The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1921-08-11
CITY OFFICIALS
HANDS ARE TIED
''The man who attends to his
business and tries to be good
citizen is never troubled by the
limitations on free speech"

| During the past week an organizer
for the I. w. w. has been arrested,
tried, convicted and sentenced for vag-
rancy. This action by the city Off
Gals has resulted in indignation meet
ingse being held every evening on the
principle corner in town, by members
of the l. w. w. protesting against
this action. Acting States Attorney
Lee Combs has received telephone
call from Assistant Attorney General
Anderson, who is very solicitious as to
the welfare Of the convicted man and
has also received a communication
from the governor of our state. who
appears to feel that the convicted man
is in need of his personal protection.
The writer of this article does not
care to venture an opinion as to the
legality Of the arrest and conviction
of this man but assumes that our Of
ficials are acting within their power
in this action. However, great many
citizens of this county are protesting
against the officials allowing members
of this organization to hold meetings
on our streets, assuming that our state
laws would prohibit meetings of this
kind. This is natural assumption as
practically all states do prohibit these
meetings. However, several attempts
by the independent forces to place
such a law upon the statues have fail
ed owing to the efforts of the admin
istration forces. The first effort was
the introduction of House Bill No. 81
by our fellow townsman, Burl Carr, on
January 9th, 1917. This was an act
to define and punish vagrancy, pre-
scribing the rules of procedure in the
prosecution of vagrancy, and fixing
punishment for vagrancy and declar-
ing an emergency. This bill was in
troduced to assist in the control of the
I. w. w. which was, at that time, be-
coming menace in various parts of
the state. The bill was killed on Feb
ruary goth, 1917,on an absolute party
vote, the n-Partisans, being in the
majority, voting solidly against it.
On January 21st, 1919, F. r: John
son of Cass, introduced House Bill No.
SO, an act defining criminal syndical.
ism, prohibiting the advocacy thereof
and the advocacy of crime, sabotage
violence, or other unlawful methods OF
terrorism as a means of accomplish
ing industrial ends, and assemblage
for the purpose of such advocacy; and
providing penalties for the violations
Of the provisions thereof. This bill
was killed on February 9Th, 1919. as
before, on strictly party vote. You
will remember that the Non-Partisans
were still in control of the house.
During the special session Of the
Sixteenth Legislative Assembly OF
1919 F. w. Herbert;of Dunn Center
introduced House Bill 10. 26, on No.
vember 28th, to be exact. House Bill
No. 26 was an exact copy Of House
Bill No. so of the regular session,
This bill was killed on December 1st,
1919, on a strictly party vote, the
Nom -Partisans still controlling the
Legislature.
Notwithstanding the best efforts of
the Independent forces in the state to
place a law on our statute books gov
erning the I. W. W. situation we are
still without law Of this kind. We
find ourselves occupying the position.
as a state, of refuge for this class
of vagrant, powerless to control their
actions while within the state, and un-
able at this time to prevent them
meeting wherever they wish or advo-
eating whatever they desire. Friends
of the administration advance the
claim that the various bills introduced
were imperfect and for this reason
were killed. However. the Non-Par-'
tisans were in control of both houses
and if their intention was to control
this class of vagrant they could have
perfected the bills and gotten them in
an acceptable form. This they failed
to do. Any blame for this lack of
action lies entirely with the admins
tration.
1t might be we'll for you adherents
of our state administration to remem-
ber these facts when blaming our city
administration for conditions here at
this time. Remember that the hands
of the city officials are tied due to the
Legislative policy in our state during