Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1941-02-27
The Legislature
AS l See 1t
BY Rep. Chas. L. Halsted.

by rep. OIldS. Il. 1alSCcO.
In the words of Charles B. Cheney,
political writer for the Minneapolis
Times Tribune, in his colum n,
around the State, for last Friday,
1.-THE Session (52nd) has been dull
and barren of results so far and more
than third of the allotted time has
passed" Yes, we are nearly one-half
done, in fact, because this next Sat-
urday, March 1, will mark the end
of the 45th possible working day with
in the 90-day Constitutional limita-
ton. BY then we will have been in
actual session only 36 days however.
We can well understand the alarm
being expressed by Mr.. Cheney as
we'll as other political writer's; not
much has been done.
Supreme Court Decision.
Last Friday the State Supreme
Court handed down a decision which
will to some degree prevent further
juggling of our States financial fig
ures. They ruled unconstitutional
the bill passed in the 1889 session at
the insistence of the Governor, who
had then just taken office. This bill
provided that five per cent assess
ment be levied upon revenues COM
ing to the State Highway department,
this money to be used for general
government purposes, and not for
roads. This bill passed in 1889 in
spite of the determined fight against
it at the time by the Liberals who
said then that, in their opinion, it
was unconstitutional.
Anxious to make every possible
appearance of saving money by SEEM
ingly decreased appropriations, the
sponsors of this bill saw a way to get
money for general expenses out of
specially dedicated funds, hoping the
public wouldn't see thr ough this
juggling,-and trusting it would be
legal. BY this law, now declared I'M
constitutional, some $64O,000 was il
legally taken from Highway revenue
to help pay the cost of state govern
ment. 1t is now highly possible that
some taxpayer, in the interest of the
road funds of our state, may insti-
tute suit for return of this money to
the highway department.
Rule on School Funds.
Another reminder of the days of $50
was included in this Court decision
In their discussion of the highway
amendment which designated all such
money exclusively for highway use,
they went on to say, Minnesota per-
manent school funds enjoy similar
constitutional protection. The prin-
cipal of the funds must remain 'in-
violate minnesota Constitution,
Article 8, Section p. The income
must be devoted solely to educational
purposes. It is beyond the reach of
fancy even to suppose that anyone
would seriously urge that a part of
the income of such funds, to say
nothing of the principal, could be
arbitrarily diverted from the stated
constitutional purpose and used to de-
fray a part of the cost of general
government" Although the Court
said it was beyond the reach of
fancy" that anyone might try any
thing similar in regard to school
trust funds, we we'll remember an
attempt by Senator Rockne, and
Representative Allen of the House
Appropriations committee, to take|
five per cent there also! This was
stopped two years ago by the Liberals,
with George and Edward Hagen,
Halsted, Gordon Peterson, and others
leading the fight
It's Better with Butter.
With this slogan in mind, Repre-
sentative Walter Day of Bagley, Cur
tbs Olson of ROseau, Otto Clark of
Osakis and others introduced bill
last week providing for additional
legislation to hinder the use of oleo-
margarine. The present "oleo" law
provides that there should be tax
of 10 cents per pound on "oleo" if
less than IS per cent of animal fats
are used. Naturally the cleo people
have used the base IS per cent of
these fats to avoid the tax.
This bill provides for one cent
per pound tax regardless of the ratio
of the animal fat content, so an II
cent tax would apply if less than IS
per cent animal fats are used, and
only one cent if more is used. The
authors agree this is a very low,
nominal tax. 1t might be termed
largely an exploratory tax, to de-
termine absolutely accurate figures
on the exact number of pounds of
oIeo used annually in our state. All
the dairy people do not agree at
the present time on the cleo tax mat
ter and this bill, if passed, would give
us for the first time definite facts
on this whole question to guide flu
ture legislatures.
Politics in Education?
Last Friday afternoon the Senate
Education committee asked the SEN