EDITORIALS
Two Ways ON JANUARY 25, the Wisconsin legislature elected a United States Senator. The whole proceeding occupied about an hour. It occasioned no halt or delay in the legislature's business of...
...No doubt more money was expended in fighting La Follette than was paid in any other three senatorial contests of the past year...
...Each is fighting to send its own man to the Senate...
...Let the law makers remember one thing in all their deliberations upon this question, and that is that a restricted initiative is no initiative at all If any legislative barrier is permitted to be placed between the people and the untrammeled expression of their will into law, that barrier will become the peg upon which the interests will hang their control of legislation...
...These reflections are suggested by an examination of the 1909-10 biennal report of the Dairy and Food Commissioner of Wisconsin...
...The department administering such laws in such a manner is one of the most important and useful to the public of any of the departments of the state...
...557 of the laws of 1907, and includes the opinions of the circuit court for Dane county, E. Ray Stevens, judge, and the supreme court of Wisconsin, in which the validity of the law is fully sustained...
...26 Broadway, New York, could hardly be said to be in the public interest...
...The Republican party of Wisconsin, in its platform which was ratified by the voters at the last election, declared its attitude toward that department in the following forceful and explicit language: "The efficient administration of the progressive legislation enacted in Wisconsin, and especially the work of the dairy and food department, in fearlessly safeguarding the public against fraud and adulteration in food products is commended...
...And while the friends of these measures are wrestling with words and wandering into pitfalls of restrictions, the special interests are smiling behind their pudgy hands...
...It was held by these courts that the sale of a mixture of glucose and refiners' syrup as "corn syrup" is misleading and deceptive to the public and that the product is not a "syrup" as the term is understood by the public when applied to an article of table food...
...Its legislature, which merely ratified the will of the people, gave the senator a vote of 83 out of a total membership of 129...
...No more, but by all means no less...
...The Right Man in the Right Place VIGOROUS, comprehensive food laws, honestly and fearlessly enforced in the public interest, are necessary...
...The 1909-10 biennial report contains a brief sketch of the cases State of Wisconsin vs...
...Give the people what they have demanded...
...The public should know that at this time there is active and aggressive plotting by special interests, under disingenuous pretexts, to prevent the reappointment of Commissioner Emery...
...Pitfalls DIRECT LEGISLATION is before several state legislatures...
...And we pledge the hearty support of a Republican administration and a Republican legislature to the maintenance, advancement and more vigorous prosecution of this great work in the public interest...
...Counterfeit foods should have no better legal standing than counterfeit dollars...
...La Follette THE RE-ELECTION of Senator La Follette by the Wisconsin legislature marks the end of a triumphant fight by the most advanced of all the progressive leaders for a seat that has been acutely coveted by the special interests...
...The state house at Albany is the battleground of a contest between powerful interests...
...T. H. Grady and State of Wisconsin vs...
...Wisconsin has a primary: New York has not...
...Already there are indications that legislators—some of them— are becoming confused as to just what the people meant when they voted a demand for direct legislation...
...For weeks rival candidates have been fighting to gain the number of votes necessary to ensure election...
...The law makers chosen to fill this order are getting down to business...
...the election of last week was in effect only the countersignature of the Senate and Assembly required by the constitution...
...But Wisconsin is progressive...
...In New York there is a "deadlock" in the legislature...
...It occasioned no halt or delay in the legislature's business of making laws...
...Adulterated foods are a menace to the public health and to the public's pocket book...
...That such an officer should arouse the opposition of special interests seems inevitable...
...The record shows that these cases have been appealed to the United States supreme court, where they are now pending...
...And being sincerely progressive, it is politically honest...
...La Follette has made it so...
...McDermott, involving the glucose mixture law, viz: Ch...
...Meanwhile the work of law-making is abandoned...
...That the Hon...
...The food that goes to make the "full dinner pail" should be neither an adulteration nor a cheat...
...No man in either house of Congress has a better title to his seat than has La Follette.—Kansas City Times...
...J. Q. Emery, Dairy and Food Commissioner of Wisconsin, has administered the dairy and food laws of the state vigorously and faithfully and solely in the public interest, is common knowledge among the people of Wisconsin...
...The people stand off at a distance and wonder which "crowd" will win, knowing that, whatever the outcome, they stand to be the losers...
...In the primaries last fall the voters signed the warrant of Senator La Follette to represent them again in the upper house of Congress...
...The public should also know that an aggressive effort is being made by special interests to secure the repeal of this statute while the question of its validity is still pending in the United States supreme court...
...At the last election the people put in an order for the initiative and referendum...
...In view of the declaration of the Wisconsin supreme court that the sale of the product in question as a "syrup" is, owing to its character and composition, misleading and deceptive to the public, the repeal of the statute at this time, while it might be in the interest of the Corn Products Refining Company, whose headquarters are No...
Vol. 3 • February 1911 • No. 5
