The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1905-03-16
NEWS AND GOSSIP FROM THE
STATE CAPITOL.
St. Paul. March 18th, 1905.


dissenting vote. But the code as
passed by the house would hardly be
recognized by the revision commits
sioners as the code which they
presented to the legislature. The
house tackled on a batch of amend
ments variously estimated at from
1900 to 1900 in number, and passed the
entire conglomeration five days after
the judiciary committee reported the
matter back to the house. Such I'M
heard of celebrity argues one OF two
things, either the house members
simply wanted the credit OF having
passed the code or else they wished to
pass the thing along to the senate,
thereby shifting the responsibility
from their own shoulders to those of
the senators. Should the senate fail
to pass the code now there are plenty
of house members who would endeavOr
to make political capital out OF the
matter by arguing in this wise: We
put the code in the best shape we
could and passed it, we did our duty
if the senate failed to pass it we are
blameless; let the senators explain
their neglect Of duty as best they can.
X j. +
Such talk may "listen good" to the
unwary and uninitiated but it won't
go with the voter of average intelll-
gence who cares to place himself in
touch with the facts. Certain it is,
no bill of any kind ever came from
one branch to the other in such a
hOpelessly entan9led and disordered
condition as was the amended code
received by the senate from the house
on Saturday. If the senate judiciary
committee, to which this now famous
H. F. No. 40 was referred, can olsen
tangle the mess and bring even COM
parative order out of the chaos inside
of couple of weeks, it certainly is to
be congratulated. There are printed
amendments, typewriter amend
ments, pen and ink amendments and
pencil amendments, some of them in
the printed and bound copy, consti-
tuting the original bill, while the bulk
of them are in stitched block or pad
unattached, even, to the bill proper.
How proud the house must be of the
elegant shape in which it passed the
code over to the senate! And yet, l
doubt not, the worthy and dignified
senators are expected to be able to
descipher the thing and be ready to
place it on it's final passage in two
weeks or so. In short there's picnic
ahead and it's going to be worth
watching.
A serious question has arisen in the
minds of few of the members relative
to the code: which is preferable, an
unsatisfactory and mayhap dangerous
revision, or the present multiplicity
Of statutes, more or less conflicting
and inharmOnious? 1t would really
be too bad to have the $S5 900 spent on
the revision wasted, and yet it might
be better in the end that it be wasted,
for none can tell what the sequel may
be to the passage of the revised code.
!. i y
There are some mighty peculiar
bills introduced at every session of the
legislature, and the present session is
not without its quota. In many
instances the members fathering them
are not to be too harshly criticized
because it may and often does happen,
that freak measures are the work of
some well-meaning but impractical
constituent who requests it's introduce
ton. But freak bills are not ali
introduced "by request not by a
long way. There was notable
example of what / would term freak
measure that made its appearance in
the house some days ago. This bill
provides that on Saturdays the rail-
roads shall charge not to exceed one
cent mile passenger rate, tickets to
be good for return on the following
Monday. Just try to think what the
result would be should such measure
become law!
= !. +
There is another sort of freak bill,
too. This other kind is sometimes
referred to as ga bill with price tag
on it, its object being to force some.
body, usually a big corporation, to
"dig up" to prevent its passage or
favorable consideration by committee.
| am told that there have been one or
two measures of this class introduced,
but whether or not they are serving
their purpose l am unable to say.
We all know that Estate Legislature"
and "Spotless Town" are not always
synonymous; however, l have been
reliably informed that there are few
signs of legislative ''sculduggery" to
be noticed in St. Paul this winter,
considerably less than has been the
case at some previous sessions. This
is we'll, and argues that our standard
of citizenship is being elevated.
=. =, q,