The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-08-18
MAJORITY FACTION
 GOES ID SMASH AS 1. lUSK REWSES THE
 REVENUE MEASURE
Minority Members Laugh Up Their Sleeves When Serious Split Occurs in Ranks of Machine-Situa- tion Remarkably Acute
By HUGH w. ROBERTS

Montgomery. August 17.-(SpecialN The majority faction Is majority fac tion no more. The machine which stood at Armageddon and in defiance of all the people, enacted prohibition laws, has buried itself upon rock. It's ele- ments have been scattered to the four winds, and chaos reigns supreme
 Fear Is that so serious has been the split that no constructive legisla tion can be enacted, and that this session of the legislature will go down in the history as the most farcical with which the people of Alabama have contended. In the house, no two men apparently stand together, and each of his neigh bors speak unpleasantly. In the other branch, Senator Lusk appears a with cred branch. and those who in ether days obeyed without question his aus tere command are apparently seeking another captain to follow.
 MT. Lusk hurled the monkey wrench into the works when he led a majority Of the members of the senate committee on nnance and taxation successfully in an apparent purpose to rewrite the rev enue bill This measure, as Is known. was prepared by body of men after labor of four months and after an expenditure of several thousand dol lars. It was based on what was regard ed as the consensus of opinion of the people interviewed direct. The mem bers of that recess committee are in- censed in that Mir Lusk and his col leagues rewrote within the limit of a day or more the bill in the preparation of which they had spent the greater part of summer There Is no ques tion but that the anger of this recess committee Is making itself known. For yesterday afternoon MT, Lusk, riding headlong against John Wallace and his game and fish department, was tumbleJ out of the saddle. And later, when tilt- ing against bill providing funds for the entertainment of Confederate vet erans, he was overwhe elmingly de- feated And this morning when eau GUS, brought about chiefly through his instrumentality. was called to order, so plainly was the bitterness of the sit uation reflected that in disgust the plans were perforce abandoned---and abandoned with the result that instead of preserving precious moments. two legislative days were wasted and with them nearly $2500 of the peoples money.
 To what extent the estrangement will go Is problematical. There is no question, however, put that lasting D1t- :erness has been engendered. One of the members of the recess committee on finances and taxation this afternoon said:
 Tn amending in no particulars the bill which was prepared as result of four months labor, MT. Lusk made a new bill in saccordance with his indi- vfdual ia ate, And lnr SO doing he ar rogated to himself all the ability and honesty of the universe and reflected likewise on our worth and integrity
 Another member of this committee, red hot. declared:
 MT. Lusk ,as member of the recess committee on Judiciary presented to the legislature a mass of bills in the of the intricate nature of which the legislature could tell neither heads nor tails. In his effort to rewrite the bill which we prepared ne has demonstrated desire either to make of our work as dismal a fail ure as his own has proved to be or to Impress the people of the state with an idea that he should have been given the commission to perform all of the several difficult tasks assigned to the three recess committees"
 The situation Is remarkably acute and while the minority members of the assembly are laughing in their sleeves those responsible for the ma jority faction are gnashing their teeth.