Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1922-04-12
A FINE RECORD FOR PROMOTION.

League members OF the state mouse and senate
are responsible for a lot of ill-advised legislation,
and under the operation of the laws enacted the
state has suffered greatly in pocket and in reRuta-
ton. But when the subject is analysed it is found
that the main thing that these laws did was to place
almost absolute power in those executive officers
who were constituted an industrial commission. The
laws themselves were not self-operating. They re-
quired the action of some person or persons to put
them into effect. The law creating the Bank of
North Dakota, for instance, did not operate auto
matically. The law directed that the Bank of North
Dakota be established, and it conferredHon the in
dustrial commission authority to go ahead and do as
it liked in organizing and conducting the bank. So
it was with the other so-called league laws. The end
which was sought to be accomplished was set forth
in the law, and the industrial commission was au-
thorized to proceed with the organization, to en-
ploy managers and provide machinery, to establish
rules and regulations, and, in substance, to proceed
as its nne1nbers deemed wise and proper.
Capable business men diligent and sincere, and
devoted to the promotion: of the welfare of the state,
could have operated under those laws without vast
ing a dollar Of the states money. Operating the
Bank Of North Dakota they would not have gone
into wildcat political banking which has cost the
state hundreds of thousands Of dollars. Operating
the mill and elevator business they would not have
permitted the purchase of increditable amounts of
material and quipment at peak prices, to remain as
shrunken assets when the drop came. They would
not have employed at the Drake mill a top-heavy
force which inflated the cost of operation until every
DdIIcl y HOuI STOunQ Was pTOuuCeQ dC a loss. Op-
Grating the Home Building association, they would
not have bought material that was not needed and,
scattered it all over the state. They would not have
permitted fifty or sixty costly building enterprises
to be undertaken without contracts with the pros
pective owners without means. of accounting which
would show just what was spent on each particular
building, and when and why; and under a method of
estimating which resulted, in each building costing
from so per cent upward more than the estimate.
The men who were actually in charge permitted
all these things to be done. Those men were the
governor. the attorney general and the commits.
sioner of agriculture and labor. They had absolute
control of every one Of these departments of work.
They named the men in each instance who were to
take charge, and those men were directly respon-
sible to them, and were removable at pleasure. They
could have required an accurate accounting at any
moment of the conduct of any enterprise, and it was
their duty to require such accountings frequently
enough to keep themselves properlyq informed Of
progress and conditions from time to time. They
counting of anything. All the evidence shows that
concerning most of the affairs of these departments
they did not care, and concerning the rest they did
not know.
The one man in whom responsibility centered
was Lynn J. Frazier, governor of the state. Hewas
one of three members of the supreme body, the in
dustrial commission. But under the terms of the
law, as governor he had the power of veto over
everything that his colleagues might propose. Every
cat had to have the approval of the governor. At
any moment he could have stopped the scandalous
waste and worse than waste that was going on, in
the states industries simply by putting his foot
down and keeping it down. He did nothing of the
sort. Waste and shameless extra4agance were GO
ing on all around him and in his plain sight in all the
departments over which he had control, and there
lis no record to show that he raised a hand to prevent
it or ever raised his voice in protest.
With that record as his recommendation, hav-
ing accumulated against the state a shortage that
will run over a million in cold cash, which the people
Iof the state are paying in taxes, Mr.. Frazier has
been endorsed by his admirers or those who seek
to benefit politically from his candidacy, as a cam
Ididate for the Republican nomination for the United
IStatesserate. Ifhe had run the state short a billion,
what office would have have been deemed a suitable
reward?
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