The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-12-04
Question Now Is Who Will Pay Guards of Convicts
 Repairing Capitol
REFERENDUM STATUS
 TO BE DECIDED SOON
Cases Are Advanced in Supreme Tri- bunal-Great Impetus Being Given to Beef Raising in State.
 Banquet Is Held

Jackson Miss, December 2-(Speclal)
 A funny little sort of business-a kind of
 Alphorso and Gaston business-has de-
 veloped in Mississippi and everybody is
 wondering how and where it is going to
 end. The last session of the legislature
 passed an act placing the \ peni-
 tertiary convist on. the old capi-
 tol repair work. Nothing was
 said in the act about who should pay for
 the guarding of the convicts, and since
 that time there has been quarrel going
 on. The capitol commission insists that
 the trustees of the penitentiary shall pay
 all the guards placed over the convicts,
 and there is just where they come to
 "the parting of the ways" The legis-
 lature had nothing to say on that propo-
 stion, and the question is what did the
 legislature intend to say. It directed that
 the convicts be placed on the new capi-
 tol repair job but it does not stipulate
 that there shall be any guards, not that
 they shall be paid by anybody. As a
 matter of course, there must be guards
 attached to every gang of convicts-the
 laws of the state requiring that the state
 shall always be in charge, and on that
 the capitol commission is standing pat in
 it's demand that the trustees of the peni-
 tertiary are responsible for the convicts
 and therefore required to employ guards
 at all times. It has been threatened
 that in the event the commission does
 not pay the guards, the convicts will be
 taken off the old capitol repair work,
 but in the event the penitentiary trus-
 tees do try that stunt the capitol com-
 mission will be ready with an injunction
 restraining them, and the matter will get
 right into the courts. Meantime the three or four guards employed about the
 capitol have mot been paid cent for
 four or five months, and in view of the
 fact that they are all poor men, the
 present high cost of living is not making Christians out of them.
 ON THE ANXIOUS SEAT
 At next Tuesdays session of the trus- tees of the pententiary the minor off cers of that great big institution are to
 be selected, and number of the present incumbents are said to be on the ''anx- ious seat' Under the law the trustees of the penitentiary can name but few of these officers, some six or eight, in cluding those in the Jackson office, but the superintendent of the farms, J. J.
 OKeefe, has the naming of all the ser geants and their assistants, some 40 or
 bO The trustees would like the best in
 the world to get that authority away from the superintendent, but until the
 legislature shall have changed that law, they cannot, and the trustees must just sweat for it.
 CASES ARE ADVANCED
 The supreme court has advanced on the docket the cases styled state rel vs z. A. Brantley," and Ex-parte Sim Robinson from the circuit court of Hinds county, and announced that they would be heard. orally on December Il. These two cases are friendly suits to test the constitutionality of the initiative and referendum amendment alleged to have been adopted two years ago. On the original returns made to the secretary of state the amendment was carried, but seeing that no county had reported as ! to the total vote polled the secretary of state demanded the total vote of all counties, and in course of time procured same The second returns showed that the amendment had not received the ma ! jority of the entire vote boiled, and that it had been defeated. However, the leg \ islature of last winter accepted the first returns, declared the amendment car ried and inserted same in the constitu- ] tiom in spite of the vigorous protests of Z the foremost lawyers in the state. Since that time an election was held to see 2 whether or not the game law should stand, and it was defeated by majority of about 30,000 out of a total vote of less than S0,000. Several attacks have been made on the law through the courts, but the main point has never been deter mined and this suit is intended to settle the matter for all time to come.
 NO RACE PREDJUDICE
 At this weeks sitting of the supreme court it was announced, in effect, that