Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1917-04-18
LEGISLATURE CLOSED
SESSIONS SATURDAY
Closed AZ Three Months
e. m.
MANY BILLS WEh|
uD DEEP
-Four Year County Office Lost
Out. Submission ProhiL .ory
Amendment Set for
October Is.

The Thirty-seventh general assem-
bly,, which closed it's three-months
session Saturday, can lay claim to
one distinction, if it can be called
distinction, without fear of success
full contradiction.
1t was different from the rest.
The issues its members fought
over most never lived to see the light
of day. The measures to which leg
islators devoted most of their time
have not added a paragraph to the
code of Iowa. Not all bills fought
over were killed, but those which
saw the hardest trench warfare are
now buried in No mans land.
Legislature machinery was choked
the first half of the session by the
road fight in the house. 1t lasted for
weeks. Scores of pages of road leg
islation were introduced. And when
the final count came, every page was
slaughtered. The only real road
laws adopted came from the senate
whose members dwelt in peace and
harmony most of the time
Undoing The Past.
The last part of the session saw
frantic scramble to undo what had
been done earlier. Both houses were
wonderfully successful. Both had
discovered some things that had
gone on in the session they didn't
know about when they passed the
bills they later slaughtered so glee-
fully. The principal discoveries
were the kitchen cabinet and Sal
ingerism. So impressed were they
with these discoveries that they took
the Thirty-fifth general assembly's
non-partisan judiciary law and "un-
did, that, all on account of the Sal
ingers, and added it to the list of
dead legislation, together with the
famous four-year term bill and the
eighth judge bill.
Governors Program Ignored.
A familiar legislative expression is
pass the buck. That's what the
Thirty-seventh proceeded to do to
Governor Harding. They ignored the
administration program-ecoIomy
retrenchment in state finances, re-
duction in number of state depart
ments, reduction in the number of
state empoyes, adjustment of COM
missions. reorganization of county,
city and state government to elm
mate overlapping departments-and
all. The only part of the governors
program that reached first base was
code revision and it was tagged out
trying to reach home, the taggers be-
ing the sitting committees.
And yet the majority of the legis-
lators are returning home fairly we'll
pleased with themselves. They
stepped on the Salingers and the
kitchen cabinet. They also manag-
ed to slip in some pretty good laws
and measures between fights.
Start OF FaCtiOnaliSm.
We shall consider the belligerent
side of the legislature first because
it was the most prominent. Faction
alism started in the house. Speaker
Pitt started it when he sighted
large number of competent men in
the house because they were not for
him" in the speakership fight. He
gave them no important committees.
They Immediately banded together
for future mutual protection. When
Pitt and his followers conceived the
idea that they were charged with
the duty of abolishing the state high
way commission, the sighted ones,
most of whom We're in favor of the
retention of the highway commits
sion, formed what later was dubbed
the Elwood-Mackle faction. Then
the road fight started. The Pitt
Johnston men tried to kill the high
way commission After seven weeks
of battling, deadlock Of 54-54 in
the voting killed every proposed
road measure.
The Two Road Laws.
But there came from the senate
the two road bills of the session.
the Foster road patrol bill and the
Balkema, accepting federal aid. The
former is considered one of the best
road masures passed by recent leg
islatures. 1t requires all boards of
supervisors to hire road patrolmen.
Their duty will be to patrol every
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