The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-07-25
IS BUSY DEBATING
AND KILLING BILLS
Georgia House of Representa-
tives Is Active Body
THE RACE FOR GOVERNOR
Campaign Is Proving Very Tame At
fair-Judge Hart Is Not Proba-
BILE Candidate for the SUI
preme Court Bench

Atlanta, July 4.-(Special) after hold
ing two afternoon sessions, with three
more weeks yet to work, the house evil
IDENTIFY thought it was moving too rap
idly, and decided not to meet in regular
session on Saturday, revoking its action
in ordering a regular Saturday session
held.
In other words the house OBJECTED 10
saying to its members You shall not
go home on Saturday, and If you do, you
will lose your "a per diem"
1t was a sort of reciprocal action
members who really thought the house
ought to remain in session Saturday and
get through with its work, did not know
at what minute the desire to go home
might hit them. If they had voted
against the Saturday go-homers, it might
have become practically impossible for a
member to get an excuse voted had he
desired to get off at some other time
before the end of the session.
But with regular afternoon sessions
from now until the close, the house will
be able to accomplish a vast amount of
work that it would not have done other
wise. 1t will be able, at least, to kill a
large number of appropriation bills, then
reconsider them and put them back on
the calendar for future consideration
That is what 1t has spent the last week
in doing.
The house spent most of the week in
debating and killing the bills giving s25,-
GOO to the State Normal school, $4,000 to
the university for heating plant, and
s35 600 to Tech for a new shop building.
1t has reconsidered all but the State
Normal school bill. which it refused to
restore to the calendar.
But Tech and the university will have
another whaek at it, while the State
Normal will have to wait until next
year.
Still to come up are the North Georgia
Agricultural college, which wants $1,000;
the State tuberculosis sanitarium. which
wants $4,000; the Confederate monument
which it is proposed to build on the
capitol grouids at cost of 100000; the
state sanitarium which wants several ap-
preparations for various purposes, ag
gregating s156,O00, and there are several
others.
The Georgia Normal and Industrial
college at Milledgevlle is the only one
of these Institutions which safely ran
the gamut of its appropriation 1.-The house
gave 1t the $4,000 asked. Now the
friends of that institution are somewhat
afraid that the senate will kill 1t or hold
it up, because the house Is defeating all
the other appropriation measures, and
they are working hard to find favor with
the upper house.
Iii
up there was a full attendance of the
house, with enough of its friends pres
ent to give 1t a constitutional majority.
Since that time, with committees going
off for one thing and another, and mem
bers getting excused, the attendance has
been somewhat smaller and 1t has been
impossible for the other measures to
muster the required SO votes.
Rather a strange situatonsis presented
by the bill which proposed to compen
safe the heirs of Sherman j. Sims for
the loss of their free passes on the old
Northeastern railroad, now a part of the
Southern running from Lula to Athens.
When the road was built Sims gave it
the use of a certain portion of his land
as right of way, In exchange for life
passes over the line for himself and his
family. The state had indorsed the
bonds of the road to the extent of $751;
O0O and when it failed the state had to
sell the property in order to make good
its obligations. While the road was in
the states hands, 1t recognized the OBJ
legation to Sims and his family, and they
now hold passes over the road issued by
former Gov. w. Y. Atkinson. But when
the Southern bought the road from the
state It refused to recognize this claim
to transportation. The Sims heirs have
been trying for dozen years since the
sale of the road to get the state to re-
imburse them, the amount now claimed,
including interest, being about $1,10O. The
house, this week, killed the bill to pay
them this amount of money, and then.
as 1t has done in almost every other
case, reconsidered and put the measure
back on the calendar. Evidently, how
ever, the measure has too much oppo-
sition to get through at this session.
After it's defeat of the educational ap-
preparation bills the interesting question
arises as to what the house Is going to
do with the 100000 Confederate monu-'
ment proposition. The former measures,
while approved by the house appropria-
lions committee, had some opposition in
the committee; but the vote in the COM
mttee for the monument bill was practi-
cally unanimous, and the committee is
composed of some SO members, more than
one-fourth of the members of the house.
Appropriation bills will probably be laid
aside temporarily on Tuesday, in order
to take up the compulsory education bill,
which has been fixed as the special or
der for that day 1t will be recalled that
this measure lacked only six votes of
passing the house when 1t was formerly
up for consideration Many of its friends
were absent and II there had been
full attendance. there Is little question
that it would have gone through. The
friends of the Nill have been quite active
of late, and they propose to see to 1t
that every member who Is favorable to
the measure is at his desk in the house
the next time the vote is taken.
The senate spent almost the entire
week in debating the bill providing for
county boards of tax assessors, to the
end that there may be equalization of tax
returns in Georgia. This Is a senate
measure introduced by the special tax
committee which sat during the recess.
The senate succeeded in concluding the
debate this week, but when the hour for
voting came it was found that there
were present only % votes in sxfavor
which could be relied on. AS 1t needs %.
it was decided to let final action go over
until next week, when, with the full body
present, 1t Is believed the measure Will
pass.
The senate has had little to do except
to work on its own material, for the
house has not in the last two weeks put
anything of importance in shape for Its
action The Georgia Normal appropria
ton bill is about the only measure of any
consequence which the house has sent
over. But with a realization that the end
of the session is rapidly approaching. the
house is expected to get busy next week
and do something fS =.