The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1909-03-26
LEGISLATIVE BARTER AND TRADE"

"LEGlSLATNE BARTER AND TRADE"
The St. Paul Dispatch in a recent
editorial said: "A very reprhensible
state of affairs in the legislature will
be brought about if there is further
approach to the situation where no
measure may be dealt with on its
merits, but solely in connection with
some other measure or some chain
of measures. Threats and trades
are openly charged with replacing
argument and necessity in shaping
legislation.
This is lamentable situation to
lay before the people of Minnesota.
1t is an inspiring spectacle to see a
member afraid to vote his conviction
on pending actually reversing
that vote under the threat that other
wise his own pet measure will be
sacrificed. Measures as important
as the taxation of street railways
and the mining tonnage are held as
clubs to secure or defeat other legis-
lation, without the slightest regard
for their merits or desirabllity. Be
with US and we will be with you is
the argument that is making or
marring every piece of pending legis-
lation."
That all of this is true is not a
secret. 1t is common knowledge.
There is not delegation in the
legislature and hardly an individual
member who consistently votes his
honest convictions upon all or even
many measures. This condition also
is growing worse rather than better.
It is growing a matter of combi-
nation, barter and trade until men
of real ability, of pride in their
integrity and of loyalty to ideals
who seek or accept legislative honors
for the good they can do the
state, become utterly disguised.
Even men who claim to be preform-
ers frequently care more for future
preferment than present independ-
ence, while those known to have
measures of paramount Importance
to their districts have no more free
dom of action than a galley slave.
More than this, it always will be
so until the organization of grafters
which infests every legislature, and
the organization Of special interests
whose main purpose is safety
through disorganization, are met by
an organization of the thoroughly
honest, disinterested and patriotic
members who wish to serve the state
as whole.-Duluth News-Tribune.
The above, taken from the editor
ial columns of the Duluth News
Tribune, is certainly a remarkable
statement for that paper to print,
everything considered. We who
have watched the progress made
for the establishment of a sixth
state normal school have wondered
at the action of the Duluth members
of the state legislature and others in
the Sixth district contiguous to Du-
luth in pledging their support to the
village of Cass Lake as the proper
place for the location of the school
many of the members never having
seen the place and that, too, prior
to the converting of the legislature.
1t is just possible that the COM
plant made above by both the News
Tribune and the Dispatch had to do
with the methods which have been
pursued relative to the normal school
fight, wherein small village, sur
rounded by a forest reserve, and
with many other drawbacks, has
been given the better of every con-
tention, simply because a resident of
Duluth owned, the townsite.
It indeed often depends upon
whose OK is gored;" and if the Du-
luth paper is beginning to feel
slightly disguised with the methods
of some of the legislators it might
be said with all truth that it is
reaping the whirlwind" for sowing
seeds of discomfort and prejudice in
the normal fight for one thing.
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