Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1920 — SPECIAL SESSION ADJOURNED [ARTICLE]

SPECIAL SESSION ADJOURNED

Friday Night Under Compulsion of Q. O. P. Politicians. Governor Goodrich’s second spe- । cial session of the Indiana legislature adjourned sine (Me at about i midnight last Friday night, after a 17-day session. The early adjournment was brought about after Governor Goodrich, State Chairman Wasmuth and a few other of the more prominent Republican politicians had hot-footed back to Indianapolis at an early hour Friday morning, following a “consultation meeting” held at Crawfordsville Thursday night with the Republican editors of the state and at which Warren T. McCray and all the other Republican state candidates and most of the leading Republican politicians of Indiana were present. The Republican editors told the politicians about what the taxpayers were saying in different sections of I the state and the meeting resolved I itself into a house of mourning as ! the editors pointed out to the pollj ticians and candidates the handwriting on the wall.

It was decided that the special session must be stopped p. d. q., and the Governor, Wasmuth and a few others were sent post-haste back to the capital for this purpose, although they were expected to be at Turkey Run for the exercises there on Friday. As a result, the Republican members of the two houses were grabbed by the coat collars and their beads bumped together, figuratively speaking, by the governor and his aides, and a hurried passage of the “tax curative bill” and one or two other measures which had been hanging fire because of a deadlock between the two houses, was put 1 through, and the members went home Saturday morning to await the third special session call of the governor, which many of them are expecting right after the election. Democratic Floor Leader Elsner, during the closing session, criticised the state administration and the Republican members of the legislature, asserting that their leaders had “flayed” them Into line. The Tuthlll-Klper tax bill is “a scrap of paper,” arrived at by Governor Goodrich and Warren T. McCray, Republican nominee for governor, who, he asserted, “belongs heart, soul and breeches to the Goodrich administration.” Senator Elsner said that the provision of the bill legalizing the bonds of units, which have exceeded their constitutional Indebtedness; will be held invalid in court tests. He said the bill was a legalizing bill camouflaged In order to get away from the unpopular word “legalize.” The bill might be used to fool the people but “it will have a hard time getting around the courts, he said. “You’ll find out you again have squandered a lot of the people’s money. You’ve been here 17 day*

and didn’t do a thing until the big sticks got after you.”