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The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., February 21, 1913, page 1

CO. DIVISION BILL DEFEATED
House Machine Votes Solid Against Cook County Bill

The Tacoma Tribune says: The bill passed the senate with three opposing votes, but the house control pay its debt to Representative Brooks for his support when the housed organized by going down the line solid for him. This support gave Brooks 51 votes, all that was needed to defeat the bill. The measure was passed by the senate two years ago, but never came out of committee in the house. M. Stevenson, representative Skamania county, worked with Brooks to kill the Cook county bill.
Olympia, Wash., Feb. 17 -- The house this morning killed the bill to create the new county of Cook out of the western half of Klickitat county.
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 thought 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, grown in the western section of the county which they wanted to have divided.
The vote in western Klickitat for county division was overwhelming. Its candidate for representative easily won the primaries. Mr. Spencer lost in the general election by only 75 majority. The senate had only three dissenting votes. The House committee was about evenly divided. The final vote in the House was close. There was merit in the bill, but it will eventually win.
The boys at Olympia, Hayes, Tate, McClintock, Van Vorst, Coate, Colburn, Spencer, worked hard and with good judgment. Much credit is due them as well as to Lieutenant Governor Hart and Senator Chappelle.
If the initiative and referendum is framed favorably the next move will probably be to submit the division proposition to the state, a method by which Hood River county finally won.