Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1910-01-11
THE GOVERNORS
ANNUAL MESSAGE

messages. One good recon-
mendation is that payment of expenses of institutional managers
be ended and that they receive a stated sum for attendance
at meetings. This would insure a quorum and regulate the ex-
pense- Governor Fort again acknowledges the legislative blunder
that transferred vicious and hardened women to the State Home
for Girls, to destroy the moral work of that institution. The Legis
lature cannot be too quick to undo this glazing wrong. The Gov
ernor recommends the erection of a womans reformatory. 1t is
also we'll recommended that the age for the committai of convicts
TO Railway Reformatory should be reduced to % years. Mature
criminality should not be brought in contact with the immature,
and in a reformatory. The Governor renews his recommendation
in another form for a State board for the purchase of supplies, and
it cannot consistently be ignored. Previous recommendations for
q department of corporations, another of motor vehicles and a
third of collateral inheritance taxes are renewed: also for the
creation of a public utilities commission. In dealing with this
subject the Governor renews his criticism of the Republican party
organization. He says the direct primary law is popular with the
people and declares again for it's extension to the election of
Governor and congressman. He would have the blanket ballot,
but not, this time, the Massachusetts ballot, the fetish of callow
reformers. Governor Fort has finally come around to the belief
that the voting machine must be abolished forthwith. No less
than 2A election districts have thrown the device out. The ma
chine has been declared unconstitutional in other States and
abolished, and no doubt the New Jersey courts would throw it out,
too. The Legislature can do that, if Senator Frelinghuysen will
permit. The Governor moderates his former radical. recommended
tin respecting excise, but comes back to the demand for the power
OF removal of popularity elected county and municipal officers. 1t
was fully expected that the message would favor large appro.
priations to the coast counties for the inland waterway and an
ocean boulevard, but the reasons be presents are strongly sug
gest1ve oil the TACT that these liz essentially local Investments,
with only incidental benefits TO other counties. and should be
largely financed at home. The Governor would abolish both the
maximum tax rate and the county boards of taxation. He favors
the erection by the State of a governors residence at Trenton. In.
dustrial education, a subject of now paramount interest, is indif-
ferently treated. Industrial education is to be promoted by apuo-
priations, not by platitude. On the subject of the State waters
the Governor recommend the extension of the waterdversion act
to subsurface waters and a law making it a misdemeanor to at
tempt to divert potable waters out of the State. There is again
. very Indifferent reference to tuberculosis and a recommendation
only for the erection of seven cheap shacks, in marked contrast
to recommendations for large appropriations for canal and boule
ward. No information is given of the work of tbe rara,,ation
commissioners, except that it will cost at least 100000 more to
finish the work, and that the work may not be finished until the
year 1911. State insurance on State property is recommended.
The Legislature is asked to favorably consider a request for a
reasonable appropriation for Palisades Park and to grant the
promised appropriation of $4,000 to pay the expenses of the
g. A. Il. national eneampment at Atlantic City next summer. The
Governors message lacks the vigor of his former ones. and there
is missed in it that confident tone that pervaded them. He drops
the idea of a State license board, of the entire control of iuries by
the judges and of the summary investigation of officers by the
Governor, which is good judgment.