The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1905-02-02
DRAWING THE DEAD LINE.
Committee on Appropriations Will Favor
Resolves Calling for Money for New
Sche
Special to the Portland Press

schemes.
Special to the Portland Press
AUGUSTA, Jan. 81. 1t is said that the
committee on appropriations and financial
affairs has drawn the dead line and that no
resolves calling for money for new schemes
are to receive the words sought to pass"
from the committee.
The institutions which have been assisted
in the past will get their regular allotments
but no new hospitals, homes or schools are
to get the money for which they ask-at
least not with the consent of the finance
committee. And, following out this plan,
there will be no appropriations for new
buildings, etc.
The resolve appropriating $4,000 for the
Waldo county general hospital was the first
to get the axe at the hands of the committee
and the recommendation sought not to pass"
was voted after d full and fair hearing 1t
is true that the committees report has been
hung up in the senate and that the Waldo
county members are hard at work trying to
get reconsideration, but if the finance
committee adhereS to its present plan the
resolve will once more go to the wall The
finance committee is headed by Senator
Beecher Putnam of Houlton and he has one
of those up-country dispositions which are
not subject to change without notice like
railroad time table. Having made up his
mind on matter, you might as well try to
convert Thomas +. Murphy to Republican
ism as to get Mr.. Putnam to go back on his
position. 1t is said that the financiers have
firmly resolved to stand by their guns and
if they do there is a lively time coming.
To begin with, members of the Waldo
delegation are going to fight the committees
recommendation with every power at hand.
Ii they fail to get favorable report on
their resolve, they may hold up the resolves
for all the other hospitals, including the
Maine General at Portland, the Central
Maine Gaparal al I au;ictnp nd ho Ea
Maine General at Bangor. Whether they
would be successful is, of course, another
question, but the attempt would make the
session very exciting.
The reported resolution of the finance
committee to hew to the dead line will send
shivers up and down the back of many
member who has slipped in resolve in the
hope that it might get through without
much opposition.
The members of the committee on tinan-
cial affairs take the ground that the Repub-
lcan party, which predominateS in the leg
islature, is committed by its platform and
It's campaign utteranceS to an admniStra-
ton OF rigid economy and that there is no
one committee that can do mo re than the f.
nance committee to see that this pledge is
kept. They say that each member who in
PRODUCES measure asking for money does
SO in good faith, thinking that the State can
spare the amount OF money which he asks.
'But,' say they, tive get the sum total of
all these bills and we see that to send them
all along their way with a favorable report
would exhaust the State treasury. We are
appointed to stand by the door of the treas
ury and see that these bills do not reach ag-
gregates which are greater than the State
can afford. We don't wish to appear as
cheese parers. but it is absolutely necessary
that we draw the line somewhere, and we
are trying to do it in such way that the
material interests of the State will not suf-
Ter. We intend to keep appropriations
down and if the pledges of last summer are
not carried out, it will not be our fault"