St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-03-09
BISMARCK ROUNDUP.
A Session That Opened With
Large Promises of What
1t Would Do.
One Railroad Issues Over a
Thousand Passes at the
Request Of Members.
The Gross Earnings Act the
Only Source Of Revenue
From Railroads.
Lively Dissection and Gossip
of Various Legislative
Matters.
Special TO the Globe.

Speojal 10 the Globe.
BISMARCK. OAK. March s.-A couple
of months ago the eighteenth Legislative
session opened up with great flourish
of farmers dinner horns. Alliance
members were clearly in the majority
and had they known how, could have
enacted any of their proposed extreme
Quack legislation. The first thing they
did was to run square against the
speakeiship snag in the house and split
wide open. each faction claiming bois-
terously to be the farmers friend and
neither doing anything to prove the
claim true. Numerous measures were
introduced that tended to make the
horny-handed tillerS of the soil a class
more favored by unwise legislation
than are the protected manufacturing
robber baronS Of the East, but. as
it should be, not one of them
has becOn law. AikenS attempted
TO establish his claim as the grangeTs'
friend, and did establish his reputation
as rank demagogue, by the introduce
ton and hearty support OF his 1nsur-
ance law. making a
FARMERS NOTE LEGAL TENDER
when given in payment of insurance
policies, but it joined the great major
lty OF indefinitely postponed, and is
forgotten. Fletcher, who exhibited the
most implicit faith in The potency of
Be it enacted" fathered the cele-
brated House Bill No. %, which made
the positions Of railroad commissioners
elective and endowed with power that
would tempt despot from his throne.
Even the former railroad committee
could not swallow this measure,
and offered a substitute, both
of which were postponed IN
I'll the Saccbarine subsequently.
A few days previous Morris, the author
OF the notorious milling bin, which con-
flScated the profits of that business and
has beer lying in a trance since its see
ond reading. added TO his fame as an
extremist by submitting still another
railroad bill. II was left in an eXcru-
ciatingly uHpaSY position Of suspense,
pending emotion to reconsider the vote
by when 1t was passed. Many MEM
beers were honest in their eSdeavorS to
give the farmers beneficial legislation.
and their failure TO do so is due solely
10 their ineSperience-as il has ever
been and probably always will be. II
is not supposed for moment that the
fact that during the first six weeks of
the session the Northern Pacific rail
road alone issued
OVER ONE THOUSAND PASSES
at the request Of members. This only
served to make them feel what is trpe,
that the great corporations are not as
black as the Alliance orators had paint
ed them. Now. it is a TACT that the
recognized railroad lobby here, Attor-
news Dodge. Mcdonald and Hand. are
lust the cleverest gentlemen in the land.
and had their respective clients been in
any real danger. they could doubtless
have averted it; but the measures men
toned died of their own inability to
live. a. j. McCabe. Superintendent of
the Dakota division Of the Northern
Pacific. was called here frequently in
the discharge of his duties, but of
course he never dropped his oar into
the troubled waters. He was here on
business, and when rare opportunities
presenf ed themselves for a little recrea-
ton. may have mingled socially with
the lawgiyers, and made himself agree
able. as lie knows so well how TO do-he
may have even given them the straight
tip that his company was the true friend
Of I'VE, the people" and thus created a
FEELING OF SYMPATHY
for the mueh-abused corporations, but
he wasn't a railroad lobbyist. and adj
mits this to be fact himself. The
GLOBE predicted early in January that
nobody would Try to hurt seriously a
company with which he is connected
out of personal respect and friendly re-
gard fol him, and time has shown the
guess to have been approximately cor
rect. Senator GlaSspel did get his bill.
repeating the gross earnings act, con
Verted into a law. but he is d LAWYER and
q smart one. still'it is upon this BASIS
that the roads viii continue to pay taxes
during the territorial existence if they
ranN n u