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The Klickitat County Agriculturist, Goldendale, WA., February 22, 1913, page 14

'COOK COUNTY' IS KILLED; KLICKITAT STAYS UNDIVIDED

A telegram from Hon. N.B. Brooks to Manager Ahola of the Central Hotel, received at Goldendale Monday afternoon, states that county division has been killed in the house. The news is gratifying to a great majority of the people in our county, but is practically what has been expected from the beginning of the campaign for county division. The right will prevail and justice will be done. Klickitat county is not yet ready for division, and division at this time would work great hardship on all, except a very few citizens interested in the town of White Salmon, or might be very near it.
Mr. Hays, of White Salmon, speaking before the House Committee on counties and county boundaries one night last week, stated that his people had already spent $7,000 in their campaign for County Division conducted during the last fall and winter!
It is unfortunate that a few agitators can successfully raise sums of money as large as this for a cause of this kind. We are inclined to think that all those who contributed to that fund did so with the sincere belief, that by some hook or crook, they are at present are getting the worst of things; and that by division their condition would be improved. Many people in the west end are under the impression that they are not getting their share of the road moneys, but everyone who is familiar with the matter, knows they have not only had their share, but during the last three years, they have had more than their share.
Mr. Hays, who seemed to be the leader of the campaign for county division, admitted the same in his testimony before the county and county boundaries committee in Olympia last week.
Mr. Hays, and every man who has looked into this subject knows, there has been no discrimination in these matters. It is unfortunate people in the vicinity of White Salmon have taken this matter so seriously; but they have now two years more in which to become acquainted with true conditions, and to study what would probably be the effect of rashness on the part of our legislature in granting them their request they asked at this time.
Too great credit cannot be given Representative Brooks for the cause he has taken, and the wisdom he has shown, regarding this matter. Brooks has gone up against a hard proposition in his efforts to keep these people from injuring themselves and their neighbors in the balance of the county. Residents of the White Salmon district will most of them live to thank him for the course he has taken up, and what he was able to accomplish.
Press reports speak of the matter as follows:
The house this morning killed the bill to create the new county of Cook out of the western half of Klickitat county and says the Journal.
The bill has been Senator Chappell's pet measure and was successfully engineered through the upper house of the legislature last week. The bill came in with a majority report from the committee that it be indefinitely postponed.
The debate was at times acrimonious and the friends fought tooth and nail for the division, but were voted down 51 to 42. There has been a strong lobby for the proposed county division from White Salmon since the opening of the legislature, and the bill became known as the "red apple" measure, for the members and lobby kept the legislature well supplied with apples, grounding in the western section of the county which they wanted to have divided.
Monday, February 17, says the Times, the Senate bill for the division of Klickitat County and creating the county of White Salmon was indefinitely postponed by the House by a vote of the 51 to 42. The bill came up on two reports of the committee on counties and county boundaries. The minority of the committee recommended passage of the measure that the majority favored indefinite postponement. The vote was the same on each roll call.
Pierce of Kitsap and Houser of King made the principal arguments favoring county division.
Brooks, of Klickitat, talked for nearly half an hour and his speech kept the House in almost constant laughter. He was only serious a minor part of the time, but it was plainly evident from the applause that he had won his fight.
In concluding that Brooks referred to his county as "the land of sunshine, where even the car wheels sing "Klick-i-tat, Klick-i-tat, as they glide over the rails."