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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 7, 1949)
Give Him a New Bike i fnr ^V)A3?b?ov$(\0^\ A,156,000] —Courtesy the Oregon Journal Limping Along the Same Way Since 1910 By WALTER DODD A drive for petition signatures is expected to begin shortly on the bipartisan apportion ment proposal supported by the Young Dem ocrats, Young Republicans, Oregon Federa tion of Labor, and the Oregon Council of In dustrial Organization. The constitutional amendment would strengthen existing requirements providing for apportionment on the basis of popula tion. Reapportionment would be placed in the hands of the governor, secretary of state, and the state treasurer. An appeal to the courts is provided. Some 25,000 signatures are necessary to place the amendment oh the ballot. A 20-day wait was necessary for challenges to the at torney general’s ballot title. The problem of reapportionment has come to a head. Oregon has grown more rapidly than any other state, with an increase of pop ulation of almost sixty percent in the last decade. The inequalities of the past have been magnified. Population growth has not been even. Douglas county has grown by almost nine ty percent. Lane and Linn counties by sixty percent, Multnomah by fifty percent. For forty years the state legislature has defied the clear and precise mandate of the state constitution. Under the constitution apportionment is vested in the hands of the state legislature. Reapportionment has become a political foot ball with little regard to constitutional re quirements. No equitable apportionment has been obtained through the state legislature since 1910. Furthermore the courts have ruled that they are powerless to force the legislature to live up to its constitutional requirements. The proposed amendment does not basi cally alter existing constitutional require ments but merely provides a means of enforc ing our constitution. The state would be apportioned on July 1, 1951, following the completion of the federal population census, and each ten years there after. Apportionment is to be based on popula tion, excepting that no county shall have more than one-third of the representatives of either house. 1 his is to prevent one county from controlling the state legislature. Multnomah county has at present one third of the state’s population. Projected 1960 estimates by the Board of Pacific Intergov ernmental Relations show that Multnomah in 1960 will have thirty-one percent of the state's population. One million people, almost two-thirds of Oregon’s population would gain by reappor tionment; 100,000 people would lose their over representation under apportionment. No person has a right to claim a greater share of the voting power of the people. Equality of representation in the law mak ing, tax leveling bodies is a fundamental requisite of a free government. The voter in Gilliam, Sherman, and Wheel er counties has better than eleven times the political power than voters in Klamath, Lake, Deschutes, and Jefferson counties. One sen ator represents 8,700 people, the other sena tor 90,000. A senator in Multnomah repre sents more than 80,000. h/Lane county a senator represents more than 70,000 people, in Baker county 18,000 people. It takes 40.000 people in Multnomah to elect a representative, less than 15,000 people in four other districts. Representative Giles I.. French of Sher man county and the Oregon State Farm Bu reau Federation have proposed that each county be given one senator and the repre sentation in the lower house to be determined on population. Sherman county is one of the few counties which has lost population over the last forty years. The county has declined in population by well over fifty percent while the state of Oregon has grown by 120 percent. The Oregon constitution limits the size of the state senate to thirty members and such a proposal, with thirty-six counties, would violate constitutional provisions. A constitu tional amendment with a vote of the people would be required. Under French’s proposal Sherman county with less than two percent of Lane’s popula tion w ould receive equal representation in the senate, with no adequate provision for equit able apportionment in house. Under the initiative and referendum the peo ple are their own legislature. Shouldn’t the legislature in Salem represent the people? SapJiam&ie Wi&d&nt by Bob fyiuth LAMENT (to be sung with mouth full of toothpaste early on the morn ing of the first day of finals.) Sorrow seizes me on the mornings my mirror reveals I am not the secret sorrow of Greta Garbo, but a Thurber dog, a transformation which has occurred sometime between th« last highball (Did I drink it or did somebody else?) and now, a period during which I slept, let us say, like some quaint and rural log. mornings when my hair resists its coiffure, fights the comb and forces me to keep a hat on, and my face, due to a new and angular way I slept, has the look of something sat on. as I sit at breakfast, summoning saliva, experimentally swallowing, I think, with limited joy, upon the following: now is the time for all good men to hoist themselves in a sprightly manner from their erstwhile position on their hams, i.e., southerly quarters, and do something commendable with their minds, which should not be difficult, since we use only a very small percentage of our brain capacity, according to peronality re-cap men, gall-stone ridden psychiatrists, and newspaper science-column reporters. % perhaps we could take up a hobby of etching salacious women upon glass, like the Stubens, or painting them in multi-colored oils, like Rubens, or someone else quite fine; but if your picture turns out to look like anything other than that interesting panorama laid out the night the dog was sick on the living-room rug, you are either an awfully talented lug, or your brand of paint is better than mine. or we could, like Sappho, tweak again the dusty lute, although the people who now care for that sort of thing are far outnumbered by other who just don t give a hoot. we can always write one of those novels which feature some bright and bulbous creature and her activities in other people’s beds, behind a rickety facade of history; or with just a little more learning we could appeal to the more discerning with a clever little mystery. there are all sorts of avenues of activity for those who, almost from nativity, have longed to read about their private lives in the American Weekly; however, once resolved to follow their example, I find it is dusk, time to repair to the nearest coffee joint, or kindred wallow, and accept my anonymity meekly. L’envoi Nay, we shall never be famous, Never wear laurels and such; Hidden our genius, under a bushel: Nope, we’ll never be much. So come, let us study, for finals come quickly— You in your closet and I on my rafter; Perusing our Plato with looks grim and grisly (And I should have died somewhat hereafter.) ''My, the Millrace IS dirty, isn't it?"