The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1918-10-03
THE LEAGUE AMENDMENTS.

) THE LEAGUE AMENDMENTS.
= In justice to it's readers and to the taxpayer:
= and citizens of North Dakota generally, The Tri
bune purposes during the next few days to discuss
Iedtorially the constitutional amendments which
are being submitted by the Nonpartisan league
. for approval at the November elections.
: There are seven of these amendments. Six
Of them had never been proposed, discussed, con-
sdered or contemplated until the finished draft of
House Bill a. was presented in the house Of the
last general assembly. ...,t.......,..,
No member Of that body, Lacquer or other,
had been elected on platform embodying the
slightest reference to these proposed radical
Echanges in North Dakota's constitution.
4 No member of that body when he came to Bis
marck to subscribe to his sacred oath had any in
timation that any project of so serious and far
reaching consequence was to be preached.
The plan was known only to it's authors-a
small coterie of irresponsible, theoretical socialists
who came up from St. Paul with the draft for this
new constitution slowed away in their pockets.
i Included in this precious group was not sin
I gle representative citizen Of North Dakota; not
one man who had enjoyed any previous experience
in making laws for this state. There was not
man in whom his neighbors or fellow citizens had
powers authority. They were, one and ALL, rank
outsiders petty tricksters and cheap theorists,
and they asked the 18th general assembly to
shamelessly usurp powers which had never been
delegated to it and to exercise authority which no
regular legislative body in the history of any state
ever has possessed or endeavored to seize And
in the large Nonpartsan majority which coptrol-
ed the lower house there were less than half
,ho bod md tho ;n%o
and the integrity to stand out against Townleyy
and his fellow wreckers. Herded like sheep in an
DID, disused hotel like sheep the remainder of the
Legislators who bore the Towney brand blindy
followed his lead
North Dakota has had cause to give thanks
many times during the last two years for the wise
provision in it's constitution under which not more
than fifty per cent of the members of it's upper
house can be retired in any general election But
for this provision Townley undoubtedly would
have controlled the senate of the last assembly as
he did control the house, and a weird collection of
socialistic fallaces conceived in the crooked con-
volutions of cracked brains would now be serving
North Dakota as constitution and Offering
Townley the opportunity which he covets for the
confiscation of all private property. -. .. ..~
Now Mr.. Townley and Arthur LeSeuer, the
friend of big Bill' Haywood and A. E. Bowen,
the master plotter, and William Lemke, who has
prostituted the republican party to the uses of
his master, are asking the people of North Dakota
at large to do what their sworn representatives
would not do. ~
The electors of North Dakota are asked to
wreck the constitution which their forefathers so
wisely drafted, basing their conclusions on the
experience of older commonwealth which had in
the course of century or more sifted the good
from the evil, discarded the unsound and the weak
and the wicked and adopted and preserved and
strengthened that which was good, dependable
and worthy. ..~
Again the initiative comes not from single
North Dakota taxpayer; not from single repre-
sentative citizen of North Dakota, but from lit
tie group Of intriguers who have their habitat and
their headquarters and their holdings in foreign
state, and whose only interest in North Dakota
may be that which the vvisectionist feels in the
puppy upon which he practices new and yet un-
proven feats of surgery. -~ ,
Fortunately, Townley and his fellow adven-
turers can initiate but they cannot force upon
North Dakota this radical program without the
consent of the governed Autocratic, powerful
and ruthless as Townley and his fellow destroyers
are, they must yet, at least this one time more,
bow to the only power which free America has
ever recognized-the ballot. q .z-~&t@
Wieldinp az we do this mower or on1v ,1ioldt