The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-02-01
TO MILK THEM.
Lots of "Holdup" Bills In This
Session
Of the Legislature Which Are
introduced
NOT FOR PASSAGE
But to Bleed Corporations by
Threats and Terrorism.
Watch These Bills Attacking
the Corporations
AND YOU WILL SEE
Them Disappear One After An
other MysteriOusly
As Each "OctOpus" Comes Down
With the Cash.
But to Bleed Corporations by
Threats and Terrorism.
Watch These Bills Attacking
the Corporations
AND YOU WILL SEE
Them Disappear One After An
other MysteriOusly
As Each Octopus" Comes Down
With the Cash.

This session of the legislature appears
to have as many 'holdup'' bills as any
previous one. A ''holdup" bill is one
introduced threatening a corporation
with a license tax, an inspection, a, re-
duction of charges or a regulation"
which shall decrease its profits. The cor
poration is thus frightened into paying
money to those backing the bill, and
on payment of the money the bill is
killed. 1t is not introduced in good
faith, but merely to bleed manufactur-
ing and transportation companies. Some
of the bills appear meritorious on their
face, but they are really for the pur-
pose of squeezing Doodle into the pock-
cts of the members of the legislature
or of lobbyists.
There are anti-railroad bills, anti
Pullman bills, anti-pass bills, anti-pat-
ent medicine bills, anti-Standard Oil
bills, anti-tobacco bills, and anti-Other
kinds of bills, world without end, which
never last longer than the average
SnoWstorm in Kansas. They are intro
duced and disappear in some strange
manner and the author his fellow
lobbyist goes home and starts a store
or something of the kind Then there
are bills TO give physicians of the reg
ular school of medicine a monopoly.
Again, there are bills to prevent the
sale of lightning rods and to drive ped
dlerS and venderS out of the state.
These never pass, and only the authors
of these measures know why.
Then there are bills to prevent the
sale of certain articles in the state;
to compel insurance companies to do
unreasonable things, the principles of
which would never be applied to the
business dealings of any member of the
legislature at home or abroad. Then
there is one now pending to require RI
val telephone companies to maintain
joint exchanges in cities, another to
suppress bucket shops and others to
prevent bankers loaning money. The
legislative calendars are loaded up bi-
ennially, with bills which are not intro
duced in good faith and which are soon
lost sight of in the general mix-up.
Playing to the galleries seems to be
the general rule, while some of the
players stand on the floor, with one
hand appealing for justice, uplifted in
supplication. as it. were, the other be
hind him, palm up, extending, open and
ready, to the lobby. These things are
incidents in the law-making processes
of the state and the men who engage in
1t believe. they are really fooling the
people.
A section of Kansas land would be
required in which to bury the bills
which have died and have been killed
by the legislatures which have assembled
in Topeka since the state has been or
against law making do not come
from the corporations. They come
from the blood money lobby which
holds up the corporations at the muzzle
of a bill and makes them deliver.
1t is said that the average legislator
is very careful to avoid evil, but it is
also said that many of them, in the
past have been active in stunning the
evil and grabbing the root of all evil
money.
The average Kansas historian has
accomplished many things, almost in
credible, but no one has yet appeared
who could fathom the mysteries sur
rounding committee. rooms or apart
ments maintained by lobbyists in To-
peka hotels. Nevertheless many
stories of boodling have been whispered
about with sufficient evidence to thor
oughly demonstrate that the lobbies
are free in the use of money to accom-
plish the defeat of bills, especially those
which tend to restrain or regulate the
business methods of great corporations
There is story that the railroads
thought they had purchased the votes
of seventeen members of the house of
representatives in the special session, at
$3.50 apiece, in opposition to the bill Gre
ating the court of visitation
There is another story, in the past
to the effect that the stock yards com
pany wanted to spend money two years
ago. Many men of the past not dead
are doing business in the present and
it is not unnatural for the PopuIists
Republicans and Democrats to pre-
sumo that the "other fellows at this
time would decline to accept a valuable
present" as an evidence of the apprec-