The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1910-03-09
Measure is a Second Rogers
Bill.
People of the Entire State
are Sold.
Should the Elson Bill Become a
Law, the Valentine Antitrust
Law will Have Been Practically
Repealed I'm so Far as the Mcrg-
ing of Telephone Companies to
Control Rates is Concerned Leg
islature Is Morganized.
BY United Press Wire.

:. Columbus, o., March 9.-Lashed
to action by a desperate and determ-
ined lobby, the house, late Tuesday
afternoon. passed wnat Is generally
considered the boldest and rankest
piece of legislation since the infamous
Rogers fifty-year franchise steal
There was this difference-the Rogers
bill merely sold out the people OF
Cincinnati to a street railway COM
pany. while the Elson bill sells out
the people Of the entire state of Ohio
The Elson bill might properly be
called a bill repeating the Valentine
antitrust law, authorizing the organ
ization of a gigantic telephone trust
with an unlimited license TO the
telephone users of Ohio to pay the
interest and dividends on the unlimit-
ed millions of watered bonds and
stock.
One of the biggest lobbies that ever
infested Columbus has been working
on this bill for wee<s and somehow
or other succeeded in Morganizing
the house in spite OF gallant and de-
termlned fight for the people by some
of the best members of the house
Those who spoke against the bill were
Woods, Langdon, Gibbs, Crst. Shank
land, Bense and Winters.
The bill passed fifty-nine to fifty,
having only one vote over consttu-
tional majority.
The telephone interest were only
able to score their big point by yield
ing a minor one. A count OF noses in
the early afternoon showed that the
original bill, denounced by Woods, of
Medina as "the bordest and most
barefaced proposition ever made to
any legislature anywhere" could not
be passed 1t was too bald.
Then Elson offered an amendment
that would, he said. place the tele-
phone monopoly under control of the
railroad commission.
Langdon. of Warren. denounced II
as a subterfuge and offered an
amendment that would really place
the monopoly under some sort of SUI
pervsion and would give the railroad
commission power to, regulate rates,
charges and tolls
The sentiment was so apparent for
the Langdon amendment that Elson
Katliff, of Cincinnati and Bremen of
Springfield, who had charge of the
telephone end Of the fight, abandoned
the Elson amendment and accepted
Langdon's. This gave some of their
faint hearted friends an excuse for
rallying to them to defeat the amend
ment which the telephone people
really dreaded The amendment i'm
mediateiy proposed by Woods to give
the railroad commission regulation OF
the issuing of stocks and bonds to
save the people from paying exorbi-
tant rates to furnish dividends and in
terest on watered securities
Woods told the members of the eX-
perience of New York where a sim
liar telephone merger bill was forced
through the legislature and immedi-
ately the monopoly issued $4,000, 900
securities for the neople of the state
to make good. He pointed them to
the testimony given within a few
days that 100000 of this stock had
been placed in the legislature.
But the amendment to protect the
people from the watering of stock was
lost, fifty to fifty-five.