Jasper County Democrat, Volume 16, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1914 — FUND TO DEFEAT BILL? [ARTICLE]

FUND TO DEFEAT BILL?

ALLEGED $50,C00 RAISED AGAINST HUGHES MEASURE. Prison Contractors Said to Oppose Act Regulating ConvictMade Goods- \\ ashington, Ma.rch 20.—Allegations that a fund of $50,000 had been raised in the interest of prison contractors to defeat the Hughes bill to regulate and restrict interstate transportation I of convict-made goods will be investigated today by the senate lobby committee.

While hearings on the Hughes bill were in progress before the interstate commerce committee, . Senator Overman was informed by Senator Hughes that statements had been circulated to the effect that a financial campaign against the measure was in progress. it was said that a $50,000 fund to fight the bill had been raised following the introduction of the measure last summer.

Two subpoenas were issued by Senator Overman’s order. One was for Edward Boyle, a Chicago attorney, former treasurer of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, who also has represented in the capacity of counsel prison contracting firms. Boyle is now in Washington and has attended the on the Hughes bill. Dr. E. Stagg Whiten of New York, an instructor at Columbia university, secretary of the New York prison reform commission and chairman of the national conference on prison labor, who is a stanch supporter of the Hughes bill, also has been summoned.