The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1899-03-31
THE SESSION REVIEWED.
Continued from First Page.

/
chine that the Albeit combination had
built up.
Now McDermott is an angel, but his
wings no more cover his cloven foot and
his forked tail than they did when, as an
arch reformer, he tried to give life to
the moribund campaign of that pre-em-
inently respectable Democratic candid
ate, Chancellor McGill. He came into
the Senate hoping to bolster up his
broken political fortunes with the old
| threadworn scheme of making the lands
under the water yield untold millions
| by conditional leases. Mob dy but a
/ man who had never been in actual bust
ness would present such animpracticable
scheme of asking corporations and firms
to put up big warehouses, valuable dock
age and the like on riparian lands, sub
ject to all kinds of changeable contracts.
The airy and fairy mantle in which
! William D. DAILY clothed himself and in
which he had hoped to be translated
from the Senate chamber to the Execu-
| tive chair must have been found on the
| Hackensack meadows when Senator Nc
| Dermott came to Trenton. The high
priced Senator from Hudson sits now in
secondhand garments awaiting politi-
cal resurrection. His riparian bill is
the one that he moved to take out of the
hands of the committee, and when told 1t
was against precedent and custom to re-
lieve committees of bills in the Senate,
because it was blow at the one sacred
institution of the upper house Senate
rial courtesy-he rallied and stormed.
Like the born political iconoclast that he
is. he would have torn custom to threads
and precedents to tatters to accomplish
his purpose, just as he did the week be-
fore, when he treated with contemptous
sarcasm the rulings of the chair, and
with profound disrespect the mace of the
sergeant-at-arms His riparian bill is as
dead as a door nail for this session; like
wise his gubernatorial boom.
LESS SCHOOL TAX.
One of the most important measures
of the session was the bill which will ap
ply some of the taxes that are coming
from corporations to the reduction of the
school tax.
The only State tax which New Jersey
has, is for school purposes, and the Re
publicans in the Senate prepared bill
which gives power to the State to apply
each year sum of money from the
State fund to the school fund, and the
amount that will be applied at the end
of this year will be at least 100000 To
this should be added the 800, 900 per-
manently appropriated to the school
fund each year, thus making reduc-
ton of $500, 900 in the amount that will
have to be raised by taxpayers. Each
year this can be increased SO that in less
than fifteen years there will be no need
of any school tax whatever When this
is accomplished it will be great tri-
umph for the Republican party.
The Republican administration of the
past four years will not be forgotten be-
cause of it's effort to clear the statute
books of conflicting laws and to provide
clear comprehensive law on the various
subjects of Importance. This year there
was passed codification of township
laws and trust and bank laws. The lat
ter was amended in parts by Senator
Pitney.
PEANUT POLITICS.
The Democratic minority admit that,
taking everything into consideration,
they were considerably treated. They
were to some extent nettled over the
position of the majority in refusing to
let bills come out of the committees.
In the House the caucus decided to
stand by the committees that held down
useless bills and in the Senate they re-
fused to break down the custom not to
entertain motions to relieve the commit
tee from'the consideration of bills. Sena-
tor Pitney led in helatter fight and sus-
tanned President Reed. There were
number of So called partisan bills of an
anti-corporation character that had been
Introduced for the purpose of giving the
minority chance of making records for
use in the State campaign The Repub-
licans understood this and in consequence
decided on arbitrary action. The Demo
Gratis admitted after the session had
closed that they could not reasonably
expect any more consideration than they
had received, and that they would have
done the same thing under similar cir
Clmstance5.
In the Senate the brunt of the fight
fell upon Senator Pitney as the chair
man of the committee on the Revision
of Laws and also as a member of the Ju-
dietary Committee, most of the bills of
general application being referred to one
or other of these committees; the great
er number to the former.
All these received careful considera.
ton, the larger number being reported,
while many improper bills were turned
down, especially Senate No. PIT and
House No. 300, two infamous measures,
which would have operated greatly to
the injury of Morris county and to the
entire northern portion of the State
While speaking on the admirable work
done by the Senator from Morris it may
be mentioned that in addition to his
brilliant part in the debates in the Sem
ate, he introduced the general township
and general revision of the banking
laws. Among his bills of local inter
est were the Dover fresholder bill,
the Florham Park borough bill, the Nor
ristown Excise measure and the Chill
dren's Home bill.
The appropriation of $l4s, 800 for the
completion of the new Hospital build
ing at Morris Plains was secured largely
through Mr. Pitney's efforts.
In the House Messrs Poole and Welsh
were active and efficient in the dis
charge of their duties. They did some
remarkably good committee work. At
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