The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-04-06

l And after you have been in Connec- l tlcut few days, and have looked a | little into the nutmeg scheme of gov
 ernment, you will arrive at the con-
 ciusion that the discoverer of anesthe-
 sia was the one person in all history to whom Connecticut could most fitting
 ly erect a memorial.
 | For Connecticut doesn't mind much l what is done to Connecticut so long
 as the operation is painless. 1 Someone gave the state chloroform l Or ether many years ago, and no one has disturbed her since.
 | In making a list of the backward states, William Allen White recently ! found 10 worthy of such distinction. And Connecticut's name led all the rest
 1 Here they have no primary law of any kind. The only primary held in | the whole state at election time is | one arranged for by the chairman of
 the Republican city committee in | that district
 1 Here they have no corporation tax.
 The payment of nominal fee for reg I istratiOn exempts stocks and bonds from taxation in the state. 1 Here they hold out inducements, in III6 SIIdpc OI uIllQ duU 3IcCcpIiVC IuCOi l pOratiOn laws, to any group of men who care to incorporate any lawful business. No questions asked. The result is that Connecticut is gradually accommodating the notoriety in connec- | tiOn with the corporations that was New Jerseys before Woodrow Will son moved from Princeton to Trenton. No Protective Laws. Here they have no 54-hour law to protect women and children employ ed in mechanical industries. Ten hours employment is permitted, though in industries other than man. ufacturing or mechanical, women and children may not be employed more than 58 hours a, week:
 Any signs of progress at all? Connecticut has a public utilities commission. A few days ago it hand ed down its first important decis- ion-ag gainst the people of the town of
 Manchester in an issue raised between them and the New Haven's Connecti- cut street railway company.
 Connecticut has a corrupt practices act. It has been on the statute books for years, and alternate legislatures extracting it's teeth in one session and replacing them in another. At the present writing the teeth are in, and the law reads very prettily.
 On the whole, the matter with Con- necticut is not more a lack of laws that look like progress, but lack of the spirit that makes such laws mean what they look. The laws ap- pear to have been enacted in a mat ter of fact fashion, and to be admin istered generally in the same way.
 Remember the statue to the man who discovered aneSthesia.
 With reference, first, to corporations: This is the state of New York, New Haven & Hartford. Here that gigan- tic public servant serves in all of it's capacities-steam railroad, electric railroad, interurban carrier, street rail- way, water power, electric light, gas plant. Here it has it's origin; here it maintains it's residence. From Con- necticut it has carried on it's inva- sion Of Rhode Island (easily subju- gated), and Massachusetts (Sternly contested), Maine. and New York.
 For every square mile of Connect1- cuts area of 5,004, the New Haven has work of New Haven interests cast over the state has finely wrought meshes. It's influence, financial and social, is proportionate to it's physical domination
 Has Ancient Government.
 Legislature after legislature has come up to Hartford as "a New Ha- ven legislature.'' The very fundamen- tals of Connecticut's government has aided this corporation, it's creature, to outgrow the parent. The nutmeg state still clings to the town govern ment There are in the state 16S towns Each ef these sends at least one representative to the state leg1s- lature Those having a population of over 5000 may send two, but no more So Hartford, with 102,000, and New Haven, with 137,0 GOO, have repre- sentation equa[ling in nrrmbers-and that means votes-the representation of four little towns, with perhaps no more than 800 population in all four combined.
 The New Haven has played to the little towns, and, so has never want ed friends whenever one of the rare occasions arose on which the cities wanted to withhold something the rail- road wanted.
 Of late years, the activity of the New Haven in the legislature has not been so pronounced as formerly. There is one big reason for this-the New Haven has already got almost all that it could think of asking for. The state has very little more-if anything at alto give away.
 It is true that the last legislature came to Hartford bearing the familiar device, "a New Haven crowd. But for the moment Connecticut had been half awakened by the noise. The odore Roosevelt and Simeon Baldwin made over Judge BaldwanS candidacy for governor, and with even a wisp of public opinion stirring the legisla- ture gave the New Haven two black eyes.
 The railroad did not want to see a public utilities commission created. When that could not be blocked, the railroad tried to hold the commission CTS down to recommendatory, instead of mano atory powers. The New Ha- ven lost out on that, too.
 Then there was a genuine row over the waterpower in the Connecticut river at Windsor Locks, half way be- tween Hartford and Springfield, Mass. The New Haven had a company all ready to accept a generous charter for the development of that power, but the legislature sidetracked the plan.
 Both of which features made that legislative session an epoch in the his tory of Connecticut.
 New Haven Hogs It All.
 The citizens of a middle western state finds it difficult to comprehend the extent to which the New Haven railroad has been permitted to go in Connecticut.
 There are six railroads in the state: The New Havens the Central New England, the Hartford & Western, the New Haven & Northampton, the New London Northern and the Nor wich and Worcester.
 tral New England is owned by the Hovon T,bo HarffOrd R, West