The Twin Falls times. [volume] (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1905-1916, 1914-01-23

| on January may be summed up from
! the news reports in few words The
municipal government, we read in the
! Oregon papers, was controlled abso-
! lutely by saloon keepers, who, it is
claimed, persisted in violating the law
! Copperfield with a squad of coast ar
! tillerymen under Col. b. K. Lawson,
superintendent of the state peniten-
| tiary. Miss Hobbs demanded on be-
/ half Of the governor that the saloon
| keeping officials resign, and when
they refused she gave Colonel Law
son the word to declare martial law
and close up the saloons by force.
There was no display of arms says
a Portland Oregonian correspondent,
but when the military authorities had
taken control they searched and dis
armed the citizens and they found vir-
tually every one armed" The citizens,
1t appears, We're pretty well divided on
the question of law enforcement, and
lined up against each other. Colonel
Lawson arrested Mayor H. A. Stewart,
City Recorder Clark, and Councilmen
/ Wiegand, Warner, and Woodbury., and
told them that if they did not ship
their liquor and bar fixtures out of
! town by the following afternoon he
would pile them up in the streets and
burn them. The orders were obeyed
to the letter There were rumors that
the sheriff intended resisting the mill
tary authorities with an armed posse,
but the only resistance offered was an
injunction, which Colonel Lawson ig
nored. When injunctions proceedings
were started, Governor West directed
Miss Hobbs to act as counsel for the
executive department.
Mayor Stewart and his fellow Off
Gals defended their conduct by say
ing the yah dbeen legally elected, that
the saloons were being conducted UNI
der state licenses, and that no legal
steps had been taken to revoke the lie
enses or to bring criminal proceedings
against the proprietors of the saloons.
A temporary city government was or
ganized under the direction of Colonel
Lawson, and when the ousted saloon
men started civil proceedings Cover
nor West said, Let them enjoin and
be damned; we will go right ahead
and attend to our business" The ex-
ecutive's reason for ordering the raid
was that he had been told thatliquor
was being sold to minors and that
closing hours were not being observed.
Newspaper editors seem to give more
attention to the part that Miss Hobs
played than to the extraordinary le-
gal procedure TheNew York Tribune
says:
I'VE like everything about Miss Fern
| Hobbs from her name up and Gown
She sounds delightfully."- feminine, in
the best and most luscious Western
STYLE and that she acts with true FEM
mime dispatch the citizens of Copper
field, Ore, can testify.
: They have a direct way Of doing
/ things in Oregon, all along The line
and we suspect that some day the
United States of all America will he
very grateful to this cheorfully eN, 'egi-
mental Stare. What the secretary of
the Governor did at CopperflGld when
she declared martial law in order to
| close TIE sal ons, the voters of the
State have bcen doing other matters
! for some time. When a situation a
| rises that calls for action, they act.
Where an older community would sit
around and talk and site presidents,
Oregon writs in a new law while you
wait. Blunders happen. But, What
is more important, progress is made
and the whole country benefits.
I'VE salute Miss Fern Hobbs for
what she has done and for the cheer
full, interesting, and effective common
wealth which she representative"
Governor West" says the San Fran
cisco Bulletin, paid a thorny tribute to
| the practical abilities of women when
he sent his feminine secretary to make
| the police authorities of Copperfield
obey the order to close Copperfield's
| saloons. Not every woman would care
| to undertake the job. But Miss Fern
| Hobbs was not appalled, The Bulle-
tin wonders if there are many young
| women in Oregon "of such surpris-
| ing calibre as Miss Hobbs appears to
| possess" The New York Times
thinks that even if the rum-sellers
should win their fight in the courts,
they will never recover from their
present humiliation and the ridicule
from all their kind that will be the