Omaha daily bee., 1919-06-29
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Delegates to Constitutional COnyen-
ton,

|
Omaha, June 27.-To the Editor
of The Bee: Within the next two
months candidates for delegates to
! the constitutional convention must
be chosen, and yet I hear no discus
sion of the matter either as to the
nomination Of suitable candidates or
the proposed amendments to the
state constitution.
Is Omaha asleep? Is there no one
in the chief city of the state paying
| a large fraction of the taxes for
| maintaining state government who is
awake to the fact that interested par
ties outside of Omaha are making a
tional convention?
Is it possible that Omaha has
reached the extremity Of being fore
| closed from taking pronounced &C
ton in this matter for fear Of being
accused of doing the bidding Of the
corporations?
Are there not property interests in
Omaha apart from corporate proper
ties?
Are the railroads, which pay about
one-third Of the taxes for maintain
ing state government, to be prevent
ed from having any representation
in the constitutional convention?
Is the whole situation to be aban-
doned to the farmers who, as a mat
ter of fact, pay less than one-third
of the expenses of running the state
government?
How about the townspeople from
one end of the state to the other?
Have they no real interest to sub
serve in proposed amendments to the
constitution? Why are they sleeping
at the switch?
The only organized effort to get
control of the constitutional conven-
ton is that now sailing under the
flag of the nonpartisan league, an
organization of farmers whose lead
ers in North Dakota revolutionized
the government of that state and
ordained state socialism therein.
Do our people know what state
socialism means? The definition in
North Dakota is that the prop
erty of the people is taxed to raise
money which is used to CAPT
talize business enterprises of va
rious description which are run
by agents of the state, who,
of course, are active politicians re-
warded for partisan service. How
long will the public money thus used
hold out, or in other words, how soon
will it be squandered?
Meantime the state stores and
other business enterprises run on
public money are crowding out the
private business concerns and espe-
cially the banks for North Dakota
is starting a state bank for handling
all public funds.
State socialism in North Dakota
has introduced the single tax into
the revenue system which places the
burden of taxation upon the land
This is already pinching the farmers
Of that state, and they are beginning
to suuirm Do the farmers Of Ne
braska intend to rush headlong into
this visionary scheme of the single
takers?
Do the newspaper publishers of
Nebraska know that the nonpartisan
league bunch of North Dakota
passed law to subsidize newspa-
per in each county with public
money, and put it in competition
with the papers owned by private en-
terprise? If they don't know it,
they'll awake with a start some dark
morning in Nebraska when they find
that our state constitution has been
amended to admit of the same brand
of state socialism.
Let me venture the opinion that
this still hunt of the socialists to
capture the government of Nebraska
cannot be checkmated by a gumshoe
campaign. Have the property inter-
,ests of the state no right to a voice in
the matter whatever? Are they ut
terly defenseless, and must they take
what is handed out to them?
JAMES B. HAYNES.