Sioux County pioneer. (Fort Yates, Sioux County, N.D.) 1914-1929, 1919-07-03
OFFICIAL PAPER SIOUX COUNTY
Judge Amidon's Deci.ion.


tax payers against the State OF
North Dakota will not soon be for
gotten, either in North Dakota or
throughout the Union. No other
decision has ever set forth 40 clearly
the rights and powers Of n soverig"
people to do as they will with their
cwn. 1t sets democracy and the
rule of the majority upon thu
throne, and gives to the people not
a new liberty-but rather defines
lucidly and brings to light the full
liberty that they posess.
Let us Look at the occasion for
the decision. Forty-two taxpayers
of the state appealed to the United
States Court against the new in
dust,ial program that the state gov
esnment was about to enter upon,
under the Fourteenth Amendment
to the United States Constitution,
which, among other things, pr"
vides: Nor shall any state deprive
any person of life, liberty or pro-
perty without due process Of law.
or deny any person within its juris
diction the equal protection of it's
laws" They said: 1--WE are being
deprived of our property, in that
we are compelled by taxes, to help
maintain these state industries, and
as these industries are not propcrl,
the business of the state, it has N"
right to tax us, save and except for
the regular purposes OF taxation. "
The Judge answered that. He
told them that the state could tax
them out of existance! That was
legislative power and their re-
course was to elect legislature
that would follow their views. But
so long as they had alegislature that
did not follow their ideas, they
must grin and bear it He showed
them how their forefathers made
exactly the Amendment to the Con-
stitution when laws were first pass
ed establishing public schools! Thu
same objection was registered again
at public-owned water supply, gas
plants and electric systems. Legis,
lative power has advanced" he tells
them, and claws which at one time
were held invalid at later period
have been sustained by the same
court !" The world is marching on,
he tells them, in effect. The pro.
cession will soon be past them,
and it cannot be Stopped. He
argues that the state must advance,
for as new evils arise as result Of
changing conditions the state must
do that which will promote the
peoples welfare and protect them.
If the state stood still, it would
soon become wholly inadequate to
protect its people. "The state must
be as free to change it's remedies us
the evils that cause human suffer-
ing are to change their forms"
There are some people to whom
the world is still flat, and across
which Phaeton still drives his sun
chariot. These are the conserva-
tives in politics, and they are to
our civic system as the Hindoo who
plows with wooden implement
that his forefathers used a thousand
years ago-not because he can get
no better, but because his fathers
used it. 1t becomes sacred to him;
fetish. No reason nor can the
most profound argument reach such
q man. He sees his state trying a
|. new idea in government and the
horror of it strikes him cold. The
''bolsheviki" have seized the state !;
the socialists are upon us; red ruin
and bankrupcy await US. Take
away the Hindoo's wooden pillow
and replace it with an effective i'm
plement Of steel, and horror and
impiety will overwhelm him and
he will p]acate the gods of the
house and byre and glebe or days
with offerings.
The Judges hoinly may fall up
On deaf ears as ii result, But II
Il D. 4 4