The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-02
THE WEEKLY JOURNAL,
 Issued Thursday, One Dollar n Year.
THE CENTRAL ASSEMBLY,.

It is the misfortune of some peo- pie who are really very much more att tractive than their outside appearance would suggest to be forever putting forward their weaker sides, absolutely forbiddlng people to accept them at fair valuation. This in a few words describes the General Assembly of 1907. Not devoid of first rate ability nor hmpty of legislators of experience, 1t has nevertheless been quarrelsome, pet ty, unforgiving and f1nicky. The State will be glad to be rid of it, though it will hope at the same time that some ,f it's new members will show d will ngness to again serve the people in The two houses of legislation,
 The weakness of the House of Representatives has consisted in it's lack of leadership. Speaker Tilson or ganized it with a fine sense of the ius- tiee due the minority representatives and discriminated on the whole we'll between the new and the old members. From that time on it drifted for four months showing neither an adaptability for the legislative work cut out for it to do or readiness to learn. Had it been moved by subtler appreciation of the responsibility reposed in it. it Is doubtful if the Economic Club of this city would ever have thought of invit- ing it's leaders to talk about the disap- pointing situation and 1t is equally doubtful If the speeches which were de- stined to make for such irritation would ever have been made. Leader Banks might never have leetaHedN flae goxarnur oyer t5e heh otf efs c{itiiibJ members upon the constitutional dis elimination as drawn between the leg lslative and executive departments of government and Governor Woodruff might never have felt called upon to wash his hands of the responsibility in- volved in inaction. All the things that have happened since in the way of neg feet of duty and in the way of legisla- tive sauciness would have been avoided had that body not taken easily to the doctrine of letting things drift instead of steering the public business into it's proper channels. It has not been a case of insincerity or of corrupt in fluences; 1t has been a simple case of inefficiency born largely of lack of courage, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, of a lack of experience.
 The trouble with the senate dated at all times back to the organization of it by outside influences which sought to control 1t in committee rooms in behalf of the public service corporations. If there was lacking proof of this during the greater part of the session 1t was supplied towards the close when Sena- tors McNeil and Judson admit ted the truth of their joint visit to President Mellen of the New Haven Railroad Company to induce him to keep his hands off and let the senate do its own organizing. The af AN laf. more and more irritating as the session ran on, made its impression at every stage of senatorial deliberation Wheth- CT Senator Walsh, the leader of the senate, with his faithful twenty-one supporters are to be deliberately charg- ed up so far as the creation of their power Is concerned to corporate infiu- cree or not, the fact remains that the people of the State have been made more or less justly suspicious of the freedom and independence of their leg isative enlistment because of the source of their supremacy. We are not at all sure that the public service cor poratiohs would have been denied a single thing they have acquired during the winter had the senate been left to organize itself, as the people of course supposed it intended to do when they elected their representatives to it, but that unfortunately has nothing what ever to do with the case which an un- expected organization has shaped. By a stupid as well as impertinent inter- ference with the independence of that body it was at one stroke of the pen brought into diseredit. And aside from the injury 1t did the senate in the es- timation of the people of the State ii was the costliest enterprise the railroad has managed since it came under the new regime.
 The General Assembly of 1907 has however, done some very good things