The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-07

months or so, the members of the leg islature would be required from the ne- cessities of the case to devote practi- cally the entire week to legislative bus mess and the legitimate business of the state could be easily disposed of In a period of ninety days.
 Another cause for the prolonged ses- sion lies in the fact that there has sprung up a usage not to enter upon committee hearings until the time has passed for the introduction of new bus mess. The tendency is to make lib- eral time allowance in that respect, and at almost each session, when that time has nearly expired, 1t has been ex- tended-at some sessions more than once-to enable parties who have influ- ence enough to accomplish the result, to prepare measures which they desire to have introduced, and which (due to their own inaction) have not been for mulated in time to introduce during the period first specified for the intro duction of new busineess.
 The plea in support of this usage has been that 1t is unwise for committee to enter upon the consideration of any given measure because other measures bearing upon the same subject matter may be introduced, and that at the end of the time specified for new busi- ness they can then proceed to a con- sideration of such measures grouped together.
 This has resulted in postponing all legislative business aside from sitting brief time to enable bills and meas ures to be introduced, for a period of two months or more.
 In recent years special interests have been advanced by reason of the efforts of those to which these mat ters have been entrusted to the neglect of all general legislation. It is mere ly another application of the saying that what is everybody's business is no ones business. The result in the | last general assembly was that as late as the 1st of May, after the legis- i lature had been in theoretical session four months there was hardly a meas ure of general legislation that had l been reported by a committee or acted upon by the legislature. At that time the files disclosed a huge volume Of business, but it was, with a very few exceptions, made up of special legis- lation, charters, etc, that had beer advanced by the interested parties, tC the exclusion of general legislation For several sessions past, general leg islation of importance has not come out of committee until almost the closing days of the session when nc adequate deliberation is given to sucf measures.
 I am of the opinion that a constitu' tional limitation is imperatlvely re- qured, and that with such limitaton al of the busness presented could be eas fly disposed of even though no remed! were resorted to, to exclude Legislation upon special subjects, although @ bet ter result could be attained by botl the constitutional limitation upon tn length of the session and the exclusion from legislative consideration of spec ial charters, etc.
 I believe that a legislative mandat
 whereby the length of the sessiol
 should be curtailed would be utterl,
 futile. It is common practice with ou
 general assemblies to ignore the posi-
 tive mandates of the statute.
 For instance, the general statute | provide that S1OOO0 only shall be allow