Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1897-03-13
KANSAS LEGISLATURE FAILED TO
FINISH LAST NIGHT.
SENATE AND HOUSE AT OUTS
CANNOT AGREE ON THE SIX APPRO-
PRIATION BILLS.
Senators Determineh to Slash Salaries
and to Eliminate ."StenIs"-Last
Nights Session of the House
an OId-Fnshfoned
Love Fcast.

Il ;Topeka, Kas.. March 12.-(SpeciaLl The
II work of the only Populist legislature Kan
Y sas ever had or ever will have. is now a
Y matter of history. While final adjournment
I;wiu not be taken until tomorrow after
I noon, yet all business except the considera-
| tion of miscellaneous appropriation bills
| and messages from the governor was fin
ished tonight. Both houses spent the day
wrangling over appropriation bills and
| drawing the last installment of their sal
| aries. Tonight the two houses could not
reach an agreement on appropriations, and
| at midnight adjourned till Q d. m. to-mor-
| row.
The representatives got along all right
| among themselves and managed to bunch
| a good deal of jollity into the proceedings.
| The afternoon and evening were given TO
| conference committee reports in which the
| house and senate tried to get togther on
| the executive, judicial and miscellaneous
deficiency appropriation bills. and as
| Jumper, the salary slasher, was on all the
| senate delegations the house had lot of
| unsalaried time to wear away. Jumper of
| the senate, swished his tomahawk and
hacked salaries while the house non-con-
CURED and played horse.
House members. employees and visitors
did turns at entertaining a surprising lot
of literary talent spoke up, and it is gen.
orally conceded here now that this legis-
lature is worthy to sit in Boston.
There was confused hubbub and a jolly
good humor that hung over the business of
the day like an oId-fashioned brush heap
over the cabbage bed the Republican
grandfathers of the Populists used to
make. j. X. Cubbison spoke of the pleas
ant memories of the session and the for
getfulness he hoped might hide away all
the petty and partisan wrangles of the
sixty days they had been together. where
upon Populists and Republicans alike got
up and took back all the mean things they
had said about each other and declared
they never meant them in the first place.
There are six appropriation bills, the ju-
dicial and executive, the INDECENT poor and
insane. the deficiency and three general
miscellaneous bills. The big hitch was over
the first named, while many skirmishes oc-
CURED in the consideration of the others.
Several members intimated that there were
some steals in some of them. Jumper de-
cIared that half the claims in the miscel-
laneous bills were outright steals.
1t took three conference committees to
make the senate back down on its PROPOSE
ton to cut the salaries of district judges to
S2D90. The Populist judges stood firm for a
reduction, while the house instructed its
conferrees to stay out all summer before
covering that the house would, under no
circumstances, recede, the senate surren-
dered and left the salaries at 800. Jumper
also attempted to run in his scale of reduc-
'tions on the salaries of state officers, but
the house is not disposed to make such
heavy cuts, and theis- has caused a dead
lock in the conference committee.
; The senate sprang a smooth scheme in
the INDECENT and insane appropriation bill.
All the counties in the state put in bills of
various sizes for caring for insane paupers
who were not admitted to the state insti-
tutions on account of lack of room. All of
these counties but twenty-three are in ar
rears to the state for taxes.
The senate bill provided for the payment
of the claims of all counties not in arrears
with state taxes, but compelled those in
arrears to deduct the amount due the state
in taxes from their claims for taking care
of the insane paupers. The claims against
the state aggregate about $4,000 while the
counties owe the state about that much in
back taxes. Just what the house will do in
the matter is hard to tell, but there are
many members advocating the adoption of
this plan to make the counties pay their
debts.
The members of both houses expected to
finish the consideration of all appropriation
bills tonight and pass them, but the houses
were at right angles on so many different
items that they failed to reach an agree
mept.
II is now predicted that the bills will not
be disposed of until late tomorrow after
noon, and that final adjournment will not
take place until evening.