The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1910-12-03


tauts. In response to the demand
made Indian agents have beer
travelling about the country fol
months, being interviewed by news
papers, and telling what they were
going to do, and what they were mol
going to do. The country has been
treated to a talking match, with one
or two star performers, and to the
spectacle of a lot of people who are
supposed to be independent citizens
of the republic shivering with fear
every time a new announcement was
made by the advocates who seem to
have been in charge of the situation.
THE whole spectacle is disgusting.
Never in the history of the north
west has there been presented such
a spectacle of dictatorial methods on
the one hand by a handful of men
clothed with little brief authority,
and on the other of such supine
acquiescence in such methods. The
government agents have been law
unto themselves. They have closed
saloons in one place and permitted
them to run in another, assuming
discretionary powers which are not
theirs, and which they ought not to
be permitted to exercise.
The mistake seems to have been
in the yielding of the Indian bureau,
or the interior department, to the
demands of few people who are
doubtless earnest in their desire for
the abolition of the liquor traffic,
but injudicious as to the means by
which they thought it could be
brought about. The treaties under
which all this action has been taken
have slumbered for at least a quarter
of a century, Conditions which did
not exist when the. treaties were
framed have grown up in the mean
time. Congress, or the president, or
both, had ample Justification in the
matter, and could either rescind the
liquor portion of the treaties or in
dictate an intent to have those Sec
tons enforced: A reasonable, bust
ness-like method of handling the
subject would have been to permit
the status quo to continue undis-
turbed until the higher authorities
had opportunity to indicate what
their intent was. Then it would be
for the employees of the government
to carry out the orders of their su-
periors under the law. That would
have been the simple and natural
course to pursue.
The course that has been follow
ed is the opposite of this. There ap-
pears to have been no head to the
whole movement, and no consistency
in the acts performed. While COM
munities have been thrown into a
state of uncertainty aud demoraliza-
ton, all because handful of hired
men appear to have been more inter
ested in telling their plans to the
newspapers than in going about their
business. If the law requires the
closing of the saloons in the treaty
territory, and it is necessary to be.
Gin the enforcement of that law at
this time, that law should have been
enforced, without fear or favor, and
without discrimination. If the agents
did not intend to do that they should
have kept their hands off until a def
mite plan of action could be decided
on. 49,.
"The agents on the ground have
shown an amazing degree of
offensive of6ciousness, and are
censurable for it. But all this
work is under the jurisdiction of
the interior department at Wash
ington, and not the least of the
indictment against Mr.. Ballinger
is the manner in which he has per.
mitted this subject to be botched.
The Herald is no friend of the
liquor traffic. It-lbelieves in the
wisdom of maintaining and enforc-
ing the prohibition law in North
Dakota. Because Of the existence
of different conditions it does not