Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1907-03-22
Friday, March %, 1907.
The House Kills Capital Removal.

ne Rouse Nils Capital Removal.
The members of the Maine House OF
Representatives were true to them
selves and to the hest interests of the
State when they voted yesterday by u
decisive majority to put an end to the
capital removal nonsense about which
SO much has been heard of late. The
scheme of the Portland boomers who
desired to enrich their city at the ex-
pense of sister city and to put the
taxpayers of Maine under burden of
increased and unnecessary taxation for
the sake of satisfying the pride of their
city, has been given the rebuke meritei
by such a preposterous proposition.
The game of noise and bluff which the
Portland promoters have played so dcs-
perately in their attempts to stampede
the Legislature has met with the fail
ure which it deserves.
For weeks and weeks during the
present session of the Legislature this
Portland proposition has been kept at
the front to confuse and obscure the
important work Of legislation which
the members OF the 73d Legislature
were sent here TO do. There is no need
to tell again how and where the move
mcnt originated and what measures
have been resorted to by its friends
Suffice it to rejoice at this time that
the members of the House of Repre-
scntatives, having heard from the pco-
pie at home on this subject and hav-
ing considered carefully the best inter-
day by decisive majority that leeis-
lation is nexpedient and that an ex-
pensivc and unnecessary referendum
on the subject of capital removal, which
nobody outside of Portland has ever
called for. will not he forced upon the
people of Maine.
1t was not an Augusta victory which
was won yesterday in the House of
Representatives, but a victory of tn ,
State of Maine over tie greed and sell
fishness of a coterie of men in a single
city who sought with an energy ami
shrev dncSs worthy Of a better cause,
to secure change in the seat of gov
eminent solely as a business invest
mont for their own city. AS a part OF
their scheme Of claiming everything
and seeking nrnfit hv mis-
tion. the friends of the Portland move
Inent have assured us over and over i'm
the papers that they were certain Of al
least S3 votes in the House When the
test came, yesterday however. they
could muster but Co votes and a littia
later ON another phase OF the same
the opponents of the capital removal
had - votes and on the second 81
votes.
The majority Of the members of the
House believed that the people ot
Maine had already expressed their sem
tinichtS on this subject, since over
10000 remonstrants had been heard
from. representing every county in the
state. and only IL few hundred petition
ers outside of Cumberland county. They
believed that there should he no refer
cndum without an initiative and that
the Initiative in this instance was
wholly lacking. They believed thai
there was no popular demand for capi-
tai removal and that Augusta is the
proper place for the State capital a.
II has been for the past 50 years: that
the State has no money to waste in
building public buildings for the adorn-
mcnt of Portland: that the State has
no need of charity from Portland or
favor of capital removal have been
fully answered, and that there is more
important business to be attended to
in these closing days of the session
than to keep up this capital removal
talk.
The vote Of the House yesterday was
therefore something for the whole State
10 be grateful for. The capital removal
proposition is as dead as Julius Caesar
and only the pity remains that it was
ever born or taken seriously by even a
minority of the Legislature.