Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1909 — Work of Assembly in Review. [ARTICLE]

Work of Assembly in Review.

The Sixty-sixth General. Assembly of Indiana came to a close Monday, after passing the general appropriation bill, and listening during the forenoon to an address by former yiee-President Fairbanks. . The Assembly just closed has acted upon a number of important measures and has failed, on the other hand to act upon several other matters oit general interest Some of the bills ■which have been passed and which will become laws which are of special interest arer~The Merchants’ Association uniform accounting MIL “ The Hawkins employment agency bill. Thornton's loan shark bill. The bill regarding the metropolitan police law. The Cox bill repealing the anticigarette law as iti applies to adults. Sunday baseball bill. The Hanna bill permitting the state to draw state funds from counties as they are needed. The Stotsenburg cities and towns bill. The playgrounds bill. Indianapolis Park Board bill. The bill- extending State Prison labor contracts for ten years. The Harlan bill for the drawing of jurors to fill vacancies on regular panels. The Cox bill fixing the number of Indianapolis councilmen at nine. •* The Kimmel bill providing that school transfer tuition fees shall be cost cf service up to $4 a month. The Furnas hotel bill. The Indianapolis Police Court bill (Seidenstlcker), increasing salary to $3,500 a year and providing for an allday session of court The Wood schoolbook bill, giving the State Board of Education greater discretion as to schoolbook prices. The following measures were passed by both houses and await the governor's action: The Mendenhall bill amending the three-mile road law so as to provide for the building of a road at the expense of a township only when the number of petitioners for the road exceeds the number remonstrating. The Thornton cities and towns bill, under which city officers would have the right to succeed themselves. The members of the Assembly will go home with many things undone. Among the most important subjects which have been discussed at this session, but concerning which nothing has been done are: Employers' liability. Primary elections. Legislative and congressional reapportionment. Public utility regulation. The Democratic House, contrary to the expectations of labor representatives, declined to pass the Bassett bill on the subject of employers' liability. This was the labor measure. The Pearson Senate bill, a compromise measure which was drafted after many long hearings on the subject, has not passed the House, for both the employers and laboring people have opposed it—the employers because they believed the bill gave too much to the workingman and the workingmen because they believed it gave them too little. The workingmen took the position that the bill offered so little in addition to the common law that it would be to their interest to wait another two years, fearing that the passage of this bill at this time would serve as an excuse for not enacting legislation on the subject in the future.