The Brinkley argus., 1913-02-14

Rv vote of GA to r the house re-
 gently passed the bill recommended
 by the joint committee on penitentiary' providipg for a radical change in the management of that institution.
 The bill provides for the appoint l ment by the governor and con11rma- tion by the senate of board or peni-
 tentiary commissioners of three mem
 bers, two of whom shall be practlcal | farmers to manage all the affairs CT | the institution instead of the present :, board of five state officers. They snail receive s3,00O per year, and shall pay | all their expenses out of this sum- Ihe l offices of superintendent Of the penl- | tentiary and the reform school ana or | purchasing agent are abolished ana IL provides that hereafter no convlcts
 shall be leased or hired to contractors
 and that another farm shall be pur-
 chased for the white convicts.
 | Messrs. Parker and Doyle led the | fight on the floor for the bill, and made earnest and eloquent pleas TOT 1 the more humane treatment of the 1 convicts, declaring that the people are
 demanding the very changes provided | for in the bill
 Speeches in opposition to it were made by Gray, of Independence, Pat terson, of Woodruff, Boggs, of Little | nn fha final l vote, however, MT Davis cast his vote for the bill, explaining that while it Is | not just what he wants it is an 1m- provement over the present law. | The hardest fight of the session came
 up over the passage of the Ragon bill l providing that coal miners shall be 1 paid on a basis of screened coal, l rather than under the terms of the mine-run law of 1905, which this Dill | seeks to repeal. The repeal of the l mlne-run law has long been a mooted i question, and it's advocates and op- ponents have been bitterly arrayed | against each other
 Messrs, Ragon Of Johnson, Dipboye, | of Crawford, Sawyer of Garland, Will lens, of Logan. Baxter of Washington and Grant, of Jackson, spoke in sup | port of the bill, declaring that 1t Is 1 the only just and equitable method, | fair alike to the coal miner, the oper- ator and the consumer. They assert ed that majority of the miners them selves are really in favor of the screened coal law, but do not dare ad- voeate it. under penalty of a fine or $50 prescribed by their union. They asserted that the mine-run law has !, closed down a majority of the mines, especially in the Spadra district, and has forced many small operators into bankruptcy, so that the miners are oe- prived of employment Under the mine run law the miners are paid TOT slack, dirt, rock and everything brought to the surface, and they ex- ercise no care in producing market able coal so that the consumer is the one who must in the end pay for the poor production. Further, they argued against any abridgement of the free dom of contract, contending that the mine worker is well able to take care Of tiasef ip making contracts with
 the mine operator
 The bill was opposed by Messrs. Will
 son, of Jefferson, Patterson of Wood
 ruff, and Davis. of Lafayette, who
 pleaded for the living wage, and for
 the rights of the man who digs his lv
 ing from the depths of the earth. The
 presented petitions signed by about
 1,200 miners protesting against the
 repeal of the mine run law, but the op-
 ponents of the bill declared that there
 are at least 5000 miners who had not
 peti1oned against it's repeal,
 With little argument, the house pass
 ed the Covington bill, which is aimed
 at the Associated Press, forcing it to
 give duplicate service to more than
 one paper in a city.
 Like an April shower, without warn ing. came the first test on the Cald- well & Drake proposition. which had
 been expected for some time, and i'll it the representatives of the capitol commission triumphed. It cannot be really considered a test vote, how
 ever, for upon the opposition side were
 a number of senators who have always fought Caldwell X Drake appropria-
 ton, while there were senators on the commission side who are expected to
 favor an appropriation to pay some
 thing to the deposed contractors. The issue was brought about by Sen
 ator Raney, who rendered a bill mak-
 ing an appropriation of s7,975.75 to pay an account to the Pfeifer Stone Company. of Batesville. for stone fur
 nished about six years ago to Cald-
 well & Drake. Senator Raney an-
 nounced he was in no way responsi- ble for the bill. that it had been pre-
 pared and handed to him, and that he had no knowledge regarding the au- thenticity of the account, merely in troducing it in order that committee could make an investigation and de- termine whether or not the state owed
 anything to the Pfeifer Company.