The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1919-03-03
1T is DONE

=. With each day bringing forth more radical and
more vicious class legislation, everyone in North
Dakota who loves fair play and ordinary honesty
must rejoice upon learning that the Sixteenth
general assembly finally adjourned at o'clock
Sunday morning, after devoting AZ hours to an
effort to throttle Immediately the Independent
press of North Dakota and to read out CT the state
members of the minority who possessed sufficient
manhood to condemn acts of the majority which
they believed to be wrong.
1t is doubtful whether a parallel for the Six
teenth general assembly can be found in the his
tory of civilized law-nlaking. We had here body
of men supposedly elected under representative
form of government to exercise legislative powers
delegated by an Independent, intelligent free peo-
pie, and we find them blindly accepting dlctatlon
from one man or small coterie of men, exercising
no initiative of their own, displaying no lndepend-
ence of thought or action, bereft, apparently, OF
the power to think and to judge; deprived OF all
inclination to ponder and weigh and determine for
Themselves doing things directed by others, re-
peating phrases placed in their mouths by others,
leaving behind them record which cannot but
rise up some day to shame them or their children.
League legislators came here to enact into law
program clearly defined in the platform Of their
party and acknowledged and approved by their
constituents Insofar as their legislative acts
tended to fulfil these pledges, they were above
criticism. But the lawmakers found upon their
arrival here as they did two years ago. entirely
new program for them to sponsor, and this pro-
gram went far beyond anything that the people
had conceived. 1t was not program prepared by
the people for the people, but scheme cunningly
in IN ITO
Of another state perhaps with advice from foreign
capitals. And to the shame of the Nonpartisan
majority it must be said that less than half
dozen members had the manhood to reject this
outside domination and to stand firmly and fairly
for the program which their people sentthem here
to carry out ''F ''' ,%sf*# =
+. So we find measures enacted purely for the
punishment Of enemies of certain eaguers, not
opponents of the movement as WHOLE we lind
bills made into law that disrupt the whole educa-
tiona and penal and charitable system of the state
to make job for one mainland that one man
candidate for favor at the last election who was
repudiated by large and convincing majority
We find on our statute books, signed by the COVER
nor within an hour after it had passed the last
house, iniquitous Senate Bill 1877, which gives to
a newspaper trust controlled by Job W. Brinton
one of the large flock of agtators drawn into the
league movement through the opportunities it has
offered for personal profit, monopoly of all the
legal printing both private and public, in the state
a monopoly which must be worth at least 100000
pei annun '
The people were not taken into the confidence
Of the league managers as to their plans for Bank
of North Dakota until fully month after election
and then the announcement came through the in.
dependent and not the Nonpartisan press of the
state.
The assembly has given the farmers machinery
with which to establish system of state-owned
terminal elevators and flour mills, but it has loaded
up the system with many sde-lines that the
success OF the main pro- ect may be endangered.
1t has authorized the issuance of $4,000, 600
worth of state bonds with which to establish a
state system of rural credits, but it admits at the
same time that it cannot loan this money at less
than seven, and in all probability eight percent
will be the minimum, while previous legislature
had already taken steps to make available to the
farmer some $3O,OOO.0O0 of the university and
school lands fund at five percent.
The league has committed the state to public
Indebtedness Of SIT 100000, upon which the inter
est and income for thirty years will average ST.
100000 per annum; it has, as matter of record
paved the way for an increase in the tax burden
from 81, 900 per annum to $25, 800 0OO with
great likelihood that the aggregate may go to $780,
O6O0OO
The farmers tax burden has been increased
from 80 percent on the actual valuation of his land
to 100 percent, placing him on level with the
railways other public utilities, corporations and
haukino institutions Novu hoordo ond covny,;a
sions and departments have been created with Z