No political party has ever existed in Idaho since 1905. Men have combined on numerous occasions the better to support their convictions with regard to certain proposed laws; but the men who honestly agreed on one proposition were just as likely to honestly disagree as to the next question. So that each organization was at an end when its mission was accomplished. Moreover, as all are provided for, there is no occasion to form parties to secure political office.
CHAPTER XX.
THE DEBATE ON THE BOND AND CREDIT LAWS—REV. CADMUS M. DESTY AND THE MORAL LAW.
The discussion of the bond and credit laws referred to the people to be voted upon at the Association election in October, 1907, was as earnest, interesting and thorough as any which had ever occurred in Idaho. The advocates of their adoption were vigorous and persistent and regarded themselves as conscientious.
They were not honest, however, with themselves. They had allowed an artful and unscrupulous agent of the competitive system to convince them that a moral question was involved and to delude them into believing him to be a great and good man.
Indeed, Hickman had written a pamphlet on “Co-operation and Financial Integrity,” which was published on his return to New York City from Co-opolis, and a large number of these had been sent back to Co-opolis and distributed throughout Idaho.
It was an able presentation of the view he desired his partisans in Idaho to urge. It was not his view, however, but simply the plea which a shrewd lawyer in the competitive world might make for a guilty criminal. It was sufficiently effective to become the text-book of the affirmative in the discussion, and they lauded Hickman to the skies until it was proven that he had for years been the trusted agent of the celebrated banking house of Rothschild. After that the bond advocate mentioned Hickman no more.
In this discussion every member of the Legislative Council of the Association and every member of the Great Council were listed in opposition to these laws. Ex-Governor, now United States Senator, Thompson was one of the most active of the negative speakers. On the side of the affirmative was the Reverend Dr. Cadmus M. Desty, the famous pulpit orator, a most conscientious man and an intelligent Co-operator. He had become convinced, and I would stake life itself that he was perfectly honest in the matter, that our whole system must fail if we broke what he conceived to be God’s law, and did what was unjust and dishonest.
The whole basis of his contention was the moral law. He was an emotional speaker. It was his custom to support his views by making copious quotations from the bible and, drawing from them some conclusions which were satisfactory to his mind, launch into an exhortation which was perfectly irresistible to some of his emotional followers.
In those days our discussions were not conducted as they are to-day. Then the disputants were given an hour or an hour and a half each to present his side. Our system of requiring the affirmative to state an argument in ten minutes, and the negative to reply in the same length of time, continuing in this manner for several hours in the presence of referees who permit no divergence from the subject, is calculated to exclude oratory and passion, and raise the discussion to an intellectual plane. But the system was not adopted until 1912.
It must be confessed that the oratorical contests of the old style were as interesting as a circus or gladiatorial show, in which respect they were superior to the give-and-take method of to-day.