The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1897-07-15
The Legislative Session of 1897.


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1t was not in the nature of things,
in view of the elements which have
dominated recent Pennsylvania Legis-
latures, that the recent session of the
Legislature, the longest in the history
of the Commonwealth, should not
have developed an unusual degree of
profigacy. The lmmeasurabe length
of the session, of which the legitimate
business could have been accomplish
ed in less than half the time, afforded
opportunities and inducements for
corruption. When the hours hung
heavily on the hands of the idle mem
bers, whose expenses were growing
apace, their ingenuity was racked to
discover fresh means of extortion
upon business interests. The people
of New York, Illinois and other
States have complained loudly Of their
legislative bodies of this year as being
the most corrupt and licentious with
in their experience; but the General
Assembly of Pennsylvania Of 1897 for
profigacy, imbecility and folly could
easily give odds to them all.
Instead of making any effort to
redeem the solemn pledges to abolish
sinecure Offices and to reduce extra
VACANT salaries, attention was directed
solely to the opening up of new sources
OF taxation in order to obtain more
means for wasteful expenditure. When
the insurance and express companies
and brewers refused to purchase
further immunity from blackmail both
factions of the Republican party in
the Legislature-the regulars of the
machine and the patriots of "seventy-
six"-rushed together to subject these
interests to new extortions. What will
be the amount of revenue from the
various tax measures of the session,
including the new classification of
brewers licenses, the direct inherit
ance tax, the additional tax on the
gross receipts of insurance and express
companies, the tax of three cents a
day on foreign laborers, the tax on
corporation store orders and some
others, their own authors can form no
approximate reckoning. Some of
these tax bills are so inlquitous and
others are so clumsily drawn that they
would hardly run the gantlet of the
Courts if they should escape the veto
OF Governor Hastings. The sugges-
ton OF Representative Keator. of
Philadelphia, that the Legislature
should be placed under the care of
Commission Of Guardians skilled in
the law gains much force from the
record of this session.
Yet, in the face of this record, the
presiding officers of the two Houses
have fastened, in a vain attempt to
forestall public opinion and to avert
righteous indignation, to assert that
the Legislature has done ga very good
work. a perusal of the proceedings
of the last day of the session relating
to the presentations of massive ser
vices of silver and of costly cut glass
indicates thar these officials would
have been extremely churlish had
they refused to testify to ''the good
work" of the session. The officials
OF the two Houses and the members
have no small reason to be satisfied
with each other.
Into this duet of the presiding
officers breaks the croaking voice Of
the leader of the "seventy-six" Van
Valkenburg) with the declaration
that ''half has not yet been told" of
the profigacy of the session. In miti-
cation of popular judgment this hero
of "seventy-siX" pleads that his faction
is entitled to credit for forcing the
passage OF the bill providing for inter-
est on deposits OF State money, as
well as for defeating 'the attempts of
the machine to create thousands of
new offices for the redemption of cam
paign promises" Let the spirit of
faction have credit, then, for the small
good it has done in the recent ses-
sion, when an appeal to a higher
motive would have been OF no avail.
But the union of the factions in sup
port of some of the most tlagtious
jobs of the session, including the
iniqultous tax bills, the Becker bill to