The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-07-27
MANY AMENDMENTS TO
 BILL PRECEDING BLOCH'S
Expected That Same Tactics Will
 Be Resorted to Monday.
Effort to Be Made te Agree to Amend- Ments ts Mining Measure That VIII Make 1t Satisfactory and Permit 1t to be Called up
 And Passed

Absolutely in doubt as to what might be the fate of the mining bill should 1t come before the House for discussion yesterday, the leaders of that branch of the Legislature earlydecided that the better way to deal with the question would be to prevent that bill from be-
 To do this they resorted to fillibus- tering tactics which were agreed upon in the morning and carried out at the afternoon session. with the result tnat much valuable time was lost and the better part of the middle session used up in tho offering of useless resolu- tions and amendments.
 The situation was this: In the morning session all attempts to call up a bill that does not follow in the regular order can be blocked by the objection of a single member, because the unanimous assent of the House mas to be obtained by the member who seeks for it's consideration.
 The members of the House. therefore who feared the interjection of this mine and mining bill were absolutely sage at that session and could piock any attempt that the champion or the bill. MT. Bloch, or others could make
 With the afternoon session things
 
 nassed last Tuesday, the House decided That At the afternoon session the roll of members should be called and each member in turn should have the op- portuntty to call up any bill he pleas ed.
 Acting on this resolution which, by the way. was strenuously objected to at the time by the Speaker of the House MT. Carmichael, the roll cah
 lA and MT. Bloch's name was not Tar re Z moved from that of the first name call ed.
 When the hour of 4:3o was reached only two names were intervening oe tween the last cau and that of MT nisn. MT. Benners. of Hais, who was .s next on call. asked for bill requir- ing that all laws of a local character be printed In some newspaper in tne county affected.
 At this time there was only the name of MT. Benson, of Jackson to be called before MT. Bloch would have his tnnings and s-rId ask for the mining bill
 Filibustering is Begun.
 AS soon as MT. Benners had called his hill. the filibustering tactics were begun, and 50 well were they carried out that when the hour of adjournment had arrived, an hour and half after the bill had been first called. 1t was still before the House and had to go over until the session of Monday af- ternoon.
 The method pursued was familiar one. that of offering objections and amendments. It is well known that when the Aour of adjournment arrived there was on the clerks desk another amendment to the bill and several
 red n they were found necessary.
 During the course of'this procedure there were motions made to table the whole bill which would have effectu- ally settled the whole question, but in every instance leaders of the move- ment were instantly on their feet with the appeal that the maker of the mo- tion should shut off the discussion on the question at hand. and a request that the motion be withdrawn. And in every instance this was done. The same rule followed when some member would call for the previous question. another method of shutting off debate. Only one member of the House used the word "flibustering." and that was MT. Kirby, who moved the previous question and when he was asked to withdraw it. said he was not in favor of any flibustering tactics. He did withdraw his motion. however. and made no attempt to renew 1t. although there were several speakers who fol- lowed MT. Tunstall, who made of him the request to withdraw.
 In the opinion of several of the members of the House. the same tac- tics will be renewed on Monday after noon The House Is in an excellent po- sition to do this. There is already the bill on which the flibustering tactics were introduced to be disposed of. and this can be easily drawn out into a discussion that will last a couple of hours. When that Is disposed of, there Is still MT. Benson's name to be called, and he can introduce bill on which the balance of the afternoon session can be used up.
 To Amend the Bill.
 On the other hand the friends of the bill are not without their resourctt and their leader believes that he has something up his sleeve that will beat these filibustering tactics.
 While he declined to make these known last evening what his plan may be. it was said that he had sent to the attorney for the miners at Birmingham a copy of the pamphlet that had been laid on the desk of every member of the House by the operators, and in which they stated their objections to the bill.
 His object in this, is was said, was to oNO tHiS dtloTHey draw up set of amendmens to the bill that would meet these objections. As forty-five of the sections of the bill have already been agreed upon between the miners and the mine operators, it is thought that amendments that will meet ob- jections to the other sections of the bl may effect a settlement.
 Leaders of the opposition say that if this Is done there may be no furth- CT opposition to the bill. but unless some agreement is reached. the bill will not be allowed to come before the House until it is too late to get it through at this session of the Leg laure.
 Would Reverse Rolf Call
 An insance of the proceedings of yes- terday shows how determined the op- position is on this question. There was introduced to the House and referred to the committee on rules. resolu-
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