The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-03-24
Mr.. HUDSON AND HIS
PUBLICITY BUREAU

hon. r. M. HUDSON, or Miami, can
didate for Governor in the coming pri-
mary election. in letter to the Flor.
da Metropolis. explains to the Lees.
burg Commercial his part in the ap.
pearance in the last session of the
Legislature of bill creating a pub
licity bureau
Senator Hudsons letter follows:
II notice that the Leesburg Com
mercial asks why l introduced at the
last session of the Florida Senate a
bill, which it refers to as the L'Engle
BILL providing for publicity bureau
in this State.
my answer is very simple. In the
first place the House bill and the SEN
ate bill were not the same. The bill
introduced in the House contained a
section providing for censorship of
advertising matter going out of the
State. The bill was presented to me
IA thut III III WIFI lnC lcuucSt W
troduce it in the Senate, but / de-
clined to introduce it with that par.
ticular section in it. | eliminated
that section and introduced the bill.
The House bill was published gener-
ally over the State but the Senate
bill was not. Practically all of the
criticism throughout the State was
aimed at the particular section in the
House bill which had eliminated
from the Senate bill
THE second ground of objection,
which was applicable to both bills
was aimed at a provision which i'm
posed upon the owners of real estate
subdivisions a tax to raise funds for
meeting the expenses of the publicity
bureau was not particularly wedd-
ed to that provisio but being then
and now interested in real estate sub
divisions, | felt perfectly willing. to
pay such a tax and was unable to see
that it was any great hardship.
"A third objection to the bill. and
the one which apparently aroused
more antagonism than anything else,
was the provision for the employ.
ment of publicity agent and the
criticism seemed to grow out of the
belief that a particular individual was
to be employed. Both bills provided
that the publicity bureau should be
composed of three members of the
cabinet and the employment of the
publicity agent was left to them. It
did not occur to me to question the
good faith of the gentlemen who COM
posed the bureau. and until after the
bill was introduced, it was not hint
ed to me that any particular person
would be an applicant. l was willing
to trust the gentlemen who were to
compose the bureau to make the wis.
est selection and am still satisfied
that my confidence was well reposed.
There is nothing remarkable in the
fact that an agent was to be EN-.
ployed by the bureau. Whenever
any new duties are imposed upon the
various departments at Tallahassee, it
always involves the employment of
additional help. During the same
session of the Legislature and dur
ing the preceding session, there were
numerous bills introduced which add
ed to the duties of the comptroller's
DfIice and authorized the comptroller
to employ number of assistants
Apparently it did not occur to any
one to oppose these bills for that rea-
son. Certainly it did not occur to
me to do so. dealt with such bills
upon their merits
Likewise | endeavored to deal with
this publicity bill upon its merits
The one particular point in the bill
which appealed to me was the pro-
vision for publicity bureau. the
purpose of which was to make known
as widely as possible, the truth about
Florida, because | believe that if the
world knew the truth about Florida,
we would have all the immigration
we could take care of with consequent
development and prosperity.
when the committee held a hear
ing upon this bill, appeared before
them. pointed out the facts as above
stated. undertook to combat certain
erroneous conceptions of the bill and
as my last word to the committee re-
Quested them to make any amend
ments that might be necessary so
that they left in it the central idea
of obtaining proper publicity.
IL am willing to leave the matter
TO any fair minded man who will ex-
anime the bill introduced by me and
read it in the light of this statement
"E NJ uITDSON