THE ROLL ACALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES North Dakota's Opportuirty HONORABLE ASLE J. GRONNA, Congressman-at-larg* from North Dakota, is a patriot. He was a patriot when he came to Congress five years...
...This was a bit of careless picking on the part of the Machine in that it neglected to ascertain in advance that Gronna would be "reliable" and "regular" in support of machine-made program...
...And, if he be not obsessed, if he be not a man of militant honesty and patriotism, in short if he be not an Insurgent, he is about as certain to yield to the importunities of his more experienced colleagues to stand in with the machine and follow the leaders as a duck is to swim...
...Almost the first important measure to come before the Committee on Public Lands after Gronna was made a member of it, was the so-called Lacfy bill, to facilitate coal land grabbing in Alaska...
...He stands for thorough-going and efficient regulation of railroads upon the basis of a physical valuation of their property...
...He can be reminded that the Homestead Laws builded the great Commonwealth from which he hails...
...Gronna's patriotism asserted itself as naturally and inevitably as anyone knowing the man might have expected...
...Gronna suggested to them that if they really thought that the bill was so meritorious that they might report it and their arguments to the House, and to the country, and that he would present a minority report embodying his objections to it...
...His support of real conservation of natural resources is embodied in several bills which he introduced in the present Congress and which have the endorsement of the National Conservation Association, headed by Ex-Forester Pinchot and Ex-Secretary of the Interior, Garfield...
...Gronna was from North Dakota, which was, until recently, one of the important public land states, and the Machine figures that a public land state Congressman or Senator can generally be lined up in support of almost any old scheme to get the public domain into private hands...
...Placing public interests before selfish interests, Gronna in the Sixtieth Congress joined the minority and voted against increasing the salaries of Congressmen and public officials...
...In Washington, as in Dakota, Gronna is a faithful exponent of the public sentiment against Cannon and Cannonism...
...The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES North Dakota's Opportuirty HONORABLE ASLE J. GRONNA, Congressman-at-larg* from North Dakota, is a patriot...
...They noted that while he was apparently honest he did not appear to be especially aggressive or assertive...
...He voted consistently and unswervingly against the machine throughout the fight on the rules which culminated in the adoption of the Norris resolution and the election of the committee on rules by the House and exclusion of the Speaker from membership upon that committee...
...If need be, he can be argued into seeing the necessity of measures of this kind as promoting the development of the country...
...Pursuing the same policy of developing the country by liberalizing the homestead laws for actual settlers, Gronna, in the Sixtieth Congress secured the passage of a bill to permit persons who had lost their homestead right by forfeiting a previous entry through excusable causes to make new homestead entries...
...Gronna distinguished clearly between developing the country through homestead concessions to settlers and "developing the country" by extravagant concessions to Big Business...
...He is a candidate for United Stales Senator...
...But not so with Gronna...
...As we have said, Gronna came to Congress an Insurgent...
...Gronna was a surprise for the Machine...
...He has demonstrated his capacity for service in a larger field...
...His investigative disposition was a surprise...
...At the present session Gronna stood with the insurgents to prevent Cannon from "packing" the Pinchot-Ballinger investigation committee...
...He advocates and has supported in Congress employers liability legislation which shall secure to the employee the protection to which he is entitled...
...He knew, moreover, that he was a Republican of the kind that comprises about two-thirds of the voting population of North Dakota...
...At the opening of the present Congress he voted against Cannon for Speaker, against the adoption of Cannon rules, for the Clarke motion for thoroughgoing reform of the rules, against the fake reform of the Fitzgerald resolution, against the machine-made program for tariff revision by the House with its hands tied, for free timber, for tariff revision downward on lumber, for free lumber, for free oil, for an income tax amendment to the constitution, and against the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill on its final passage...
...From that time forth there was no mistake about Gronna's insurgency, an insurgency which embraced as a cardinal principle honest conservation of the resources of the people...
...It probably never occurred to him that in Congress he was to be one of those curious and unusual specimens requiring to be classified and labeled...
...They looked Gronna over and concluded that he was in earnest...
...Gronna stands in Congress for progressive Republicanism and against tariff exploitation for special interests...
...Gronna stands in Congress for postal savings bank legislation for the people—not for Wall Street...
...Insurgency, as we have defined it, was simply a matter of course with Gronna...
...He may, perchance, be reminded that he has been appointed upon the Committee because it was expected that his broad-mindedness and intelligence would enable mm to see that pending measures for the disposition of public lands are in accord with the same underlying principles as the Homestead legislation which he had learned to regard as a public benefit...
...The bill proposed to give each locator of a coal claim 1,280 acres of coal land and to authorize any ten locators to form an association so that one person could make proof for all...
...P. S.—Also, the Nation needs to have North Dakota represented in the Senate op the United States...
...They have classified it and labeled it "Insurgency...
...The leaders looked Ghonna over...
...Which, defined from its manifestations, means simply a disposition to give high regard to the public welfare and to the wishes and the interests of the people in the conduct of public affairs...
...He accomplished this by convincing the President that the original order was needlessly comprehensive and was working hardship upon poor homesteaders who were entitled to patents to their homesteads and who needed the patents in order to enable them to borrow money to improve their homesteads...
...Latterly the Gronna kind of patriotism has become so prevalent that the political doctors have seen fit to take notice of it and of its manifestations...
...Nor did he assume that the party leaders in the House would expect him to be any different kind of a Republican in Washington...
...Jane Addams in the American Magazine...
...He advocates an honest inspection and grading of grain by the Federal Government as against the dishonest grain inspections which deny to the products of the American farmer the high standing to which they are entitled in the markets of the world...
...In the Sixtieth Congress, also, he stood against the machine leaders to promote public interests as against the special interests of Big Business in voting against the Fordney "innocent purchasers" amendment to the resolution authorizing the Attorney General to institute suits to enforce the right of the Government in three million acres of land grant which a railroad company had sold is large tracts to timber syndicates in violation of the terms of the grant...
...All arguments of the majority of the Committee failed to convince Gronna that this was legislation in the public interest...
...that is, so that one individual acting for himself and others could locate 12,800 acres of coal lands...
...Also, they were not so well known...
...And the bill was not reported...
...Gronna came to Congress as a Republican...
...The people of north Dakota need representation in the Senate of the United States...
...Tainted Money "IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to say how far we may blame the individual for doing that which his competitors and associates consider legitimate...
...He now has a similar bill pending to apply the provisions of his former bill to desert entries as well as homesteads...
...An expression of their scruples may be the one opportunity for pushing forward moral tests into that dubious area wherein wealth is accumulated and may afford the firs1- suggestion for legislation embodying an advancing public opinion...
...At the same time, social changes can be inaugurated only by those that feel the unrighteousness of contemporary conditions...
...His fund of available information on public matters was likewise a surprise...
...When they came to appoint committees, Gronna was picked for a place on the Committee on Public Lands...
...Indeed when President Roosevelt issued an order that no public land entry should go to patent until first inspected and approved by government special agents, it was Gronna who induced the President to rescind the order so far as it applied to homesteads on which five years' residence in compliance with the law had been proved...
...He has guided kis action upon public measures by considering the public interests...
...As a member of the House of Representatives, Gronna has shown a large grasp of public affairs...
...for a nonpartisan tariff commission, for honest tariff revision downward and against tariff revision upward through the agencies of the machine and the influences of "pull" and "graft...
...One of the first of the determined little group to defy the authority of the House Czar, Gronna has ever been loyal to his co-workers and faithful to his constituents...
...All of this happened some time before there was any public agitation for the conservation of natural resources in Alaska...
...Since he has been a member of the House, Gronna has even defied the wrath of the mighty and has stood forth to oppose, by vote and voice, shipping subsidies for special interests...
...He was a patriot when he came to Congress five years ago, as much so as he is now, though the symptoms of his alarming condition were less apparent...
...Incidentally, every tariff speech that is made in Congress nowadays adds to the postal deficit.— Indianapolis News...
Vol. 2 • June 1910 • No. 23
