The age-herald., 1901-02-20
Some EoIIIes of LealsIation.

Some Foflies of Legislation.
 "The best and most commendable, the wisest and broadest fight you have made recently was that in which you strove for the protection of the high class se- cret societies and mutual benefit asso- citations, and all the worthy secret or ders having insurance features" said an Alabama statesman and high secret society member yesterday.
 "Your Age Herald work was proof of earnest friendship for the secret socie- ties with insurance features and friendly interest in the public at the same time and I greatly fear that we may all re- gret that your urgent advice to the Leg islature to refrain from meddling with the two mutual aid societies aand mutual benefit associations acts passed before Christmas was not needed and adhered to. You wrote by the card. Your facts were clearly obtained from secret socie- ties sources, and your arguments appear to have been inspired by some man or men high in the confidence and honors of the greatest societies, like the Knights of Pythias, the Knights of Honor, the Knights Temp1ar the Eiks, and so on. Your pleading was pre-eminently right.
 But unhappily the House of Repre- sentatives, stirred up perhaps by thought less and visionary influences, seems to have become panic-stricken, and, led in part by MT. Clarke of Mobile, who merely desired to have some working mems societies in his town exempted from the operations of the acts in ques- ton, that legislative body ran amuck through the acts it had solemnly and after long consideration enacted but six or seven weeks before.
 "Eighty-three different societies have been made exempt from the now amended acts passed before Christmas for the protection of all respectable secret so- cieties and the consequent protection of the public from chance wildcat schemes of robbery and rascality, and the two acts, framed and passed at the instance of the supreme authorities of all the great secret societies, now virtually serve TO other purpose than to cumber the statute-books of the State.
 From the gallery of the House of Representatives I heard the principal
 
 society demand that this society be ex- elnpt from the law. I was amazed, and I hastened to ask him what he meant by weakening the influence of our order through a refusal to allow the merely nominal inspection of it's business books, when he knew that those books would stand the closest scrutiny from even national bank examiner. He didn't know, he said That was the trouble; nobody seemed to know. The result is that the great secret socities are denied the vast benefit that would arise from a certificate of inspection from the insurance com missioner of the State. There is no off, fcial authority of the State to certify to the doubters and to all the world that these great and useful societies are pre- csely as they proudly exist, solvent and strong as the best of insurance con- r; nies. That seems to me to be grave injustice to the societies themselves, and to all the members. I speak as a secret society man of the best standing.
 "Under the law of Alabama any two men with six dollars in cash to pay the tr'f1ing fees incident to organization can organize a mutual aid society or benefit protective association, and proceed forth with to do business, and if they be shrewd men they can easily secure thousands of victims whose money they could appro- priate to their own private purposes.
 ".All this comes of the crazy meddling with the two acts of protection passed by the Legislature before the Christmas recess. It is discouraging and mourn full fact that some where about a hun dred of the acts passed by the Legisla- ture before the Christmas recess have now been amended or repealed"