The Raymer enterprise., 1917-03-29

finished Its session last Sunday along
about six o'clock in the evening by
Denver time, but the legislative clock
showed it midnight of Saturday, March
oath.
The last day of the session was the
longest and most trying of any of the
six full days of the week. The day be-
fore had not been a short one, the ses-
sion having lasted, with only two short
intermissions of an hour each for
lunch and supper, until 4 o'clock Satur-
day morning.
II may be imagined that members
were dead tired when the gavel fell an
nouncing the end of their labors.
Most of our readers have heard of
the fate of the county bill. Had writ
ten the letter of last week on Monday
noon, instead of Saturday and Sunday,
should not have made such rosy pre-
dictions.
To make a long story short, the bill
just stayed on the calendar and nothing
would pry it from its place. 1t was
quite freely predicted that if the bill
got to vote, it would have passed by
good safe vote, but it is useless to
try and explain how or why, or give
the vent to "if" and other things. We
are going to be part of Weld county
for another two years at least, and if
we cant be in Pawnee we prefer to be
in Weld to all other counties.
It is unfortunate that those who are
in Greeley and were our friends, are
bound to get some blame for what they
did not do.
We feel that it is no more than right
that we should tell our readers some
thing of Mr.. Houtchens He was at
first undecided what course he should
pursue in regard to the matter.
Greeley opposition seemed t o him
quite great, but after some investiga-
ton he became satisfied that Weld
county as q whole would sustain him in
supporting the bill. He did so, and did
SO without faltering. He had no prom
ises out either one way or the other,
and deciding the matter entirely on its
merits. We want to say that we be-
lieve that majority of his constituents
approve of his action.
We were disappointed at the action
of the senate. What we think of Sen
ator Coldren is not material, but some
of the things he actually did, we can
tell. He refused to introduce the bill
into the senate, although offered an
opportunity to do SO. He did not get
the bill to vote in the senate. He
claims that he did the best that he
could, and says that he will be able to
convince US that he played the game
square with US all the way through.
We are waiting to be convinced, but
admit to enough Of prejudice in the
matter to say we would like to see the
evidence that could convince US.
However, we believe that Senator
Coldren or any other man is entitled
to hearing before we condemn him,
and The Enterprise will be glad to give
him all of the space he may wish to
use to convince our readers that his
course was upright and in accordance
with his promises.
As to the future, all depends on the
people of this section. We are of the
same opinion as The Weld County
News which recently said that the mat
ter was one to be decided and determ-
ined and settled according to the wishes
of the people in the proposed county.
The News was very fair in its stat
ment Of their views OF the matter.
The only statement made by that pa
per, that we have seen to which we
could take exceptions, was the express
sion of belief that the demand for d.
vision was largely based on the hope
of the different towns that they would
eventually land the county seat, and
we feel that enough protest has gone
in from different localities in the pro-
posed county to create that suspicion
in the mind of Editor Foster.
We are free to admit that some of
the favorable sentiment may be traced
to that source, but we also believe that
the majority of the opposition may be
traced to the hope that the develop
ments of another four years would
make different towns likely to be in
the lime-light for county seat favors.
The Enterprise expects to publish
more matter regarding this question
during the coming months than it has
in the past. We do not wish to tire