The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1937-01-07
At Crossroads To?

L hour when a change of policy is impera-
tive for the welfare of the state, testing
grounds of liberal government
It's policies have correspondent roughly
with those of the present federal admins
tration, it's aim has been to legislate for the
benefit of the forgotten voters whose sup
port placed it in power and to spend, spend,
spend for public improvements, stimulation
of trade and at times, it has seemed in both
cases, for the building of an all-poWerful
political machine.
Generally speaking the spending has
been iudiciouS. Voters will recall some eX-
ceptions but the state has come through the
slump with better schools, improved roads,
progress in conservation and with the sat-
isfaction of knowing there has been mini
mum of suffering under the circumstances.
No recent error even can be compared with
the rural credit bureau-taXpayers' tragedy
of the previous political generation.
But with the return of normal times,
wise governments pull the purse strings on
liberal spending and concentrate with econ
omy and fair tax leVieS on cutting down the
public debt so that it will not be burdensome
when i'll economic winds again blow. A new
administration can inaugurate economies
with comparative ease but for an established
party to undertake reversal of form is eX-
tremely difficult, too many office hangers-on
must be sacrificed, many outmOded bureaus
abandoned and too many pet money spend
ing lobbyists left without visible means of
support.
The present legislative session is there
fore important not only to the state and its
voters, all except a very small portion of
whom believe the states debt must be re-
duced, but to the party in power. Two and
four years hence it may be difficult to ex-
plain mounting deficits with the popular
alibiS of the past.
The legislature might we'll start at
home, not it's backyard but it's immediate
household. Anyone who has visited legis
iative session with one eye opea has been
amazed at the number of brass rail Iolishers,
clerks, stenographers, pages, doormen and
handymen in general, all friends of some
body, whom the house and senate see fit to
employ. No one would wish to handicap the
solons in their deliberations or delay for
minute the delivery of cigars and candy to
the desk of a tired lawmaker but it would be
reassuring to visit the capitol and find
streamlined force of capable employees
handling the work efficiently which a dou-
bleheaded tax-eating staff has stepped on
each other to perform at earlier sessions.
After setting such an example, the legis-
lature can with consistency look to heads of
governmental departments and bureaus to
follow suit with reduced demands for public
funds.
The $3,768.S6 collected by Guy V. How
ard for his 60 days as short term United
States senator from Minnesota perhaps was
not totally wasted. While the senator did
nothing for the state except bring it some
of the silly publicity too often accorded it's
politicians, his candidacy and those of others
after he discovered the constitutional loop
hole, served to bring out the point that con-
SfitutiOnS arc nan-mado and therefore not
infallible. No government has yet been set
up or code of laws devised which is not SUBJ
ject to occasional revision with fair chance
of improvement
At series of conferences this month,
representatives of national farm Organiza-
tions, governors and federal government
men are taking up the matter of farm ten
ancy and what can be done to help farmers
repurchase on reasonable terms, farms
which have become the property of insur-
ance companies, state governments and
other non-operators during depression years.
Success of the project is extremely import
ant in rural communities where absentee
ownership has grown to alarming proper
tions.
1--WE salute the men who MAKE the
news" says an advertisement in trade pub
LEGATION for editors. The advertiser has his
wires crossed. Editors do not invent news,
fabricate it or even figure in it beyond the
extent that other persons do, that is they are
born, get into scrapes, go into business, mar
ry, have children, achieve success or failure
and die. An irate subscriber who complains
of the newspapers painstaking renQrting of
sons or friends misconduct is very apt to
hear this statement, 1--WE do not make the
news, my FRIEND we simply print it." = =
81, .".::'':::'::
Redwood and Renville county automo-
bile casualty figures continue to mount with
the latter suffering particularly heavy losses
last year. Figures just released for the first
II months of 1886 show eight car fatalities
there and four in Redwood county. Redwood
county lost four lives and Renville six in
1885 while the toll was three here and five
there in 1884. Five Minnesota counties es-
capped accident funerals during the period,
Todd, Nicollet, Cottonwood, Swift and Big
Stone.