire sufferers be fairly dealt with. _ Other states of the West which have seen the light of democ- racy will judge Minnesota by what she does for these poor people. FOR DEMOCRACY AND JUSTICE For governor of North Dakota, LYNN J. FRAZIER. 5 N For governor of Idaho, H. F. SAMUELS. For governor of Minnesota, DAVID H. EVANS. . For governor of South Dakota, MARK P. BATES. INFLUENZA TO THE RESCUE : OVERNOR NORBECK of South Dakota a year ago declared G' that League meetings could be held, and that free speech -would be protected. Later he permitted mobs to disperse “League meetings, refusing protection and failing to bring the mob- Seeara g e bists to justice. Later yet he proved that he could stop the mob- = wanted to. J _ meeting in Gregory county, where the mob previously had broken up a meeting. Later still he wrote letters to councils of defense stating that he “presumed” that President Townley of the League ‘would not be permitted to speak in South Dakota! Then he wrote another letter to county councils saying he didn’t mean it, and tha v arily at least. It’s an ill wind, etc.— *bists, enforce the law and protect constitutional free speech—if he He called out the-home guards to protect a League