The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1919-12-11
4 BIG JOB FOR BURTNESS

~So ~NS ~ N~
he began his work. We assume, of course, that
the eminent legislator in sincere in his crusade
to protect the American public against free
love- and "bolshevistic" works. Sincerity, we
believe, is the very key to the Burtness char
acter. lie ScQrns the articles of petty politics.
In any other man the public might have ground
for suspicion that the attack begun against the
North Dakota state library was merely for poll
cal effect, and was to be confined solely to that
one library, but no such mean and unworthy
motive can be charged to a man of Burtness'
character. His soul burns with indignation
against those who would attack the home and
government and rises high above the tricks of
the mere politician.
And it is with a knowledge of this splendid
sincerity of his, this devotion to a splendid
idealism, that we regard the bigness of the task
he has undertaken. The North Dakota library
is only one among many sinners. The Fargo
city library, as The Courier-News discovered
yesterday, has many of the same books that
Burtness intends to outlaw. Word came that
the Chicago public library is even worse. We
suspect that even worse yet might be discovered
in the New York library. We have an uneasy
suspicion that the latter institution has a copy
OF every book published in the United States,
and that only an act of congress can change this
dlsgraceful state of affairs. And all these
books are at the disposal of those very con-
gressmen who make our laws!
But even this is not the worst. Even our
most conservative newspapers and magazines
seek to undermine the sanctity of our home. We
Gull the following from an interview with Have
lock Ellis which appeared in the issue of the
New York Tribune for November 80:
He believes, for instance:
That q husband and wife, if it can pos
slbly be afforded, should live in separate
domiciles.
That a little jealousy may be an %unpleas-
ant, dangerous thing; but, Notwithstanding
that, life IS much more interesting for all
T0Nc0TNpH If q wife o+oi,r lo, ocI. g..
and a husband his female ones after mar
riape.
That the marriage code is far too rigid,
and that until public opinion makes it more
elastic men and women are justified in
contracting free unions.
That not all women are born with the
strong maternal instinct, and that women
should not have unwanted children Che
bellved this in a day when others thought
it sheer heresy.)
Plainly Mr. Burtness must suppress the New
York Tribune. Ellen Key never expressed
ideas more destructive of the home! And vet
even this is not all. The Pictorial Review.
which is, we believe, now the women's magazine
OF largest circulation in the United States, on
~ recently published an article by Havelock
ELLIS, IN which the views summarized above
were set forth at more length. And the Re-
view is probably read by one thousand persons
IN North Dakota to one who reads the works of
Ellen Key. 1t enters, indeed, into most of our
best" homes. Many of those who condemn
the Nonpartlsan League have been hugging to
Their bosoms this magazine, which now, snake
like, turns upon them to "destroy" their own
homes. Plainly, it is high time that Burtness
was sounding the alarm, and we shall not long
await his clarion call to all members of the I. v.
A: to join him in making a bonfire of this per-
nicious magazine.
Our Grand Forks crusader, having set his
hand to the plow if we may be permitted to
mix metaphors) cannot now turn back. If he
IN slncere-as of course we all know he is-he
must go the limit. It will mean little to purge
or state library, if our citv libraries are not
likewise purged. And it will do little good to
make way with books alone, if newspapers and
maDazines by the thousand, before being expur-
gated by Burtness, are allowed to flood the
state.
Plainly, instead of making merely a statewide
ass of himself, Burtness must show himself as
he is to the whole nation. The alternative is that
he confess himself wholly insincere, and the
cheapest and most silly kind of an ignorant
demagogue.-The Courier News.
The first act of the special session of the
North Dakota legislature was the ratification
of the woman's suffrage amendment to the con-
stitution Of the United States. Three I. V. A.
senators and six 1. v. A. representatives voted
to keep women in political bondage.
For the second time the North Dakota legis-
lature has killed a bill attempting to fix punish
mant for "criminal syndicalism and anarchy
The league law makers are wise enough to know
that justice and not suppression is the true REM
edy for anarchy and revolution. Events will
show that North Dakota is rirht.