The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1922-03-30

known as the knocker. Al pfeseil
this pest is pretty we'll eliminated Il
the Pacific Northwest-why be SO fool
ish as..to grow another crop?
The best way to give honest value t.
the new settler and set him on th'
road to becoming a contented, prosper
Gus booster is to see that he gets som'
land to develop.-Better Fruit.
Because of its bearing as campaign
issue when Senators McNary and Stan
field come up for reelection, we have
| taken the time to read all the Officia
documents and speeches on the New
| berry case and hundreds of pages Of
newspaper analysis. Our conclusion il
that no senator, having due regard FOL
| the rights of state to elect its own sen
| ator, could vote against seating New
| berry. We do not see how Senators
| McNary and Stanfield could rightfully
have voted other than they did, fol
seating Newberry. For either of them
to have voted otherwise would have
been, in our opinion, an outrage OF
right principle.
We say this without condoning the
heavy campaign expenditures made IN
behalf of Newberry nomination, or the
loose methods of accounting for those
expenditures. The record shows con-
clusively, however, in our opinion. that
no money was used for corrupt pur-
poses, or with criminal intent. Yet it
was wildly and loosely expended. But
if no crime was committed within the
meaning of constitutional law, and
Newberry received the most votes, we
cannot see that any senator had any
right, strictly speaking, to vote to
deny him the seat to which he was
elected.
- Yet, although no crime was commit
ted, we believe a huge wrong was
committed within the law in that SO
large sum of money was permitted
to be spent by one family or group in a
campaign. We have no objection to
the total amount expended, but indi-
vidual contributions to a campaign
fund are dangerous when they run into
tens of thousands to elect one man or
pass one measure.
The remedy, we believe, is to limit
the size of any individual contribution.
Some arbitrary limit, such as $1,000,
cUOulu OC IlduCs lHdL WOulu lllSuIC
against any such possibility as few
people financing costly election cam
paign.
We have no objection to the expendi-
ture of 5000, 900 or any other huge sum
IN state campaign for one man or
one measure, provided the 5000, 900
comes from a very large number of
people, in small contributions from
each individual. Thus any great num-
Der of people may help cause in
which they believe. But no one per-
son, be his name Newberry, Painless
Parker, George B. Waters or c. S.
Jackson, should be permitted to put up
any large sum to carry measure to
elect candidate.
We have had many instances here in
Oregon just as fragrant as the New
berry case, but usually it was a pet
measure which caused some individual
or corporation to spend huge sum in
securing petition signatures and buy
ing campaign publicity. The files of
the Secretary of State reveal a large
number of contributions in unreason-
ably large amounts whereby measures
were made into laws in Oregon. And
show the truth.
How about the expenditures for the
recent fair tax campaign in Portland?
Were they all kept track of as the law
required, with all the sources of small
and large subscriptions made of record
and filed as required by law?
This is aside from the issue of
whether United States senators did
right in voting for seating Newberry,
but it is german to the issue of
whether large individual contributions
should be permitted to elect any candi-
date or carry any measure. There is
no real danger in large campaign ex-
penditure financed from a multitude of
limited subscriptions. II enough peo-
pie believe in a cause to subscribe
large number of small subscriptions,
making large campaign fund in the
aggregate, the people should not be
denied the right. But there is danger
to good government when the brute
power of money possessed by one indi-
vidual is permitted TO be exercised in a
manner that swings an election.
Limit campaign contributions to
81, 900, publish the source of each con-
tribution no matter how small or how
large, publish each expenditure item
by item with the name of the ultimate
recipient. and enforce careful account
ing on all campaign matters, and there
will be little danger Of money accom-
plishing any great wrong IN Oregon.
But do not blame our United States
Senators for voting to seat a candidate
elected by a majority of the voters of
his state merely because, without vio-
lating law. the members of his family
expended far more money TO elect him
than any individuals should be premit-
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