Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1901 — INDIANA LAWMAKERS [ARTICLE]

INDIANA LAWMAKERS

The Senate committee on the judiciary reported favorably Monday on the bill making the taking of a prisoner from the sheriff and lynching him prima facie evidence of neglect of duty and at onee vacating the office. The bill waa amended so that the sheriff, before he can be reinstated, mnst show to the satisfaction of the Governor that he was not to blame. The same body amended the railroad subsidy bill so that no road can secure a subsidy in excess of $4,000’ per mile through the township voting the aid. The bill providing for a canal from Lake Michigan to the Calumet river was advanced to second reading. The House passed by a practically unanimous vote the bill to encourage the borrowing of the school fund, so much of which is now unloaned. The bill takes all the expense of appraisement and recording mortgages from the borrower, and also provides that counties may borrow from the fond, but not for a longer period than five years. The bill to prevent the desecration of the soldiers’ monument was also passed. In the Senate on Tuesday the Lieutenant Governor held that the resolution offered by Senator Stillwell instructing the Governor to recognize requisition for Taylor and Finley, should Gov. Beckham present one, was out of order. Senator Stillwell appealed, bat the Senate sustained its presiding officer by a vote of 28 to 9; Senator Agnew’s bill providing for the construction of a ship canal from Lake Michigan, at East Chicago, to the Cainmet River, a distance of about three miles, was. passed by the State Senate on Wednesday. The project which the bill authorizes will take $2,009,000 or $3,000,000 and will provide for the entrance of large lake freight steamers into the canal, making the ground along its bor ders of immense value for the location of factories. The proposed waterway is to be as large as the Chicago drainage canal,' and Senator Agnew says there is a great demand in Chicago for good factory warehouse sites, and if the canal project is Carried out the result will be that a large of factories will come into Indiana territory. The Cainmet River at Hammond will have to be dredged. The conrt, under the provisions of the bill, is to appoint a commission of three disinterested persons, who shall make report to the court as to the benefits and damages resulting from the construction of the canal. If the damages exceed the benefits the conrt may discharge the commission and the work will not have to be carried on, unless by petition. If the canal is constructed, the anthor of the bill says, the land along its course will be worth $3,000 an acre. At no point along the proposed waterway is the land more than seven feet above the level of the lake, which fact will make the canat easy of construction. Interest in the Legislature centered mainly Thursday in proposed investigations of State institutions. Senator Inman of the minority offered a resolution for inquiry into the management of the reformatory at Jeffersonville, the reform school at Plainfield and the northern prison at Michigan City. The resolution was tabled by a party vote, but later a resolution to Investigate the management of the Jeffersonville reformatory was adopted unanimously. The main charges against the institution are that they are extravagantly managed, and that there are deficits at each. Charges of cruelty J:o girls at the reform school for girls in Indianapolis led to a resolution author izing the appointment of a committee to make an investigation and report to the Senate. This committee consists of Senators Agnew, Goodwine, Binkley, Lambert, Corr and Purcell. THo House on Friday passed the bill which provides that a natural gas company failing to supply the amount of gas required by ordinance of the city or town in which it has a franchise, shall give rebates proportioned to the failure. The James bill, requiring every institution in the State to make an itemized report of expenses for 1900 within ten days .after the passage of, the bill, was also passed; also a bill making the minimum wage on all public works 20 cents an hour. A resolution was introduced declaring that the United States Constitution provides that persons charged with crime shall be extradited; that failure on the part of public officers to do their duty leads to lynching, and that it is the duty of Gov. Durbin to honor a requisition for the return to Kentucky of W. S. Taylor and Charles Finley if Gov. Beckham requests it. Speaker Artman said he would decide Monday whether or not this resolution is out of order. The Sen ate passed the anti-lynching bill, which causes the sheriff from whose custody aprisoner is taken and lynched, to vacate his office instanter, and makes his reinstatement dependent upon his ability to satisfy the Governor that he was not at fault. Bills have been prepared for the removal of the blind and deaf and dumb institutions from Indianapolis, and their location at points where ground is less valuable. Both branches appointed committees to investigate the Indiana reformatory at Jeffersouville.