The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1913-04-09
MONTANA MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

BY majorities ranging from s6O1 to 1,795, the entire list
of Amalgamated city candidates in Butte went down to
humiliating defeat, Monday. AS a matter of fact, taking
the total anti-Amalgamated vote, as represented by the COM
bined votes of the socialists, independent democrats and
progressives, the majorities against the straight Amalga-
mated Copper company ticket stand: For mayor, 1928;
for treasurer, 2,574; for police magistrate, 2,3O6.
In Butte the Amalgamated political bosses issued orders
that the republicans and democrats should fuse their forces
against the field. The orders, Of course, were obeyed.
There was neither republican nor official democratic ticket
in the race. The combine was expected to win. The anti
corporation people largely centered their vote upon the So
ciaist ticket and swept the field.
The result in Butte was not SO much a victory for the
socialists, as a party, as it was a protest against Amalga-
mated Copper company dctation and control, the protest
coming from the rank and file of the citizens of Butte.
In Great Falls, on Monday, in a straight three-cornered
party fight, the progressive nominee for mayor was elected,
receiving $50 votes, as against $50 for the democratic nomi-
nee and 535 for Speer, the republican incumbent. The
socialist candidate received 237 votes.
And to think that this result happened right under the
personal supervision of the Analgamated captain-generalis-
simo, Johnny Morony, who is reputed to hate Bull Moosers
with even a more vehement hatred than he holds for
socialists!
The recent attempt to humiliate Representatives Kirsch-
wing and Durkan in their home city because they could not
be terrorized and browbeaten into voting for measures at
Helena, has evidently borne fruit in the election of a Bull
Moose candidate, state committeeman of his party, right
under the shadow Of the big stack at Great Falls.
In Hamilton, on Monday, the progressive candidates were
elected in two wards, while in the third precinct, an indie
pendent candidate won over the democratic nominee.
In Missou]a, while there was no politics in the election,
the local Amalgamated organ, maintained at a net cost of
about three thousand dollars a MONTH, for the purpose of
moulding public opinion in western Montana, bitterly op-
posed the election of Commissioner Houston. The people
evidently took this opposition as a certificate of good char
acter for the candidate so opposed and elected him by a
majority Of 172.
When the New York managers of the Amalgamated look
over the Montana returns from Mondays municipal cleo
tons, and see the results Of the efforts of their political
agents in this state, in the various towns where their local
interests are centered, they may wonder whether or not
their present rule-or-ruin policy of political control may
not be a losing game.
They may be able to control the few men necessary to
a majority of the state senate in Montana, but
they cannot control the people themselves, when the vote
is registered behind the curtain Of the election booth.
And then, again, in their blindness, they seem to have
that, under the initiative amendment to our state
the power to initiate needful legislation cam
not be controlled by a subservient majority Of seventeen
in the state senate. Measures can be initiated and
the ballot spread where the entire citizenship of the state
participate in the decision.
The weeks results of the municipal elections in Butte,
Great Falls and elsewhere may open their eyes or they
not. We shall see.