The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1912-12-23
Deny That the State Chairman is
the Managing Director of the
Enterprise.
NAME COMMITTEES ON FLOOR
Would Not Allow Lieutenant Govern
or To Select Them-Use Demo.
Gratis for Majority.

Minneapolis, Dec. 23-The good
ship SENATE Combine is on the
! ways. The launching will take place
soon, according to Senators George
H. Sullivan of Saltwater, and F. A.
Duxbury of Caledonia, who have
modestly assumed responsibility for
the movement to take from Lleuten-
ant Governor J. A. A. Burnquist the
right to name committees of the state
senate. In statement issued at the
Saint Paul hotel Saturday night they
admitted the general plan of the COM
bine.
The two senator's are frank to say
that there is a combine, that it in
cludes Republicans and Democrats,
and that it has enlisted a majority of
the senators already. They were
anxious last evening to push them
selves to the front, and obliterate all
evidence that E. E. Smith, head Of
the state machine, has been directing
operations. They deny that he is
managing director of the enterprise.
The crew of the "Combine,' they de-
clare, has no captain and will have
no Ismay on the board. The crew
will run things
Senators Duxbury and Sullivan
deny also that patronage figures in
this bipartisan combine, or that it
will attempt to control legislation.
Passionately and earnestly in their
devotion to their new-found principle
they explain the reasons for forming
the combine and allege that it is
based on progressive principle
what Senator Clapp would call
Fundamental
I'VE believe in the responsibility,
of legislative bodies to the public and
to their constituents" says the Sulli-
van-Duxbury statement, and we do
not believe that they have any right
to abdicate their functions or duties
as legislators. We believe that the
making up or appointment of COM
mittees of a legislative body is as
much a legislative function as the
voting upon bills or any other act
which a member of the legislature
is called upon to perform.
In our judgment a member of the
legislature has no right to delegate
his power to the presiding officer or
to anyone else. Feeling this respon-
sibility and feeling that there is but
one way to discharge it, we are in
favor of the senate selecting it's own
committees in such manner as it may
determine. election preferred, and
also in favor of the committees
electing their own chairmen.
$50 far as the present movement is
concerned, it originated during the
tie was done at that time, but the
matter was discussed pro and con,
and again during the special session.
But one senator that we have talked
with has dissented from our view,
though it is fair to say that some
who have admitted the correctness OF
the principle have been unwilling to-
apply it at this time, because an in
dividual of their political belief hap
pens to have the appointing power.
mo outsider has ever made any
suggestion to US or to any other SEN
ator that we know of, either for or
against this proposition. The SUCCESS
ton that Governor A. O. Eberhart or
Mr.. Smith, the chairman of the state
committee, have had anything to do
with it has no foundation. They have
not known anything of it.
'No senator has asked for any
committee No committee has been
CONTINUED on last paEe>,