Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1909-02-19
WORK OF THE
LEGISLATORS
hafd Fight Against Bank Guaranty
and Other Important Bills.
The "AO' NAILED Tighter
Topeka, Feb. ID. 1909.

Oh ilnally getting down to ac-
tual hard work. While there ha
oeen considerable complaint iron
some sources that much time
mas been wasted, it must be
= borne in mind that all prellml-
nary work of the House and all
preliminary work on big meas
ures is done in committee.
and while sometimes committees
get quick action on themselves,
at other times, owing to the
numerous bills before them, all
more or less on the same subject
: 1t takes considerable time to
thresh out just the kind of a
measure that will suit the COM
mttee. 1t may be said that
many of the measures that have
been passed in either branch are
insignificant, and yet if you will
stand on the street corner OF
any town or city inthe state on
any Saturday when there are a
large number of people in town,
and wall take the pains to COLI
verse with all of them you will
tlnd that every individual with
hardly an exception has some par
ticular law in mind that should
be strengthened or repealed or
some subject upon which a new
law should be enacted, and Just
previous to the convenlng of the
legislature every member receives
numerous requests to do certain
things. AS a servant of the peo-
! pie Of his district he is in duty
bound to respect their wishes and
thus. it happens that hundreds
OF, bills, of which none are OF
great Importance to the state at
large, but are important to dis
tricts, are presented to the legls-
lature. In the House we have one
hundred five counties and if
representing the people of one
hundrde five counties and if
each member introduced on an
average of eight bills, lt.would
make one thousand bills to be
acted upon by the House. This
means a great deal of work and
a bill that a member from one
section of the state introduces
which effects some particular law
which in it's turn effect some
particular school district or
township or city or individual
that this same proposition may
adversely effect the interests rep
resented by some member from a.
other section of the state.
This then means that this bill
has to be threshed out in commit
tee and if it is favorably report
ed, then it has to be threshed
out in committee of the whole
3 and where there are two sides
to a question and there are no
questions but have two sides,
this means time and delay.
1t might be said that our COM
mittees might work faster If
they would apply the hatchet to
more bills, but here is the prop
ositiOn. As a member,I have a
bill for instance before the edu-
cational committee | am being
urged by certain Of my constlt-
.uents to secure favorable atten-
tion on this bill. Some member
of the educational committee has
a bill on before insurance COM
mlttee or some other commit
. tee of which am a member. II
the educational commltte through
the influence of this one member
applied the knife to my bill, |
would in the spirit Of' revenge
which pervades the anatomy OF
every human being would want
to apply the knife to the other
members bill unless it was some
thing of great Importance There
fore one member secures favor
able action on measures which
interest him by agreeing to give
favorable action to a measure be-
fore the committee sulting the
other fellow. This is one reas-
on Of the great delay In the wort
Another reason is that on I'M
portant bills such as the bank
guaranty, good roads bills, pub
lie utilities bills, various mort
cage registration bills, other tax
measures there are always mum
her of interests who desire to be
heard. For instance committee