Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-02-14
TIE HARPER BIENNIAL
The Senate This Morning Con.
sidered the Harper Measure
for Biennial Elections.
Sent Back to the Judiciary Com.
mittee to Avoid Any
Errors.
Anti.Pass Bill Scheduled for
Next Wednesday. The Lesis.
lature Today.

Special to Times-Republicar.
Des Moines, Feb. 1.-THE senate
this morning considered the Harper
biennial election measure at length and
| finally sent it back to the judiciary
committee. not because there was op-
position, but to make sure that it is all
right.
Senator Trewin introduced a resolu-
ton calling on the state officers for in
formation as to Why the law had not
been observed with regard to reporting
feated the bill to allow banks to lend
money outside the state. and passed
and appropriation for inauguration OF
expenses and for express deficiency
The house today passed the bill to
| prevent the use a second time of la
beled bottles and casks. a bill for the
relief OF two Warren county land own
ers and to clear title a bill to change
the time of meeting of boards of health,
and thu bill to change the time of meet
ling of boards of health. and the bill of
| the grain dealers to make it a crime to
sell grain on which there is land
lords lien.
The Hughes anti-pas bill was made
a special order for Wednesday morn
ingand the Furry bin to provide county
examiners for Tuesday morning.
The house this morning. after long
discussion defeated the Langan bill to
require that insurance adjusters shall
live the county where the loss oc-
Cured.
New bills were introduced today:
Fields, to regulate the practice of opto-
metry and to license opticians; Swell
ey. to place long distance telephone
lines under the regulation of the rail-
road commission; also for municipal
Ownership and to permitAcities To regu-
late telephone charges. Huges, to. fix n
uniform time for all fiscal periods:
Maytag. to give greater power TO the
labor commissioner in factory inspec-
ton; Classen, to appropriate s25,O0O for
a monument to those who died in An
dersonville prison. Trewin, giving the
library commission authority over
travelling Libraries and appropriating
therefore.
The anti-tax ferret people are going
at their work carefully and are conf
dent they will be able to land their
measure and put an end to tax ferret
ing in Iowa. Today Frank Merriam,
auditor of state, at the request of the
opponents of the tax ferret system.
sent out circular letters to all the coun-
ty auditors of the state asking for def
mite information as to the amount of
money collected by and thru the tax
ferrets and the amount of the taxes
thus collected Which belong to the vari-
Gus state funds. 1t is the belief of the
members that the report Will show that
results have been unsatisfactory. The
state auditors reports do not show the
total amount of tax collections from the
tax ferreting, but only the states share,
and the reports from many counties fail
to keep this separate from the other
tax collections. Unless the information
is got directly from the counties 1t can
not be had A sample is Dubuque. The
reports from that county We're made so
that the state auditor can know ex-
actly how much the tax ferrets recov-
cred. The reports show that fo: the
taxes of 1896 the ferrets collected ST.
425.17: for 1897. s1,574.24; for 1898,
s6S217; for 1899. $695.O9; for 1900,
s61946. or a total of s4,996.13. This is
the states proportion of the collec-
tions, which is the lesser part thereof.
Other counties will show much larger
as for instance Polk county, where the
tax ferrets have collected more than
$4,000 for all funds.
A
The bill for state insurance depart
ment has not yet appeared and yet 1T Is
known that quite a number of the
members are favorable to it. Speaker
Eaton is decidedly in favor of the in
novation and Lieut.. Gov. John H"rriott
believes that an insurance department
is a necessity The Underwriters Club
had a big banquet a few evenings ago
and three of the most influential sena-
tors We're present by invitation. A good
paper was read in which the author
strongly advocated creation of an in
surance department. and 1t was hoped
by the underwriters that this would
spur some of the senators to action.
The state auditor and those who are di-
rectly interested in the insurance de-
partment do not want to urge the mat
ter an any members, because they
would rest under suspicion of desiring
1t for selfish ends. 1t is believed, how
ever that the senate insurance commit
tee, at the head of which is Senator
Smith, of Mitchell, will prepare a COM
mittee measure and present 1t to the
senate for consideration. AS a rule
legislation of this kind seldom gets
thru legislature the first time it is
but many persons desire that
the movement shall be started now.
A few days ago Capt. Beall, of the
capitol police, started out to poll the
as to their preferences in the
between Sampson and
Schley. He got as far as "a for Schley
and / for Sampson and quit. a good
many said that inasmuch as Admiral
Sampson is probably lying on his death
bed they preferred not TO give any ex-
pr. ssion on the matter at this time. :