The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1901-01-04
ALL SORTS OF Bills.
Suppress footbaII; Bigger Penalty
for Kdnapers; Set U p Whip
ping Posts.
WORK FOR THE LEGISLATURES.
Inauguration in Madison ON Next Mon
day-PersOnal Letters TO Law
makers Influential.

Madison, Wis, Jan. APART from
most important measures to come be-
fore the legislature, which meets one
week from tomorrow "wednesday
there is an unusual number of unusual
proposals. When such bills are very
unusual they are styled ''freak" bills
as the one last session to eliminate
cOrsets. The man whose name gets
identified with such a bill is doomed,
and his political death is usually
caused by satire.
Raising Jack-Rabbit Standards.
A Kansas man is trying. to save the
annual loss Of 100000 pounds of
! jack-rabbit meat by inducing his legis-
lature to spend $4,000 for costly Bel
gian hares; and he feels sure by turn
ing them out on the prairie that the
result will be constructive chicken on
every table three times a day.
Nothing quite SO fantastic is pro-
posed for Wisconsin this year, but one
man will ask the legislature to sup
press football, which would prove
more difficult than to convert the rab
bits of the great American desert into
a table luxury.
Of the bill to surround marriage
with a physical and mental test, [
have written previously in these let
ters. Such a measure is not likely to
pass, though it will bring some good
speeches, and likely some funny ones.
A member from northern county will
propose a law to establish whipping
posts as a means for the punishment
of wife beaters. The whipping post
fingers in Delaware, though the lash
ing at it of a 14-year-old boy for THREW
cry lately provoked a good deal of ad-
verse comment. Furnishing a wife is
such an abhorrent thing; the brutal
strong and the helpless weak, that
nothing so arOuses a righteous indig-
nation, and if the measure is properly
launched it will at least be we'll dis
cuSsed.
Many legislatures will be asked to
suppress kidnapping by death penalty
as the result of excitement over the
Cudahy case at Omaha, Neb. kidnap-
ing in Wisconsin is punishable by i'm
prisonment from one to fifteen years in
the state prison It is generally be-
lieved that the death penalty would be
unwise, as putting a compulsion on
criminals to kill their stolen victim
that it cease to be able to testify
against them.
In 1883 the maximum penalty for
kidnapping was raised to five years, and
in 1889 to fifteen years. The Willie
Dickinson case and the protracted sus-
pense and fear after the disappearance
of Maggie Hennecke eXerted an influ-
ence upon the minds of legislators in
favor Of a severer penalty.
Most Awful Form of kidnapping.
Hattie Tying Griswold is a name
we'll known in Wisconsin. Her voice
and pen are ever ready to lift against
iniquity and in behalf of better things
The cause that latest interests her is
the kidnapping of girls and women, who
are taken to the dens that infeSt COM
munities in northern Wisconsin,, A
recent case, the victim committing
suicide, has been reported in the pa
pers, but, as Mrs. GriswOld observes,
cover this fiendish crime there will be
| little or no Outcry.
Mrs. Griswold continues: ''The
dens in Northern Wisconsin have been
| kept filled in similar way for years.
| The fact is known to all men, and the
| people of the state seem to be absO-
lutely Indifferent to the sin and shame
! of it. Will there be any ade-
| Quate effort made to locate this kid
naper and to mete out to him the pun
! ishment due to his hellish crime? ]
| venture to say there will not, and that
| the den in northern Wisconsin where
| she was taken will go on doing bust
ness at the old stand, with all the eff
| frontery of old. Young girls will still
! be lured to their doom by fiends in hui
| man guise."
| 1t is 4 matter that the new governor
| is expected to interest himself in.
! Free Employment Bureaus.
The Milwaukee county board will
report to the legislature bill to Gre
ate free employment offices in Cities"
and it also regulates private employ
| ment agencies, one of the regulations
being an annual license fee of $1OO.
! This. of course, is unreasonable and
would be unjust in taking away the
little business Of widows, and others.
who make little by finding positions
for domestics, nurse maids, and the
| like. Illinois and some other states
have this European device-free en-
ployment agencies, and while it is
socialistic in trend, if the laboring men
want it and can put it in reasonable
shape, like enough they will get it.
though the Milwaukee unions say it is
more an issue for other cities. The
bill provides that the bureau shall not
supply help in cases where employees
are locked out or where there is a
strike in progress.
The grocers who have trouble in col
lecting their bills. have a measure
not new, however-reducing the pres
emit exemption of $15 week. At pres
emit the law protects the wage-earner
to that extent from levy for debt He
may keep $50 month for the support
Of the family, and that may be all he
| earns and is often more. Wisconsin
has the highest exemption of any of
northwestern states; Minnesota has
$50 a month; Michigan $50 per month.
! and Illinois $S per week.
When Petitions Have Weight.
The grocers have an association,
which is a great advantage in secur-
ing legislation, for all it's members