Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1911 — LEGISLATURE IS FUR THE PEOPLE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LEGISLATURE IS FUR THE PEOPLE

Campaign Promises Redeemed In Good Order. AGAINST THE "INTERESTS” Passage of the Referendum Bill In the Senate Is Taken as an Earnest of the Legislators’ Determination to Conserve the People’s Interests as Against Those of Great Corporations. Indianapolis special;. The Indiana general assembly. Democratic in majority in each branch, is rapidly going on record as being for the people as against the corporate interests, and is redeemingjn good order all its campaign promises. In the senate, after one of the bitterest fights in the history of that body, the control of the bipartisan combination composed of holdover senators of years, of experience, was overthrown and the body

passed by a comfortable majority 7 a referendum bill which gives the citizens of a municipal corporation the power over franchises to public utility corporations. When the measure first came up the bipartisan combination obtained control and defeated all action favorable to the passage of the bill, because the bulk of the Democratic majority did not realize fully the import of the contents of the bill. However, the defeat of the measure in its early consideration aroused the people of the state as they have not been arrtused since the qounty option bill came up for consideration in the special session of 1908. The senators began to hear from home, and then began to make a more thorough study of the bill, with the result that it was again called up for consideration and passed, the bipartisan combination of corporation attorneys in the body being hopelessly defeated in the final vote.

Paved Way For Other Acta. The passage of the referendum measure is commonly accepted as having spelled the doom of the corporate interests in the senate, and to have prepared the way for the enactment of a number of other measures designed to give the common people it least an even break with the corporate wealth of the state. It has paved the way for a favorable corfslderation of the Shively recall measure, which Is made a special order of business for one day this week. This bill will give "to the voters of any municipality the power to recall, by special election, any public official elected by the people who has shown, by his official acts, that he is unfit for the trust the people imposed in him. Under its provisions a mayor who does not enforce the a councilman or town trustee who serves the interests rather than the people who elected him, or any public official who is found grossly negligent in administering the affairs of his office, may be recalled. In the house the consideration of the interests of the people over the interests of the corporations has been shown in the passage of the child labor bill, which, when properly enforced, will shut out from employment in various lilies of industry the children now employed therein. The power of the corporations over the current child labor laws, which are deficient in many respects, is shown in the fact that the state department of inspection has not shown, in its regular reports, the employ of children at forbidden tasks, while investigations by organiatlons interested in a better child labor law has shown that the very establishments where no children were reported as having been found at werk were teeming with children employed at dangerous occupations. The Keegan child labor bill, as the measure

now In progress is known, provides that no child under fourteen years of age shall be employed at any gainful occupation, except at farm work or at household work. From that up, the age at which children may be employed are graded, up to the point where it is held that no girl under the age of eighteen years and no boy under the age of sixteen years shall be employed in a tobacco factory or in a distillery or brewery. It wasion this latter score that the corporations made their most ▼igorous fight, but their fighting was Ineffectual. To Strengthen People’s Rights* Both branches of the general assembly are inclined, as shown from pteps taken thus far, to favor an enlargement and strengthening of the powers of the railroad commission over the •team and Interurban roads of the state. Nine bills which have been introduced to give the shippers an even break, through the commission, with the traffic managers have been advanced in both the senate and the house, with every indication pointing to the fact that the bills will become laws. Under the present laws the power of the commission over freight tariffs is limited to two years from the making of any sort of an order, with the result that the railroads have consistently appealed to the courts and by the process of dragging out the cases, have postponed court rulings for two years, thus rendering ineffectual the orders of the commission in virtually every case considered. The installation of block signals, the equipment of locomotives with proper headlights, scores of rate change orders, orders for bettering the interurban service in order to prevent disastrous wrecks, have thus been held up and rendered void because of the expiration of the two-year period covered by the order. Tn a caucus tO be held this evening the majorities in each house had planned to map out a program by which there should be pushed through to passage the bills designed to provide for workingmen’s compensation and the employers' liability measures, two bills which have been fought consistently bv the corporate interests. Corporation Attorneys Defeated. Another bill which the corporations have been fighting and fighting hard is senate bill No. 105, which provides that corporations organized in other states and operating in this state shall have no more powers here than are granted like corporations organized under the laws of Indiana, and no more powers here than they enjoy under the laws of the state in which they are organized. Every means at the command of the corporations was taken in the senate to defeat the measure, and thejeorporation attorneys who are members of that body fought it from the start. It passed, however, and is in line for passage in the house. That it will be signed by the governor there is no doubt.

Another indication that the two houses are acting wholly independently of corporation control is shown in the progress which has been made in consideration of the Proctor bill to regulate saloon licenses. When the bill was put into the senate it was favored by the brewers until the amending began. Then the high license: feature, providing for a license of S7OO in cities and SSOO elsewhere was advanced and the breweries began to fight the measure. In the face of this powerful force, however, the senate put the bill through and has sent it to the house, where the majority is lining up ’ to pass it State-Wide Commendation. The reverse swing of the legislative pendulum from the extreme of corpor- } ation control under former legislatures, which Were Republican in either one or both branches, has led to a state-wide commendation of the honesty of the purpose of the assemblymen and of the governor, who has joined hands with the assembly in the fight for the people as against the encroachments of the corporation. Under the leadership of the governor one of the worst corporation lobbyists of the state has been forced from his position of advantage on the senate floor and has been compelled to retire to the local offices of a corporation concern, whence he was 4ent by the president to be an actitve agent in the midst of the senatorial activities. The struggle has been a hard and a bitter one, and has served to retard to a considerable degree the advancement of needed legislation during the first half of the session. However, it was necessary, the leaders found, to stifle the corporation interests in the senate, where they were the most rampant, and now that they have been submerged and the'will of the people made dominant, the leaders see no reason why the proposed legislative pro-

gram should not be pushed through to completion within the next ten days. Saving the People’s Moneys That the governor is in control of the situation has been attested by the determined and successful fight made against the corporate interests, and by the manner in which the house has disposed of the appropriation brlla.. Several months ago the governor advanced the idea of having the appropriations provided for in two separate measures, in order to get them out of the way early, and to do away with the disgraceful log Tolling of the past. The house and senate fell in with his plans on this score, with the result that the bills have been adopted in the house And one of them passed almost exactly as Introduced by the ways and means committee: The total appropriation is nearly 12.000.00 Q, less than it was two years ago, and the end was achieved without the disgraceful proceedings of former years, when the state institutions and departments, by mezfns of lobbyists on the floor, forced through the appropriation of more money than the state could afford to pay. With the two bills made into laws as they now stand, the house and senate leaders declare, the present financial stringency in the state treasury will be tided over and the commonwealth placed in excellent financial condition by the time the general as ■embly of 1913 convenes.

SENATOR PROCTOR