The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1913-03-06


carefully ignite the pills" and Whit
clouds Of smoke across the table at
the disgusted members from Hooking.
It's all done in the best OF spirit. of
course. and this very fact makes the
situation all the more difficult for the
reformer. They simply laugh him out
OF school and he has no recourse but
to take the humorous side Of it. II he
tries to take the bill away from the
committee they purpose to laugh him
out OF the senate.
Abandon Further codyfyIns Of Laws.
Four thousand dust-covered sets
of the Ohio code, for whose
preparation the state OF Ohio
paid cool 100000, have turned the
eyes of the probing general assembly.
men in new direction. The further
fact that the Ohio solons themselves
are using a private edition of the code
at $25 per set, while they may have
the state editions for the asking,
raises the question of whether the en'
tire cost of the code has been an ut.
ter waste. The code was enacted in
1910. 1t is presumed to contain the
laws OF the state up to that year in a
concise and perfectly indexed form.
Ten thousand copies were printed and,
in spite of the fact that many hundred
have been given away, 1000 remain.
A bill appeared in the senate to aban.
don codifying. This brought to light
the fact that since 1910 former Gov.
James e. Campbell has been employed
as a special counsel Of the attorney
general. making further Qualifications.
The bill introduced in the senate is
by Senator Justin Moore OF jefferson
county and it would have the effect
of stopping automatically all further
work of this kind. The presumption
back Of the bill is that the work Of
the codifiers has been a total failure
and that the state has cast its pre-
cious money to the winds.
The persons who prepared the first
copy Of the code were former Gov.
Campbell H. L. Sibley and Lewis c..
Laylin. They labored nearly thred
years and then We're hardly through,
they said. They got total of $45,O00
in salaries alone, and the cost of theit
work, barring any that came later,
was approximately $S5,000. The
charge is being made now that the
code is poorly indexed and has many
errors. This at least was given as
the reason why the assembly few
days ago bought 165 sets of private
edition of the code and paid total
Of more than $4,000 for them.
To Probe County Affairs.
Enthusiastic with the probing
mania, the general assembly Is about
to turn its attention now to the ad'
ministration of county affairs. Its as.
sumption is that many counties are
wasting money in the employment OF
too many deputies, and it is deter.
mined to see what can be done to
curb the extravaganza. Attention was
drawn to the counties by joint reso.
luton introduced in the senate, eY
| tending the power of the committee
already named to probe state offices,
to go also into county affairs. The
bill is the result Of the suggestion of
one Of the members of the state probe
committee ITSELF and it is therefore
presumed that the probers are already
smelling mice insofar as county af'
fairs are concerned. At the same time
there is no direct charge of crooked.
ness in the counties.
The state bureau of accounting is
supposed to look after that. But what
the state committee wants to know
about the counties is whether two men
are being employed to do the work
| of one, such as is. now being charged
in reference to the state departments.
| If the investigating committee gets
the authority to do county probing, it
may call county officials from all parts
of the state to Columbus. Or, it may
send out written queries and demand
sworn answers from county officials
as to the number of persons employed.
the salaries they receive and the ac'
tual amount of work they perform.
Competitive Bidding System.
On the third Monday in March tho
state of Ohio will be ready to dole out
to various banks under the competi'
tive bidding system, the sum of about
| $6,000,000. This amount will go to the
bidders of highest interest and will
be available to most of the banks re-
ceiving it for period Of two years.
Two years ago, Ohio received bids
ranging from $50 to 4.10 per cent
The highest bidders secured the right
to retain the money for the whole two
year period, while those which bid low
were called upon whenever the state
ran short and needed ready money.
The charge that many persons arc
evading the rigid anti-lobby law, re-
Gently enacted, is being made freely
in the house and senate. Many pei
sons are appearing before assembly
and lobbying for and against laws
without having given the slightest in
timation of obeying the new law, 1t is
averred.
On the ground that 1t lay beyond
the jurisdiction of the Ohio assembly
and that it might embarrass the in
coming administration, the lower
house, under ruling of Speaker Swain
rejected a resolution by Representa-
tive Ray Kennedy of Allen county
asking the national government to in
wade Mexico to restore peace.
Administration Program.
Gov. Cox's cabinet is progressing
rapidly with formulating Legislative