Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1911-07-05
DIRECT VOTE is
GIVEN 4 BLOW
Wisconsin House Turns Down
the Senate Bill.
WILL OF THE PEOPLE" HIT
Closing Hours of the Long, Strenuous
Session of the Legislature Are
Fun Of Fun-State Uni
Versity Appropriation.

Madison, Wis, July 4.-(speciaD-
1.-THE will OF the people shall be the
law Of the land which has become
the cry Of the LaFoIette progressive
Republicans Of this state since the
4 now famous expression vas made by
Senator LaFollette. received a black
| eye in the assembly, when that house
/ by vote OF 80 20 80 refused 70 col
cur in the senate bill providing fol
! the election of United States senator
/ by direct vote.
/ Speaker Ingram. a strong believer
in the will of the people led the
/ way for the concurrence Of the bill
/ but opposed to him We're Assemblymen
| Mcconnell and Gettle, who are recog-
| nized as two of the leading LaFollerte
! Republicans Of the lower house. Some
| time ago when the bill was under CON
! sideration Mr.. McCornel succeeded in
! having written into the measure
clause to the effect hat a member of
I the legislature should retain the right
to vote for party nominee for United
| States senator instead of for the man
! receiving the largest number of votes,
which, in effect, made a joke out of
| the direct election" and popular
vote" idea. The bill had rough sail
] ing and finally reached a committee on
| conference composed of members of
| both houses. That conference struck
out the Mcconnell amendment and re-
/ turned the bill in its original form
providing for the election of United
States senator by the direct vote of the
people.
Messrs. Mcconnell and Gettle frank
| ly admitted that as long as this is
government of political parties there
must be party allegiance and party
loyalty. Furthermore, they insisted
that members Of the legislature should
not he denied the right to exercise
/ Independent judgment in voting for
candidates for United States senator
To all of this, Mr. Ingram replied
/ that party allegiance is M. hing com
pared 10 the VIII Of the people For
a time it appeared az though Mr.. In
gram might turn the tide. but the OPP
position proved too strong.
!
The closing hours of the long, siren
/ uous session are noisy and fun Of fun
Members Of all parties have buried
the Ratchet and forgotten the tits
/ that have marked the session They
are all boys. The assembly daily is
/ turned into riot Of flying paper wads,
/ calendar files and everything else that
the members can ger held OF. Another
/ popular diversion is singing old-cime
SONGS, Assemblyman Roessler the
/ popular Democrag. swinging his big
calabash pipe as a baton, leaGs the
singing. Even Speaker Ingram has
thrown aside all legislative dignity
fnd joins in the fun by throwing pa
per wads at the members. This week
win mark the close Of actual work,
! but the legislature viii not adjourn
sine die until sometime next week be-
cause the governor viii have to be
given several days in which to look
over the many large and important
matter now pending before him.
The member Of the Wisconsin iegis-
lature who dares to stand up and OPP
pose any appropriation for the state
university promptly gets knocked
down: at least that is the view Of
| Assemblyman Merlin Hull who offer
ed a shower Of amendments to the uni
versity appropriation bill only to see
all of them cast aside. After hours OF
argument and heated debate the bill
passed both houses, and the only
| change made was increasing the ap-
propriation for the university extern
sion department from sS7,5O0 to $780,
GOO for the arst year and from S10P,-
900 to SIPS. 900 the secord year. T1is
increases the total appropriation for
the state university to s3,665,002, and
tbe grand total appropriation for the
university, state normal schools and
the WISCONSIN Mining Trade school to
s5,eiS,oo2,
There has been great fight on in
Wisconsin to ascertain the actual cos'
per student at the university Presi'
dent Van TIise has furnished consid
cradle information on this subject
but his information has been question
ed by persons who claim to know
what they are talking about Wher
the university appropriation bill wa
up in the assembly The Hull amend
ment increasing the tuition for non
resident students at the university t.
the actual cost of instruction VA
adopted. In the senate however, IN
amendment was non-concuTred in an'
when the bill came back the assemht,
receded from its position. which pu
an end to the Hull amendment Ha'
that amendment remained part of tn
bin It would have brought out IN
actual cost Of instruction per srude-
in manner which could not haN
Haen disputed The university forces
however. are thoroughly organized. a
Assemhlvman Hull has found out, an
it is next to impossible 70 tamper Wit
anything relating 70 the university:
The proposition 70 purchase IN
DIN and Raymer tracts Of land to I'd