Sorlie's Choice

A. G. Sorlie, Governor of North Dakota, appointed a Senator to fill the vacancy caused by the death last summer of Edwin F. Ladd. The man appointed is 33-year-old Gerald P. Nye, publisher of the Griggs County Sentinel-Courier of Cooperstown, N. D., and co-editor with his brother of the North Dakota Non-Partisan, official organ of the Non-Partisan League. Senator Frazier, the other Senator from North Dakota, exclaimed:

"Mr. Nye is a Progressive Republican, and he will make a good representative of the state. He proved his worth in North Dakota through his fight in his newspaper and on the public platform in the interest of the farmers and workers."

But the appointment is not so stereotyped as it looks. In 1913, the 17th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution was adopted, providing for the direct election of Senators by the people and declaring that in case of a vacancy a governor may appoint a senator temporarily if empowered to do so by state law. Since the ratification of the Amendment, North Dakota has passed no such law. There is a North Dakota law, however, empowering the Governor to make appointments of state officers to fill temporary vacancies. Mr. Nye's right to a seat in the Senate rests on the contention that a U. S. Senator is a state officer. Is he?

Several weeks ago Senator George Higgins Moses of New Hampshire, Chairman of the Republican Senatorial Committee, told Governor Sorlie that, according to legal advice he had taken, the Governor did not have power to appoint a senator. Apparently the Governor accepted this opinion; only recently Mr. Sorlie called a special election for next June to fill the vacancy. North Dakota may now have three men filling one Senate post in the course of a single year: Mr. Nye serving from now to June; a second man elected next June to serve until March, 1927; and a third senator elected a year from now to take office for a full term in March, 1927.

But the chances are against it. In the first place, besides the legal question, the regular Republicans will be disinclined to seat youthful Editor Nye, because he, a non-Partisan Leaguer, will add one more to the number of insurgent Republicans in the Senate.