Arizona republican., 1912-06-01
Finds Its Way on House Table Where in All Prob ability It Will Finally Be at the End of the Session
CHARTER MEASURE
 NO OPPOSITION
Long Wrangle in the Senate Over Senator Hughes Proposition to Protect the State Against Damages by Fire

OCSbUC 11Sd1IlIoO oQllldSCo4
 by Fire
 There was a rather interesting time in the senate yesterday and inciden- tally the senators succeeded in ac- complaining quite lot of work The suffrage and elections committee re- ported out the bill prescribing the form and stature" of the official ballot with recommendation that it do pass. The same recommendation was made by the municipal corpora tiOns committee on what is known as the prize fight bill. If anybody asks under what section of the governors call the prize fight measure comes it may be answered that it comes under the section relating to the raising of revenue. The bill provides for a tax of $250 on boxing matches. This term is used advisedly. Arizona wouldn't countenance prize fights perish the thought! But boxing matches-wen, boxing matches are an altogether different proposition.
 With this matter out of the way the senate took up MT Davis bill which permits all cities having more than 300 people to form and adopt charters for themselves without the aid or consent of anybody else on earth. In other words the bill gives them the right to the commission form of government; and incidentally lit cOnferS on them powers to do about everything from raising babies to growing potatoes and of operating all sorts of transportation utilities from WheelbarroWs to street cars. This bill was put on final passage and went through with no cOlors fly ing. There was no opposition.
 Then the senate went into commit tee of the whole with Senator Breen in the chair. The first matter taken up was the state insurance problem. Briefly this bill provides that the state shall carry no insurance on any of it's buildings An amendment inserted by the senate at the request | of MT. Davis provides a fund, to which the state shall contribute $6,0OO a year and which is to take the place of insurance. The discus sion of the bill brought out great variety of opinions
 Senator Hughes said he thought 1 there should be insurance or other adequate protection. He thought it l strange that the senators. nearly all i of whom, he said. doubtless carry in surance on their property, should take a different view where the affairs of the state are concerned
 1 Cunniff said it is a question of loss | and risk. He favored the sinking fund proposed by the Davis amendment. Roberts said he was surprised at the stand taken by Hughes. He de- clared here is an opportunity to save the state a large amount Of money and he thought it should be taken advantage of. He said there is thing to consider, and that is in in ing state buildings it must be evident that either the insurance company or the state gets the worst of it and he was certain it has not been the in surance companies.
 C. B Wood said he had looked over some of the insured buildings and in referring to the state university he said he was surprised that some of these buildings had not burned. He was sure the state would gain large ly if they were. He said all the de partments of the state have been
 badly managed and further referred
 to the fact that the United States
 government, most of the states and
 nearly all the large railroad com
 panies carry no insurance.
 Senator WOrsley spoke energetically
 for the bill. He said the payment of
 insurance premiums by the state is
 a waste of money He said $4,000 at
 compound interest would soon pro-
 duce a million dollars and declared
 that if the state would lay by that
 amount, before a great while it would
 have a fund sufficient to erect q
 great deal better buildings than it
 now owns.
 Senator Hubbell called the turn on
 Worsley and said if the senators
 statement were true he would invest
 $4,000 He had not known there were
 such attractive investments as the
 gentleman from Pima county men tioned.
 Senator Hubbell continued with a
 logical and concise statement of the
 case that made every feature perfect ly apparent. He said it is simply a matter of figures and he told the , senators they could tell exactly the
 amount they would save by footing Iup the amount paid in premiums for
 the past twenty years and then com pare it with the amount collected in fire losses. He said he believed it
 would be found the state had paid
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