The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-11-02
The Outlook In Somerset.

Notwithstanding the love feast in Somer-
| set county, of which we read SO much II
| the Republican press. Mr.. s'Charlie" Reed
! IS still having troubles of his own. OF
oourse the q. O.. p. newspapers would
have US believe Lew" Thompson fell IN
Charles. neck and swore to forget the
past. but.
Mr.. Reeds record as presiding ofhcer Oh
the Senate is bobbing up like Banquos
ghost. and much of his time just now IS
taken up in trying to keep it down The
farmers OF Somerset won't be persuaded
to forget the part which he took in the
death of the five per cent. bill. TO the
worthy agriculturist, who barely digs a
living out of the ground and has to Dor
row money to procure the instruments
with which to do that digging, the 1ive
per cent. bill was as precious almost as
life. The bill reduced the legal rate OF IN
terest from six to five per cent. Tnat
one per cent. meant a great deal to the
farmer and he confidently looked to ms
Senator. the sHon." Charles A. Reed, the
Republican champion of the people, TO
help him. Much to his surprise, MI. Reed
left the chair. went down upo the floor
of the Senate and worked most INDUS
triously until he a brought about the
defeat of the bill. There is no Lest we
Forget, about the Somerset farmer IN
this particular, and Mr.. Reed will dis
cover how good his memory Is, next Tues
day.
Now the labor men, too, are up in arms
against Mr.. Reed for his action on Mr..
Benny's railroad bill. This was the
measure which provided that the big fire.
box engines, commonly spoken of as
camel Backs should be manned by
three men. Tt was a measure in the cause
of humanity, and, as such, it should have
been supported by every man with n
bowels of compassion. It has been demon
strated again and again that one man
cannot alone fire one of these big loco
motives. The increased fire room requires
more coal than does the old style boiler,
and there are instances on record where
the lone fireman has broken down from
exhaustion and overwork after running a
Short time on one OF these engines. There
is also a case on record where the engi-
neer died at his post, and disaster was
narrowly averted by the freman's acci-
dental discovery of the fact.
The danger of these engines is recog-
nized by some roads and on them, three
men are employed. Mr.. Benny carried the
bill through the Assembly and 1t went over
to the Senate. The committee. to which
it was referred, refused to report it one
way or the other, because some railroads
objected TO 1t. Mr.. McDermott, the Sena-
tor from Hudson, endeavored to get the
bill out of committee and finally o
that the committee be relieved from the
further consideration of the measure.
Although that motion has frequently been
carried in the House, Mr.. Reed refused to
entertain it in the Senate, claiming that
it wal out of order. That ruling killed
the measure. The labor men, especially
the railroaders. and there are a number
of them in Somerset county. appreciate
that by that ruling Mr.. Reed made him
self more responsible h anyone else
for the death of the measure and they
will show their appreciation of his action
by voting unanimously for James ].
Bergen, the Democratic candidate.