The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1905-01-26
CENTRE HERALD
EXPENDITURES.

SeneTdl puDlIc is SetIlnS weary is
the appointment of unlimited Com
missions and Boards of Review and
Control. These Commissions are
Of two kinds, temporary and
permanent, and the temporary ones
always last as long or longer than
the permanent "A Commission is
appointed to perform certain duties.
A Board of Appeals is appointed
to review the action Of the Com
missioners. Referees are named to
keep the Board of Appeals straight,
and all the public has to do is to
pay their salaries and to elect
Legislators to devise new questions
50 they can create new Commits
sions to settle them.
Whenever an important question
confronts Legislative body the
easiest way to evade the response
bility and avoid going on record is
to pass a law providing for the
appointment of commission "to
investigate and report" and the
"Commissions'' so appointed are as
slow about doing this as is man
with an accident policy who breaks
his leg, about getting we'll. There
is always lot of shop-worn states
men who are looking for a
renovating establishment and as a
rule they are the ones selected to
occupy the berths of these political
hospitals. When voters no longer
have any use for lawmaker and
he is repudiated by them, if he has
been good and obeyed the powers,
they put him on Commission to
tell the lawmakers the people have
chosen to fill his place, how to
legislate.
These Commissions are always
made "non-partison." A minority
representation is always provided
for. This gives the minority an
opportunity to unload few of
their political membranes and so
their support is won. Their is no
class of Legislators so hungry for
places as minority. A majority
has both brains and stomach. A
minority is all stomach. Its
appetite for positions is perennial.
Not being responsible for legisla-
ton they are for anything that will
allay this awful appetite. To such
an extent has this mania for ap-
pointing Commissions ragged that
the Commission expenses of the
state and nation are almost equal to
the legislative and we are fast
becoming a government of Com
missions, for Commissions and by
Commissions.
The people think they elect
legislators to legislate and not
delegate their powers to others to
perform, but this is not always the
case, for there is about as much
Commission made law as there is
legislative made law in this country.
Elected Legislators sometimes
enact bad laws and appointed
officers sometimes establish good
regulations, but laws created and
regulations established by appointed
officers and rulers who hold their
positions by right of INHERITANCE
who are not directly responsible to
the people, and whom the people
cannot supplant at stated times if
they desire,-have brought about
more corruption and caused more
injustice than have all other sources
combined. Officers not directly
responsible to the people are very
apt to forget the peoples interests.
1t is absolutely incompatible
with the principle and spirit of
popular government to allow ap-
pointed officers to legislate or
dictate legislation.
There doubtless has been and
there probably will continue to be
extravaganza in the administration
of the military and naval affairs of
this country, but there always has
been a marked activity OH the part
of those in charge to bring the
offenders to justice. The Ameri-