The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-04-04
NAMES sOLONS.
Their Pay Only $3.50 Session and
Railroad Passes


Railroad Passes.
1t may interest some of the literally
paid Massachusetts Solons to know
that their brothers in Maine receive
only one hundred and fifty dollars for
session that usually continues three
months. That compensation and a
moderate mileage constitute the total
recompensa for giving up business and
spending most Of the winter in Augusta
In affairs of the state. II it were pos
sible to obtain subsistence at Augusta
during those three months at The rea-
Sonable terms that prevail there during
the other montha of the two years, then
the situation would NOT be so bad. But
the hotels and the boarding houses in
+ tend to and they do make hay while the
legislative sun shines. For instance,
you and I, transients. may go to the
principal Augusta hotels during the ses-
! sion of the legislature and secure the
/ best accommodatlonst- are re-
served for transients--for two dollars
day. But legislators boarding there for
the session don't get any kind of
room for less than eighteen dollars a
I week. and from that up to thirty dol
| lars. The price for few choice rooms
in one Of the largest hotels in the city
! is even fancier. 1t may be said that
usually those rooms are occupied by
men who are present during the session
in the interests of certain large corpo-
ratiors. The price of the choice rooms
is too long, usually, for the most afi1ll-
ent Maine legislator.
~.
and Senate grow nervous about this
time in March. This has accounted for
the force rush of business this week
There have been two sessions a day.
and the bills, acts and resolutions have
been ground through at headling speed
The legislators were determined to wind
things up and go home. They them
selves realize that even though no es-
pecal harm may be done by this final
stampede of legislation, yet 1T Is not the
proper way Of doing business. Too
great opportunity for chicanery is per-
mltted,
Many times in Maine legislators on
getting home and reading the laws that
they have helped to make have been as
tonished to discover certain acts on the ,
books. They might have heard of such !
legislation as being proposed but they
had not the least idea that the law had |
been enacted. So, too, others have been
amazed to discover the real application
of certain bits of legislation The thing
sounded all right when enacted, but the
workings of 1t have proved all wrong.
The Maine legislature that has just
adjourned considered various schemes /
for improving the financial condition of
other legislatures that should follow.
Somehow or other their thoughtfulness
for the future didn't bear results. For
instance, 1t has been the custom in the
past for the railroads of the state to
give each legislator three months
pass in order that he might get home
over Sunday after his wearing duties at
the capital. 1T has been claimed that
the tender of this transportation was in
no sense a bride, but merely an act of
good will on the part of quasi-public
in consideration Of the fact
that the legislators of Maine are insult
fciently remunerated. Some people
have maintained that any legislator :
with pass in his pocket couldn't act
with candor and uprightness in any
matter in which the railroads were con-
This talk Is made by people
outside of the legislature, and the sem
timent seems to be that such people
should remain outside If their con-
science is in such shape that they cam
not understand how another can resist
The petty temptation Of three months
pass. The amount of the matter u.s. the
pass business as at present arranged,|
n the Maine legislature is accepted as !,
i matter of course, and no man who re-
,eives one of the bits of pasteboard is
asked to or expected to obligate himself
q do one act of partially in behalf Of
abroad.
The Maine lawmakers have had
pretty good chance to declare Them