The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-01-14

good laws and fewer bad laws than any OF
its predecessors as the legislature which
gave the people election reform and
smashed the school-book ring, and the
Posts comparison of it with the average
Ohio legislature is a piece of newspaper
recklessness which should have met with
rebuke instead of Endorsement at the
hands of the Neus.
The Post says:
The Indiana Lawmakers take UP the
question of state finances at a point that
would appall-th the most clear-headed tinan-
cier. With an immense pubic debt
state institutions swamped for want OF
running expenses; state officers unpaid,
even the governor being obliged to sue for
his salary, there will be no room for a
repetition of some of the d~emagoguery
displayed in the last session. The APP
pointment of twenty-eight doorkeepers to
salary a lot of hungry pie-grabbers, and
the creation of Supreme Court Commits
sions" won't go down with the taxpayers.
Neither will rehearsal of the prize ring
tactics of that memorable cast be Endorsed
by the voters; nomore will a lot of loosely
constructedlaws that must be pronounced.
one after another, illegal. win the approval
OF the masses.
What the Post says as to state finances
isameree echo of exploded republican libels.
What it saws about "the loosely con-
structed laws" that "were pronounc ed IL
legal, one after another" has as little basis
in fact as the average republican cam
paign document.
What are the facts? The legislature of
1889 was in session sixty days, and in that
time passed 237 avs and five resolutions.
OF these, 219 received the approval of Gov
ernor HovEY; seven were permitted by
him to become laws by lapse of time, with
out his signature, and eleven were passed
over his veto. OF this large num-
Der of laws only seven were held
unconstitutional by the republican su-
preme court; and six of these seven were
measures which it was to the interest of
the republican party to have set aside.
The partisan character of these decisions
is notorious. The oldest and ablest re-
publican judge on the supreme bench dis
sented from all but one of them; and so
far from the masses approving them, they
took the very first opportunity offered to
repudiate them. The democratic state
convention denounced these partisan de-
%cisions, and appealed from them to the
grand tribunal of the people. The re-
Spouse was a popular majority of over
10000 against the republicans.
The record of the last legislature has
been approved by the people of Indiana.
II has proved a tower of strength to the
democracy, and a blessing to the state.
If the present legislature, OF any future
legislature, labors as earnestly, as hon
estly, as intelligently, as periodically and
as successfully for the public good as did
the legislature of 1889, the people of In
diana will be more than satisfied.
The Pest, by the way, warns u
lawmakers against ''unduly pro-
tracted sessions" Evidently it is IN
aware of the fact that our constitu-
ton limits regular sessions to sixty DAYS
once in two years, and that special ses-
sions are rarely called in this state. We
think the Post would better conine its
legislative moralizing to its own state,
and that the NeWs might be in better
business than giving currency to its stupid
and mendacious criticisms upon a body
which distinguished Itself so highly as
did Che last Indiana legislature.