Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1936-12-24
State Capitol News

Conservatives always "deplore" eff
forts on the part of liberals for rep
resentation either on the bench or on
school and college faculties. They
brand any such efforts as attempts to
bring politics into the courts and into
our schools.
But one thing these conservatives
conveniently fail to remember is that
they have captured our courts and our
schools more completely than any
other branch of our government or
agency of public service. The decis-
ions of the U. S. Supreme Court are
reactionary because the majority OF
that court believe in a reactionary
social and economic philosophy.
Decisions of these learned judges,
when they pertain to social and eco
nomic problems, are never based on
an impartial construction of the law.
AS a matter of fact, the law in most
of these cases is quite flexible. Hence,
we have the reactionaries invariably
lined up on one side and the liberals
on the other.
In our schools we likewise find re-
dictionaries preponderantly in control.
There is little doubt that at the Uni
versity of MINES ia a reactiOnary ad-
ministration is conducting campaign
against both liberal students and lib
eral members of the faculty.
There is politics involved, as the
conservatives contend, but the picture
is not as the conservatives would at
tempt to make you believe. From the
standpoint of the liberals: our courts
and our schools are politically con-
trolled today and the great problem
is to eliminate that political control.
Liberals are fighting not to inject
politics into cur courts and our schoO OILS
but to eliminate the reactionary poll
tics which are entrenched there today.
What sort of government would we
have if the farmers and other prop
erty owners paid taxes like the steel
trust has been paying them?
For the steel trust takes no chances.
1t fixes its own arbitrary price on iron
ore at point of delivery on Lake Erie
not in Minnesota-and bases its val
uation of property on that price after
allowing for interest and amortization
of it's investment, profit on the ore,
all taxes, and a commission for sell
ing the ore to itself.
Chief Justice John p. Devaney, the
only dissenter from the supreme court
decision upholding the steel trusts
practice, aptly quoted from a memoir
andum by Judge Martin Hughes in
which Judge Hughes asks where the
state would get sufficient revenue to
operate if all property in the state
were assessed on the same basis upon
which the steel trust pays it's property
taxes.
A majority of the state supreme
court followed the well-plOwed furrOW
of steel trust precedent, furrow Laid
out and carefully guided for 20 years
Chief Justice Devaney chose to pillow
in virgin ground, for he says: $50 far
as can be aScertained, this is the
first time in our courts that the Lake
Erie base price has ever been sub
ject to judicial scrutiny
There is no legislative backing for
this practice of the steel trust. Nc
law has been passed making this fic-
titious Lake Erie price of iron ore
the basis for evaluation of Minnesota
ore properties.
The six Supreme Court justices, a
majority of the states judicial branch
of government, have assumed legisla-
tive powers in unfolding a fallacious
precedent.
With everything to gain, taking nc
chances, the steel trust is stripping
Minnesota of it's most valuable natural
resource, promising only to leave a
deSolate waste; even as did the tim
Der barons a generation ago. And now
it even refuses to pay it's taxes, as
assessed by the state, unless it car
make it's own arbitrary valuation.
But the battle has only just begun
What will the people of Minnesota
do, what will they demand, when they
ICdllLC llC llldl lids Uccu SA-
acted of them? 1t is merely a matter
of legislation to remove a fictitious
prop which upholds a bloated valua
ton. It's time the Legislature also
turned a new furrow.
Even politicians listen to the voice
of the people-when that voice come.
to them in clear, firm tones.
Less than a year ago the late Gov
ernor Floyd B. Olson called Mime
sofas reactionary Legislature int
special session to pass social securit.
legislation. Included in the Olsol
program was an unemployment insur
ance act.
The federal government had alread
enacted such a law, under which EN-
ployers of all states, whether thes