The new North-west., 1897-02-19
Surrendered to Daly,

Surrendered to DAILY.
A correspondent Of the Billings Ga
zette, who is evidently gentleman we'll
posted in Montana affairs, writes to that
paper from Park City, Mont, under date
of February 9th, as follows:
The defeat of the Powell county bill
carries with it a lesson of mighty i'm
port to Montana. 1t marks another step
in the steady conquest of the state by
the copper magnate at Anaconda, and
signalizes the riveting more firmly than
ever of the fetters of boss rule upon a
people who fancy themselves to be Free
The floor of the house on Friday after
noon, when the bill met its defeat, is re-
ported by onlookers to have been crowded
by lobby of Anaconda heelers, who for
days have been hanging about the lob
bies armed with arguments" against the
passage of the measure.
Perhaps the most pitiful spectacle
presented during the discussion which
preceded the vote was the fulsome flat
terry offered to the Anaconda boss by
Representative Langborne, speaking on
behalf of the Lewis and Clarke delega
ton. Poor old Helena! She is indeed
in sore straits when she swallows all she
said about the man in the pamphlets,
with which she flooded the state, and in
the dictated speeches delivered by her
FOUNDERS from the rostrum during the
capital campaign. Yet, despite the
honied words of her discouraged and
broken-spirited citizens, and her meek
and humiliating obedience to the mas
ter's call, Helena will find that the whip
will not be raised from her scourged
shoulders, for the uncompromising war
against her, led BY Messrs. Hill and DAILY,
the first strategic move in which was the
transplanting of the Great Northern
yards to Clancy, and the second of which
will be the defeat of an appropriation
for a state capitol building, will go mer-
rily on. Yet, who will care, now that the
once proud city on the gravel beds of
Last Chance has so demeaned herself
Brutal in the extreme, and in every
line confessing the rule or ruin spirit
which actuates the power behind it, is
the editorial in the Anaconda organs
Saturday morning edition on the Powell
county bill. From his chambers in the
corporation owned smelter town block,
the editor grows derisive and seeks to
lampoon the helpless little valley town
through the medium of some paragraphs
of cheap railery. The words therein
contained lay bare the bones of the
hideous skeleton that turks behind the
awful curse of corporation rule wher-
ever you find it; the mockery of fair
words by which it hides its deadly grip
upon the commonwealth grins forth be-
tween the lines Of the smelter organ in
every period.
The gallant fight made for Powell
county should awaken the sympathy Of
every citizen of the state who loves his
home. The men who headed it were
fighting for their firesides in as full
sense as if they had been facing upon an
armed field an open foe. Their cause
was the cause of people whose liber
ties are to-day threatened by an enemy
as insidious as that which has swept
away all but the shadow of popular
franchise in the once sovereign states of
New York and Pennsylvania, and by the
people must the battle against bossism
be taken up. 1t is shameful to admit it,
but the statement is here fearlessly made
that legislatures are an easy prey for de-
signing and unprincipled political manip-
ulators to handle; the history of the past
three sessions, including the present,
reeks with a rottenness the match of
which was scarcely ever seen in the his
tory of the worlds republics.
Without the shadow of doubt, Mon
tana is laying foundation for corrupt
political system that, once engrafted
upon it, will drive from it's borders the
homeseeking classes and absolutely de-
stroy the public credit.
X
The danger that the state escaped in
defeating the conspiracy to locate the
capital at Anaconda is made apparent
every day, even to those who were led at
the time by the sincerest motives to sup
port the claims of the smelter town.
Poor little Deer Lodge gave two thirds
of her vote to the powerful rival who
has now turned upon her to her undoing,
and there are those who say it served her