The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1929-02-28
DAM CAUSES ROW
IN THE SENATE
Shipstead-NewtOn Congress
sional Bill Endorsed by
Small Majority
GAS TAX DIVERSION
Fight Started to Have U. 5.
Court Declare Highway
Laws Unconstitutional
By Martin w. Odland

BY Martin w. Odland
Author of "The Life of Knute
Nelson" Special to the Sank Gen.
tire Herald.
st. Paul, Mimi, Feb. 26.-After
a nice little vacation from Thurs
day to Monday afternoon, in order
that the lawmakers might cele-
brate Washington's birthday with
their families, and incidentally talk
some of the weighty problems OF
government over with their constr
tuents, the senators and represen-
tatives are at it again in our
beautiful state capitol.
The senators adjourned in rather
mood, Thursday afternoon. For
almost four hours they had been
debating the resolution introduced
early in the session for the purpose
of lending force and impetus to the
Shipstead-Newton bill now before
congress-the bill for bidding E.
w. Backus to build a series of
dams along the boundary between
Canada and Minnesota and SUBJ
merge a goodly portion of the far
famed Arrowhead country, said to
be our nations most beautiful sum-
mer playground.
Twenty-Five to forty years ago
the DOGGY man of Minnesota poll
tics was the late James J. Hill. The
populists and other anti-corpora-
ton politicians of those days de-
scribed him as a terrible monster
seeking God-fearing people to de-
YOUR, a dangerous enemy of this
government of the people. To get
a politician in bad, the surest and
quickest way was to hook him up
with Jim Hill.
Now it looks as if E. w. Backus
has taken the. place of Jim Hill in
Minnesota politics. If you want to
throw a scare into a lot of people,
just mention the name of Backus
and if you want to consign certain
politicians or political faction to
the realms of distrust, just say they
are tools of Backus. It's Backus
this and Backus that, all the time
Jim Hill outlived the abuse heap
ed upon him and when they laid
him away in his grave he was re-
cognized as the greatest man in the
history of the Northwest. Maybe
Backus isn't really big man like
Hill and maybe his purposes are all
evil, but the people shouldn't be.
lieve that he is all bad just because
it is now the fashion IF certain pc,
1iticians to say he is. Posterity
may give Backus far better rat.
ing than his present detractors.
Be that as it may, the senate
passed the resolution in question by
an almost unanimo,.~ vote, after il
came near adopting an amendment
asking that 18 miles of territory
along the border be exempted from
the provisions of the Shipstead-
Newton bill. For this amendment
submitted by C.. E. Adams, of Du-
luth, most of the senators from
Northern Minnesota voted, and
several of them used heated Ian
guage in support of it and in de.
nunciation of the sponsors of the
resolution.
The effect of the senate's action
will be negligible. 1t isn't at all
likely that congress will pay any
attention to it, in view of the fact
that it has made Irs own investiga-
ton, through a special committee
of senators and representatives who
spent several weeks IN the Arrow.
head colntry last summer. Why the
legislature should be fussing with
resolutions that will not be taken
seriously by the powers that be is
hard to understand. If you will
look over the house and senate
journals of this session you will no
tice that every now and then time
has been wasted on resolutions
time that should have been spent
on matters that really concern the
Minnesota legislature.
Those who voted for the Adams
amendment, and must therefore be
considered against the Shipstead-
Newton bill in its present FORM
were:
Adams, Bessette, Bridgeman,
Carley, Frost, Hanson, Hausler,
johnson, Johnston, A. S. Larson,
ii. A. Larson, Lennon, Lommen,
Mackenzie, McCubrey, Mangan,
NORM, Olson, Peterson, Putnam,
Pulitzer, Ribenack, Rosenmeier,
Spindler, G. H. Sullivan, ]. D. Sui
ivan, Thwing, and Widel.
Voting against were:
Anderson, Blanchard, Bonniwell,
Cannon, Child, Christgau, Luem-
Ike, Hougen, Landry, Lawson, Lee,
Lemm, Lilygren, Long, C. A. Lund,
L. P. Lund, MacLean, Mcknight,
Millett, Naplin, Nelson, Nordlin,