The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1918-09-18
SECOND TEST
OF INITIATIVE
is IN COURT
Entire Day Consumed with Ar
guments on Leagues Ten
Amendments
NEW POINT is BROUGHT UP
Divet Contends Original Resolu-
ton was not Properly
Spread
NEW POINT is BROUGHT up

A. c. Townley, president of the Ma
tlonal \onpartisan league; William
Lemke of st. Paul. chairman of the
republican state central committee of
! North Dakota and one of the eXecu-
tive committee of three which gov
ems the National Nonpartisan lea yua,
and A. E. Bowen, clerk of the last
house OF representatives and one CT
! Townleys chief lieutenants in the
league, were prominent spectators to
day at the argument in supreme
court of the case which is to test the
right. of the league to submit to the
voters under the initiative amendment
| to the North Dakota constitution its
| proposed ten amendments to the con-
stltutlon which are believed to en-
| body the vital features of the famous
! house bill A, introduced at the last
, regular session of the general assem-
bly,, passed by the league majority in
! the house, but defeated by the indie
pendent majority OF the senate.
The time of the supreme court was
taken up today with arguments on the
action brought by Treadweil Twichel
OF Fargo to restrain Secretary of State
Hall from placing on the ballot for
the general election in November the
ten amendments proposed by the Non
partisan league and emoodying the
I principal features of the revolution
any state constitution which the league
sought to legislate through the last
general assembly.
A. G. Divet of Fargo is representing
the petitioner. He consumed the en-
tire morning with his argument which
IN general followed the line adopted
by Bismarck in opposing the submits
sion OF the New Rockford capital re-
moval petitions two years ago. The
one new point brought out by AttOr-
ney Divet was that the resolution for
an initiative amendment to the con-
stltution was not spread in full on
the journal of both houses, as re.
quired by law, and that the legislature.
consequently, did not take proper ac>
ton in the original submission of this
amendment to the voters.
Other points argued by Divet are
similar to those in the capital remov-
al case, i. e., that the initiative aend.
ment to the constitution was improp-
erly submitted for the approval of the
voters, in that the amendment. as pro-
that the amendment makes no pro-
vision for the submission of initiative
petitions to the people, and that the
legislature has provided no such ma
chnery; that the initiative amendment
to the constitution is null and void;
that the amendment is ipmroper in
that it does not provide the secretary
OF state with any means of determin-
ing whether the signers of initiative
petitions are voters or whether the
number of petitioners signing in each
county is the required number.
Assistant Attorney General Bronson,
representing Secretary Of State Hall,
took up the argument for the defense
this afternoon. In an opinion furnish
ed Hall last July, Attorney General
LANCER advised him that he would be
safe in ignoring the supreme courts
decision in the New Rockford capital
removal case. and that it was not for
him (the secretary Of state) to de-
termine whether The same law and
the same rules would apply in the mat