Perth Amboy evening news., 1907-04-13
A Bitter Struggle
Between Senate
and House.
SUNDAY LAWS GUARDED
Features Were The Election Of
United States Senator: War on
Liquor Laws, Move for
Civil Service. Anti-RaiI-
road legislation.
special 70 the ETENING NEWs:

KEN lO&N, apr 10 ALTER d Dlt-
ter contest between the senate and
assembly lasting more than three
hours a state railroad commission
bill was passed by the legislature. The
bill as amended in the house passed
the senate this morning at 7:15 and
both houses then adjourned for the
recess until June IS. The bill fl
nally adopted creates a commission
of three members at salaries of $5,-
900 each to be appointed by the gov
ernor. The board is to have a sec
retary and other necessary clerks,
but no inspectors as provided in both
the original house bill and the SEN
ate substitute to that measure.
The bill Is administrative in part
and advisory in part and in that par
ticular is a compromise between the
two houses II is administrative as
far as the safety of travel and the
kind of service given by the compan-
les; that is to say, that in those par
ticulars the commission is given pow
er to give the railroad it's orders that
the tracks, bridges, etc, must be
made more safe, together with the
rolling stock. Also it is given power
to compel an increase in the efficiency
where deemed necessary. Beyond
that the board is advisory, with pow
er only to investigate alleged rail-
road evils and recommend reforms to
the Legislature. Power is given the
commission to enforce its orders in
the courts, this provision being strin-
gent
Following two failures of the con-
ferees on the proposition to agree to
compromise, the senate committee
drafted a new bill, which was intro
duced and passed about 8 o'clock this
morning 1t was sent to the house
to committee. 1t was generally
satisfactory except that no provision
whatever had been made for the en-
! forcement of the orders of the COM
mission. This was corrected by
alnenuments Then the bill was re-
ported and passed.
During this work in the measure
| in the house there was fight in the
senate on the question of concurring
! in any amendments. Senator Lee,
of Atlantic county, made a bitter at
tack on the action of the house demo-
Gratis. He charged that they had not
| kept faith with the senate and that
they were only playing politics.
/ "They are making monkeys out of
u.s." he said. Twice the senate was
on the verge of taking the final re-
cess, leaving the house in the lurch
with the measure. Better counsels
prevailed, however, and when the
bill came back with the house amend
ments they were concurred in and the
contest was over
This proposition was one of the
chief features of the session just
closed
Review of the Fourteen Weeks.
Fourteen weeks of law making,
which ended last night, while pro-
ductive of some good measures
was not as fruitful in that
respect as it gave promise for
at the beginning. After the ad-
journment several leading legislat-
ors expressed the opinion that the
session had not been as important as
that of last year.
The session has been featured by
1.-THE memorable contest for the United
States senatorship in which John f.
Dryden was forced to retire in favor
of Frank 0. Briggs; the war on the
question of more liberal liquor laws;
the move to enact civil service; the
referendum and initiative in the mat
ter of legislation the anti-railroad
and anti-corporation laws, and the
Dickinson-Fagan incident
Notwithstanding the crusade
against lobbying the latter part of
the session last year there has prob
ably been more lobbying than ever
this year. but this situation has been
characterized that there has been a
peoples lobby present to offset the
lobbyists working for the corpora
tions. The Representatives of the
Peoples Lobby, while they have MOI
obtained the passage of many of theil
measures, claim they have made de
Continued on page 3D.