Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1909-02-17

der whether the members did not
have some other motive than that
of saving time by gagging the tenn
perance takers.
County option is a live issue.
This legislature cannot kill it nor
indefinitely postpone it. 1t will
rise again. In the next campaign
it will be up, and one Of the strong
points of the campaigners will be
that the last legislature did not
dare to face the issue, nor even
talk about it. but. using the tactics
of the secret caucus, shut off debate
before it began.
If the legislature wants to pre-
cipitate red-hot temperance cam
paign in Minnesota, one in which
other issues will be swallowed up,
it has taken steps in that direction.
1t may not accomplish the feat, but
it has done nearly all in it's power
to bring this about.
Renville Co. Free Press: Coun-
ty option is deader than door
nail, hammered to death and the
life pounded out of it. Prior to
that the house was bound, trussed
up and gagged. so it couldn't inter-
fere, and the friends of county op-
ton were as helpless as the Irish
party in the British house Of COM
mons after cloture has been de-
clared. On this side Of the Atlant-
ic. every representative of the peo-
pie is at least given a fair show of
federation for any ideas he may ad-
vance and a chance to speak his
piece, but that isn't the way in
spired statesmen run the Minnesota
house. When any one tries to say
anything the majority doesn't want
to hear, they just throttle him and
let it 60 at that. Putnam of Red
Wing doesn't often show temper;
but he was proper mad when on the
motion of Rep. Wells the previous
Question was ordered on the ques-
tion of adopting the minority re-
port on the county option bill be-
fore anyone had a chance to get in
a word edge-wise. "You show you
haven't any sand," he said to the
majority leaders, when you are
afraid to give the forty representa-
tives in this house who favor coun-
ty option a chance to be heard"
Other speakers characterized the
liquor peoples methods as tyran-
nical, cowardly, un-American and
so on. | question whether the in
cident is yet closed,
Granite Falls Tribune: The
House killed the county option bill
by majority of twenty-nine votes
without debate last Thursday and
the friends of that measure must
wait for another two years for re-
lief from the plague as they be-
lieve it to be. No doubt the brew
ers interest cut some figure in the
argument, for the vote was we'll
premeditated and the decision final.
Inter Lake Tribune: It is prob
ably just as we'll that the bill was
disposed Of early in the session,
and it is probably just as we'll that
it was defeated. There is much
reasonable argument against coun-
ty option; even Prohibitionists are
opposed to the principle of the
proposition. 1t is safe to say that
on the whole the vote in the house
no doubt very nearly represented
public sentiment in the state on the
question. We believe that those
; who honestly wish to check and
control the liquor traffic would have
better success if they would get to-
gether in support of a bill to limit
the saloons in accordance with pop
ulation, refuse license to any re-
preventative of a brewery; make
the law more strict in regard to
harboring minors in saloons, or sell
ling to them, placing the minimum
license fee at 500, and the maxi
mum as high as the authorities
granting the license vote to place
it, and giving Is to Is per cent of
the license to the county. Such a
: bill ought to receive enough sup
port in the legislature to pass. for
it would surely be an advanced step
in regulating the saloon traffic.
County Option would not likely do
more to restrict and prohibit.
Bird Island Union: When the
house was called to order by Speak
er Rockne at II o'clock Thursday
the galleries were filled with spec
tators who evidently anticipated a
clash between the hackers and op-
ponents of the measure. That most
> of the on-lookers were county op-
tionists was apparent when they ap-
plauded each member who voted in
favor of the bill. Their enthusi-
asm became so rampant that Repre-
sentative L. H. johnson of Minnea.
polls arose to a point of order and