The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1921-11-24
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EDITORIAL


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A fight for the leadership of the de-
moralized forces Of the nonpartisan
league is now in progress among the
leaguers of this state. There are two
or three factions who are seeking to
gain control of the organization.
Leiderbach, Levang and Kaldor have
been running things with rather
high hand during the past campaign
and their work is distasteful to the
more conservative element of the
party who want to get rid of the
bunch as managers, at least. Town
ley seems to be the man on whom the
eyes of the conservatives are center
ed and they want him to come back
and head the league with view to re-
gaining of the state. At Bismarck
Saturday convention of leaguers
met ostensibly to give the retiring Of
fcials farewell send off but in real
ity it was for the purpose of making
political medicine for the future. At
this meeting resolutions were passed
asking Mr.. ToWnley to come back
after his term has been served to
again be the political Moses to lead
the children Of socialism out of the
wilderness into the greener fields OF
state patronage. If he does this Mr..
Lemke, it is reported, will passively
consent to take back seat in the
band wagon until the opportune time
comes to assert his independence
when it is expected he will again as
sumo the role of dictator and general
manager of the league affairs. The
program means that friend Aaron
Liederbach, who has fruit farm in
California, can go there and grub up
stumps while Messrs. Levang and
Kaldor will be allowed to retire into
innocuous desuetude to ponder over
what might have been if the other fell
lows hadn't butted in.
Petitions were filed in the supreme
court yesterday afternoon by the
bunch contesting the election of Mes
tos, Kitchen and Johnson. There seems
to be no real ground for the contest
other than the fact that there might
have been some duplication in signing
recall petitions. The contesting. out
fit do not pretend to claim any fraud
or Irregularities in the election but /.
confine themselves to the fact that
there were Implications. The petit
tions were filed forty days before the
election and those interested had a |
chance to look the petitions over and
to protest if they were not sufficient. (
This was not done and the election |
was called in the regular way and
held resulting in one hundred and
eleven thousand voters of the state de-
claring that they wanted change IN
the state administra ton, which was !
a little over four thousand votes more
than the other side got and a fair and
earnest expression of the will of the
majority in this state. Surely after |
such a vote it looks like baby and
selfish act to try and stop the men
elected from taking their offices. 1t IS !,
another case Of the Macdonald Mel
son act. They do not like to let go of
the salary end Of it unless they are
afraid of having the light of day turn
ed upon the books Of the various de-
pa.tments N which they are interest
ed. There might be some color to this
side of the affair. Anyway they are
mighty poor losers The will of the
people does not seem to be of much
value to the office holder. The indie
pendents have at no time contested the
other side after they were elected by
majority vote Of the people, al
though on account of irregularities at
the election last November they could
have done so. The supreme court has
the matter in hand now and the out
come of this foolishness will be
watched with considerable interest.
Bismarck is now the Mecca for league
politicians and Office holders who are
working to defeat the expressed will
of the people and are hoping that
something will come out of this con.
test to keep them on the pay roll of
the state. We are Of the opinion that
their hopes will be of no avail. The
supreme court will be 10th to decide
against the majority wish of the peo-
pie unless fraud is alleged and this
has not been done. 1he fact that they
did not protest the recall petitions be-
fore the election was called should be
a strong feature for the court to take
into consideration in this matter.
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