"The Minnesota Legislature of 1911" is the title of Lynn Haines' book-length exposé published that year. As in his study of the 1909 Legislature, he closely examines how special interests control the legislature and prevent reform bills from being enacted. He writes:
"For the present, keep this main fact in mind: The success of individual special interests in killing bills in which they are directly and selfishly concerned, which aggregated a large number, many of the highest importance, was in itself of small consequence when compared with the power and potency of their combined opposition to all fundamental measures which would endanger them by giving larger political opportunities to the people. Led by the corrupt brewery combine, all the special interests accomplished the defeat of every vital reform affecting the corporations, save one."
He concludes with a justification for his book:
"The public has a right to expect that legislators shall labor for the general good. It is only when they take the opposite course, and serve the purposes of special privilege and political plunder, that the voters should know in order that there may be reproof and change."
Haines' book on the 1911 Legislature is a companion to his muckraking study of the 1909 legislature.
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