Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1911 — SOUNDED DEEPLY NEEDS OF STATE [ARTICLE]

SOUNDED DEEPLY NEEDS OF STATE

Real Wishes of People Served By legislature. — PROGRAM HAS BEEN WELL LAID Democratic Leaders Have Moved on the Presumption That State Doesn’t Need Many More Laws Than It Now Has, Hence the Beneficent Work of Elimination Has Steadily Progressed In Legislative Committee Rooms. Indianapolis special: The Demo crats in the general assembly, with the Democratic governor, Thomas R. Marshall, appear now to have laid their legislative program well, and to have sounded deeply the needs of the state and the real wishes of .the people. Instead of having rushed into the matter of lawmaking with the purpose of encumbering the statute books with as many laws as possible, they seem to have moved on the presumption that the state doesn’t need many more laws than it now has. and that it is up to the general assembly to see that it doesn't get them, more than to see that it does get more. The Work of Elimination. One of the leaders said today: “It will be the purpose of the legislators in the two weeks of the session remaining to prevent the passage of bills, rather than to push bills through. In the entire 1,100 and moje bills that have been introduced, there are not more than twenty, including all the Demoerate platform hills, and the apnronriariombills. which the state really needs, tThe statute books now are encumbered with laws which are so intricate and so numerous as to be confusing. y “By the adoption, the legislature has given to the state board of accounts the task of reporting to the next general session the needs of the officials of the state as far as salary and fee changes are concerned. This obviates the neccessity of passing any laws changing salaries, with possibly one or two pressing exceptions. What the assembly should do in this respect is to simplify the laws on fees and salaries, a-*1 not to complicate them, and complate them we certainly would if we were to undertake to revise the fee and salary laws with the meager data we have at hand. In two years from now. with the data the state board of accounts will be able to give us. we can work on this question intelligently. Great Bulk of Bills: Doomed. “A glance over the list of bills introduced will satisfy the average citizen that there is no need to have the large majority of them enacted into law. Of course there are some legalizing measure that ought to be looked after and it is our purpose to look after them. Then there are a few bills which ought to pass in order to simplify conditions found exceedingly intricate because of conditions unearthed by the state board of accounts. These will be looted after But as for the great ball; of the bills, they will probably get no further along than they are now." The general conditions of the assembly at this time support the statement of the leader quoted While the senate has passed approximately 15 bills, there is not a house bill among them. The house has passed approximately 100 bills, but there are not more than ten of them senate measures’. The senate is not preparing to take up house bills until Tuesday afternoon, and then it will be only such house bills as are on the program for passage according as the big program has thingslaid out. State Platform Measures. In the two weeks of the session remaining, there are all the Democratic state platform measures to be looked after. None of them have yet been passed. True, the county option repeal measure has been passed and signed by the governor, but it is to be rescinded by a subsequent measure now under way, so this phase' of the law-making situation cannot be said to have been attended to. In addition tq the platform measure, there are the appropriation bills yet to be looked after by the senate, and anyone who fa acquainted with the way things -are Am hi the general assembly know Hat He entire two wqeks easily he takes Up in consideration of these

big measures. The program as it now appears is to give the entire two weeks to these measures and close the session with the smallest number of bills passed in the history of, general assemblies for years past

Leaders Are Unanimous. The leaders ate unanimous in declaring that the enactment of a very small number of measures would be a political stroke on the part of the Democrats. A session of The general assembly is a necessity, because the constitution prescribes that one of sixty days' duration shall be held every two years. But the constitution does not prescribe that it shall ehcumber the statute books with a lot of laws merely because it has the power The practice of Republican assemblies in the past has been to put out huge volumes of acts that have been confusing to the lawyers, the courts and to the citizens, until the people have been crying for relief from so much lawmaking. The Governor’s Way Out of It. In changing the mode and determining to give them the least possible number of laws consistent with the peculiar needs of the times, the Democrats believe that they are striking a responsive chord in the popular mind, and word which the leaders have been receiving from the people back home incline them to this belief. There is no clamor for many of the bills introduced, save from interests selfishly interested in sundry measures, while on the contrary petition after petition has been received against the passage of bills.

The most important event of the general assembly thus far has been the majority caucus agreement to enact into law the changes in the constitution proposed by Governor Marshall after eighteen months of careful study of the constitution situation. The governor became impressed with the belief that the state had outgrown the constitution in many respects, but from all oyer the state came protests whenever a constitutional convention was mentioned. The strength of the corporations, the radical temperance element, the woman suffrage movement, and a score or more of other radical elements presented a danger which made the real leaders of both parties hesitate when they thought of a constitutional convention. Four years ago the Republicans, then in control of the general assembly, proposed a constitutional convention, but when it became evident that the radicals and the interests would control the convention rather than the plain, every-day citizen, the project was dropped.

Wood Not Taken Seriously. The same fear prompted the governor and those working with him when they prepared to offer a change to the people. The best way out of it. it was advised, was to have the general assembly enact a new constitution into a law and put it up to the people for ratification, and the plan was adopted by the majority caucus. Since the announcement of the agreement, Senator Wood of the Republicans has introduced a bill calling for a constitutional convention, but as Senator Wood was one of the Republicans who helped prevent a convention of that kind four years ago, his step at this time is not taken seriously. The governor has been assailed from all sides since the announcement of the move was made, but an analysis of the criticisms shows that they have come from the party press on the other side and from the party leaders of the Republican opposition. The real thinking party men of both parties and the newspapers who are not moved by partisan motives alone commend the movement as the only possible chance at this time of obtaining such changes in the constitution as are evidently necessary. Governor’s Position Perfectly Clear. The governor has made his position perfectly clear that the movement i 3 not a party movement and that it is not a one-man movement. The only force in the state that can change the constitution at all is the force of the people themselves, and the governor, in laying plan, took this into consideration. In his consideration of the changes, too, he called into conference some of the broad-minded Republicans of the state, and they aided him. The proposed changes are changes which Republicans as well i_s Democrats in the past few years have acknowledged ought to be made. They relate to the question of suffrage, the matter of adjustment of damages in personal injury cases, the matter of representation’ in the general assembly, the matter of the initiative, referendum and the recall, the length of assembly sessions, the four-year term of office and ineligibility to succeed one's self in either state or county office, and the protection of personal property save in the event of extreme necessity. All these are points on which both Democrats and Republicans are more or less agreed, and the criticisms of the opposition press, actuated by party reasons only, have not touched on any of the Items in its critiesm.

It Will Be Up to the People. As the measure has been made the matter of a caucus agreement, there Is no doubt but that it will go through and be adopted. It is to be put up to the people for ratification or rejection in 1912, and the governor will take the stump and speak in favor of its ratification. Steering committees have been selected in both the house and senate to look after the party measures which it Is desired to enact into laws. The ereater part of the time will therefore

be given to consideration of the following plitforna and administration measures: The child labor bill, the appropriation bjlls, the employers' liability bills, the Referendum for public service franchises in cities, the county option repeal measure, the liquor' regulation measure, the weekly wage bill, the workingmen’s, compensation bills, sundry 5 anti-corporation measures, the state board of accounts bill, state board of health bills, railroad commission bills, etc. If this work Is done as now planned, It , will consume the greater part of the remaining days of the session.

Plans are declared completed for the organization of a company of Cincinnatians to finance a proposed trip of dirigible balloons from Cincinnati across the Atlantic ocean.