The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-11-22
LEGISLATIVE REFORM.
A Veteran Observer Tells Why Inn
prOvement Cannot Be Expected.
E Editor OF the Indiananolis journal:

the Editor or the Indianapolis JOURNAL
There will be no legislative reform worth
naming by the next Legislature; nor the
next, or any subsequent one while the
present constitutional restrictions remain.
The trainers of that instrument, assuming
that as soon as man becomes legislator
he becomes a thief, however honest he may
have been all his life before, proceeded TO
hamper him with restrictions to keep him
from stealing; for the taking of fees or sal
aries beyond what is necessary is stealing,
though IL be under the protection of the
letter of the law; hence, they provided not
only that the people should assemble only
once in two years to post the public books,
take account of stock and to provide rules
and regulations for the future but all this
must be done in sixty days, less Sundays
and half holidays on Saturdays and Mon
days leaving only about forty-flve days for
work, or 1t must go undone. The result has
been that since 1852, which was not in
cluded in the inhibition, there has been no
completed legislation (which involved radi-
cal notifications or reforms. There cannot
be when each successive Legislature is
composed chiefly of inexperienced men, and
largely of men of very limited general
knowledge, however well equipped every
one may be for his life calling. What would
we say OF a railroad corporation whose
charter provided for corresponding exami-
nations of books, and the issuing of new
orders only at remote periods, and limited
the time to be devoted to such indispensable
work. say, to six days? That it would be
running it's business in out-of-date grooves
and mourning dangerous risks, goes with
out saying.
The history of our legislation since 1852 is
q humiliating one. We have literally been
at the mercy of the lobby on every vital
question, and necessarily so; sometimes en-
acting unwise laws at it's dictation, but
more frequently rejecting reforms because
the lobby demanded IT. Forty years ago
Hon. A. L. Roache, then representing Parke
county in the House, prepared and intro
duced fee and salary bill practically iden-
teal with the bill adopted thirty-eight years
later. 1t met with almost universal appro-
val of the members of the Legislature when
read. OF course, 1t went to committee.
In less than ten days the capitol was alive
with officers from every county These be-
labored their respective members, but de-
voted their time chiefly to the committee.
The result, was the committee never re-
ported the bill back to the House, but their
tactics for killing 1t were not known until
too late to call it back and discuss 1T on its
merits for the sixty days were about out.
From the practical results which have fol-
lowed the law in the short period of its ex-
istence it is not eXtravagant to assume that
the people of the State have lost money
enough these years to have kept a Legis-
lature in session six months every year, II
not perpetually.
Or take another case: About the same
time the Indiana University, as much a pri-
vate corporation as Wabash College, con
ceived the idea that because 1t enjoyed the
proceeds OF the congressional grant the
State ought to lavish money upon 1t, not
WIthStanuing the constitutional convention
had abolished all there was, of state reia-
tionship. Through it's lobby it easily manip-
ulated the Legislature, and an appropriation
was made in 1867 which opened the door to
subsequent appropriations which have run
into millions w
many millions more in the future without
the least benefit, but to the detriment of the
cause of education in Indiana. If time had
been allowed to discuss the proposition no
such an entering wedge would have ever
been successful. The bill was prepared by
the lobby before the Legislature met put
1t was adroitly withheld to within few
days of the close of the session, when It
was sprung upon the House, and, without
being referred to any committee, was en-
crossed March 4, passed the House March
6, taken up in the Senate March and, un-
der suspension of the rules passed, ana
approved by the Governor March S-raii-
roaded through within the last four days
of the session because there was no time
for discussion.
Or take another case: 1t became evident
more than twenty years ago that the law
regulating building and loan associations
ors, and attempts were made to amend II,
but for want of time to fully investigate the
subject nothing was done for twenty years,
and then through commission, ana aWk-
more of the hard earnings of laborlng peo-
pie had been jeopardized and money enough
lost to them to have kept the Legislature
in session six months instead of two.
And now comes the law or laws relaInS
to county and township business, whose
odor is so offensive and whose amendment
is so impossible within the time allotted
the Legislature that distinguished private
citizen has, on his own motion; invited
fifty or more equally distinguished persons
to confer with him and to prepare bill
that shall meet the case 1t is a humiliating
concession to the inefficiency of our Legis-
lature under a Constitution which requires
everything Legislature ought to do to be
done in about forty working days, once in
it will prove to be powerless. We can con-
ceive how railroad men or bankers or farm
ers might meet to better their cond1t1on'
but here are fifty men or more, chleny law
yers of ability, who have no grievances
that are not common TO ALL who practically
legislation upon a subject equally
affecting everybody. They VIII prepare
vast Improvement upon the present nouge-
podge which is a mixture of the crudities
of a hundred years ago ana the demands
of this period. But will the Legislature
pass it2 I trow not Did not the school
trust, which is constituted of about one
hundred teachers who assume to represent
the 10 600 teachers of the State and the
State Board of Education spend wearisome
days and nights, two years ago. on q bill
but did not the committee on education
which for the first time in thirty years had
the aid of a counter lobby, so disf1gure It in
the first round that its putative parents
withdrew it, The better the bill the more