Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1939-04-27
legislative News
BY c. g. MANN.
Representative from Pine County

Working straight through Wednes-
day night, until about eight o'clock
Thursday morning of last week, the
Minnesota legislature finished up by
setting the state levy on property at
10 mills, the same as last year. They
then adjourned until later in the
afternoon, then met to approve the
minutes, pass a few resolutions, lis
tened to a few farewell speeches and
accorded Mrs. Hannah Kempfer of
Ottertail county, the only farm wom-
an in a legislative body in the United
States, the privilege of making the
motion that the Legislature adjourn
sine die, which as you know means
subject to call of the Governor, but
with the feeling of job well done
and with no expectations of any spe-
cial sessions.
We worked hard this session, put
ting in many long hours, and whether
we worked well or not only time
can tell. It was a source of salts
faction to all of us, however, that
almost in its entirety we had carried
out the new Governors program, in
GLIDING the reorganization of state
government, civil service and slashed
appropriations by some $4,0O0,000.
AS / stated in my letter last week,
the only really bad piece of legisla-
ture that was passed, to my mind,
was the lien on property of old age
recipients, but even this has some
merit and may work out alright. An
other bill which I had worked hard
on and was very disappointed to lose
in the closing hours of the session,
was the appropriation to pay some
of the debt of distressed school dis
tricts such as Cloverton, Markville,
Duquette and others, but it failed to
make the grade at this session, partly
due to the economy wave sweeping
the state, but still feel that could
I have had 10 or Is minutes on
the floor of the Senate / think
could have passed the bill there, but
trusted to Senators Sletvold and
Bridgeman, authors of the bill in the
Senate, and although our Senator
johnson did all he could, the authors
let us down and the bill failed.
In the small hours of the morning
your representative was member
of the conference committee from
the House comforting on the appro-
priation for relief We had passed
the measure at $1O,OOO,OOO, the SEN
ate had cut it to S6,250,000, and we
finally compromised on S8,750,000,
100000 for direct relief the first
direct relief for the second year of
the biennium and S1,500,000 for state
aid on sponsors contributions. And
this last amount, which helps finan-
cially distressed communities set up
their work projects, was quite fight
between the cities and the country
and think we did pretty well. Also
in regard to this, no particular pro-
jects are specified in the measure,
so 1 would urge all communities de-
string projects to get their petitions,
with the necessary figures, in to the
state agency as soon as possible. The
new relief bill has a provision which
p" oS iiOt III Vic Oi0 OiiC III tiiot ~ oiioil
be determined, upon request for spon-
sors money, the financial condition of
the applicant, the need for the pro-
ject, and the ability of the particular
community to maintain the project
when completed.
It is hard to sum up the accom-
plishments of this session as whole
but 1 might mention just few of
the major ones, all administration
measures, and the program that the
people voted for last fall.
A labor relations act, affecting
every person in the state at some
time or other, hundreds of thousands
of them to a great degree.
A civil service act, aiming at least
to wipe out the spoils system, to
replace choice for the thousands of
state jobs by political preferment
with choice on the basis of merit.
A loan shark act, set out as meth
cd of rescuing thousands of persons
from ruinous charges for small bor-
rowings.
A reorganization act centralizing
expenditure control, wiping out de-
partments of long standing, setting
up new departments in their stead.
An unemployment compensation
oct 11,;fI, on anfiro1u poyu onprOoch