Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 171, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1914 — SCANDAL CONFRONTS STATE LAWMAKERS [ARTICLE]

SCANDAL CONFRONTS STATE LAWMAKERS

Bills Signed by Governor and Published Which Had Never Passed the Lower Branch.

Indianapolis, ImL, July 2a—Recent investigations of the records of Hie 1913 Indiana democratic legislature have uncovered a sensational scandal that gives promise o adding materially to the worries and woes of the democratic machine politicians, who were already in a state of panic because of the unprecedented activity oil republicans from oqe end of the state to the other. It has been discovered that the townhip assessor’s salary increase bill, which was supposed to have been passed by the democratic legislature and which was March 15th, 1913, and published In the statutes, was indefinitely postponed by the house and never became a law. The recent discovery that the bill for increasing the salary of the recorder of Lake eounty was indefinitely postponed by the house, but is now in the statutes as a laiw, has brought up the question of the validity of other laws, and the assessor’s salary increase bill was found to be another that was juggled into the statute book. It is understood that a thorough investigation of the circumstances under which the two salary increase bills were reported as having been passed will be made_ The inqudry would probably be the business of the Marion county grand jury if brought to its attention by the authorities. , It is well known that at the last session of thp legislature there was a bigdobby fpr the purpose of getting increases for various county and township officers. Great inter-

est was taken in two bills, one being to increase the salary of the recorder oif Lake county, and the other to increase the pay of the township assessors. It has been found that the Lake county bill, which Is in the statutes as a law, never was passed, but was indefinitely postponed in the house and then reported to the senate by the house clerk as having been 'passed. On examining the record* of the salary hilts, Gilbert H. Hendren, state examiner, found that the township assessor’s bill also had never been passed. He has ordered two of the field examiners connect ed with his office to make a report on the amount of the increased salary received by the Lake county recorder by virtue of the supposed new law, and then he will send the claim through the regular channels for the return of the money to the state if the recorder does not pay ft back voluntarily. •