Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1905-02-09
THE CAPITOL CITY
Where the State Laws are
Made.
Forty legislative Committees Made
OmciaI Visits Last Week
Lansing, February 6, 1905.

Lansing, feDTuhTy ., lJUO.
The legislature has been in recess
all the past week, while the commit
tees have been paying their visits of
inspectio to the various institutions
of the state. and the senate chamber
and representative hall and their
auxiliary rooms have been deserted
Somewhat less of hustle may have
been apparent in the corridors of the
capitol and the lobbies OF the hotels,
but not elsewhere would the absence
of the lawmakers produce a visible
effect. Some people in the state
perhaps think Lansing must be a
/ lonesome place in the intervals be-
tween sessions, not realizing that
their capital city is one of the most
thrifty and progressive towns of the
state. Its manufacturing interests
are large, numerous and varied, and
rapidly expanding. One building of
new automobile factory erected in
the last six months extends solid
across two entire blocks, and sec
ond nearly as far; and these are TO be
duplicated next spring, and builders
reckon that the houses erected here
III the past year number $50. A town
of twenty thousand people that can
do that doesn't get lonesome when
the legislature adiourns. One Of the
new buildings was n Methodist church
dedicated last Sunday, and the pros
porous people responded with con
tributions Of $500 in excess of the
debt they were asked to pay 1t is to
house the oldest congregation here,
whose first service. was held sixty
years ago. Rev. Lewis Coburn
preached the sermon in lS4j.
The number.of committees of the
two houses that have been engaged
the past week in visiting the prisons,
reformatories, asylums, homes and
schools of the state, number more
than forty, with total membership
Of nearly two hundred. So it is evil
dent when they were all out there
could not he left of the one hundred
and forty members of the two houses
enough even to call for the regular
order. and some of them have had 4
harder weeks work than they have
while In session here. We should be
glad that the localities have treated
~
'junket," nor in any wise unseemly
or unsuitable on either side that they
were entertained at dinner by the
people of Ypsilanti, or Marquette, or
by the Soldiers Home or the Agri
cultural College.
Governor Warmers appointment of
J. w. McKone of Albion to the va
cancy on the state board of education
in place of Z. w. Kelley, elected su-
perintendent, is only for the brief
period until the April election; but
it gives him an advantageous position
in the canvass for the election. He
graduated from the Ypsilanti Normal
seventeen years ago, and has been
teaching ever since; and last Decem-
Der he was elected president of the
state teachers association.
There had been introduced in the
senate, up to the adjournment Jan
uary %, ighty-eight bills, and in the
house, one hundred and sixty-one.
Two years ago the adjournment for
the recess was a week later, but the
senate at that date had only eighty
six bills, and the house two hundred
and ninety-six, Notwithstanding the
large proportion of skeleton bills then
introduced only for titles, of which
now there are none.