Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1911 — PROCTOR AND FLEMING AGAIN HAND IN HAND. [ARTICLE]

PROCTOR AND FLEMING AGAIN HAND IN HAND.

Those Two Friends of Saloon Reinstatement Both Support Measure Opposed by Senator Halleck.

The Republican sai<j, in discussing the vote of Senator Halleck against the Proctor “regulative and restrictive” measure, that it was impossible for any person to judge between such pronounced friends of the breweries and saloons as Senators Proctor and Fleming and that in voting on the Proctor measure it was a matter of voting either with Fleming, the brewer, or Proctor, the senator who has been in the lead in all legislation looking to the reinstatement of saloons. It was suggested a few days ago by the Indianapolis Star that there was, probably no real difference between Fleming and Proctor as to what they expected to get and wha| they wanted and that the Proctor high license measure was largely a frameup with an appearance of difference •between them so as to keep the temperance people in the dark. The scheme worked to a charm, although Senator Halleck, who saw the perfidy of the measure, voted against it, and was accused by the Jasper. County Democrat, which never loses a chance to assail him, no matter how falsely, of voting with Steve Fleming. Fleming. The measure was amended in the house, as told in TheTtepublican, and the amendments were all in concert with the brew'ery control so conspicuous in the legislature, then it was returned to the senate and sent to a conference committee, where a few changes of no consequence were made, and in these both Fleming and Proctor concurred. To show how much of a saloon bill it was, the men who composed the conference committoo might be mentioned. The appointive powers took precaution that 'only men favorable to saloons were appointed and as the committee had to be half republican, Representative Grimmer, of Hammond, who has been a saloon man all through, was chosen, and Senator Durre, who also has also voted with the saloon interests. This left the temperance people altogether without any representation, a condition which the leaders of both houses wanted brought about. The Star, in reporting the outcome of the conference, says:

“In its present form the bill is satisfactory to Senator Stephen B. Fleming, of Ft. Wayne, a democrat, who is president of the Indiana Association of Brewers. Senator Fleming, with the aid of his political henchmen in the House, succeeded in striking out some of the provisions in the bill when it was passed by the Senate, and now, when it is ready to go to the Governor and become a law immediately, by reason of its emergency clause, it is satisfactory in every way to him. *' \ “Senator Proctor, the author of the bill, who was not named on the conference committee and who has favored a high license feature of the bill said he would make no objection to the conference report. It was expected that Senator Proctor would endeavor to have the Senate reject the report of the committee, but he made no such effort when the report was read and said that none would be made.”

This is the bill that Senator Halleck voted against when it first came up and that caused the Jasper County Democrat to accuse him of voting with a brewer. Now we see the brewer and the author of the so-called “restrictive” bill locked in each others arms and calling the bill just what the people want, and we see every man in the general assembly who favors saloon reinstatement favoring the bill, but we see every temperance man in the state against it. And yet the Jasper County Democrat has the nerve to claim that when Senator Halleck voted against it he was voting for the brewers. Senator Halleck has voted with the temperance interests at every turn, but it do'h’t do any good where there is a big majority that are in the legislature for no other purpose than to represent saloon interests.