Middletown transcript. [volume] (Middletown, Del.) 1868-current, 1918-04-06
Here and There
in the
Legislature

Starting Monday afternoon on thu
last week of its 9O-day session, thu
Legislature had many important mat
tiers to dispose of before it adjourn!
sine die on the night of April l. Thu
situation, however, is not at all un
usual. Always more bills are pu
through during the last seven days o.
the session than during the preceding
So days.
Making due allowance, however, fo'
| its many sins of omission and commits
sion, the Legislature, nevertheless, tt
steal the pet phrase of platform max
ers, can point with pride" to what il
has accomplished. Passage of the An
nexation bill alone would 'entitle it tc
eulogy. That was the greatest piece
| of constructive legislation enacted BY
a Maryland Legislature in many, many
years.
The General Assembly having en-
acted the bill. the question everyone
now is asking is, What Is the Gov
ernor going to do with it?
While waiting for the Governor to
sign or veto the Annexation bill the
annexationists in the House and Sen
ate will go ahead with the supple
Mental bills that We're put in. not be
cause it was felt that the main bill
| was unjust, as has been SO often al
legged, but out of consideration for
those members of the Senate who,
wanting to be certain that no injus
tice would be done Baltimore and
Anne Arundel counties, insisted upon
some concessions.
Two of these bills have passed the
Senate The other will pass the Sen
ate. The latter is the bill adjusting
the Anne Arunde! county debt, and
Senator Duvall has threatened to op-
pose it. But the probabilities are it
will pass by the same vote that the
Annexation bill passed. and all three
of the bills are expected to pass the
House with votes to spare.
The House probably will pass the
Anti-Betting bill Tuesday. The meas
ure has been ready to go on the third
reading calendar for several days. It's
advocates had it engrossed on the
night after it was passed to it's third
reading and possibly have held it back
only because they did not want to
have to resort to possibly unsuc-
cessful attempt to suspend the rules
to pass it out of its regular order
The bill has been amended so that
It will not take effect, if passed, until
January /, 1919. This was done out of
a desire to be perfectly fair to the OPP
orators of the Laurel track. AS it was
originally drawn the bill would have
become effective June !. Pimlico,
Bowie and Havre de Grace hold spring
meetings. Laurel has no meeting I'M
til the fall
The latter track, had the bill been
passed in its original form, would have
been cut out of any meeting this year,
while the other three tracks would
have held meetings before June l. I'm
der the law as amended, even if the
bill passes, all four tracks will be per-
mitted to hold 26-day meetings this
year.
There is no telling now what the
Legislature will do with the $4,000, 900
Roads Loan bill that was introduced
Friday night. 1t looks absurd to think
Of spending such sum of money for
road construction at this time, but
some of the county members are road
mad, and may insist upon putting the
bill through.
And if this bill goes through. $780,
900 will be added to the $4,000. 900, for
that sum will be Maryland's share of
the Federal aid fund. In order for the
State to take advantage of the Federal
fund it must appropriate similar
amount. 1t could do this and stop,
then having available for construction
sl,28O,OOO. Which would seem to be
as much as ought to be spent at a
time when such work costs nearly
double the normal price
There is another excellent reason
for going slow on road building. No
one can tell what sort of road will
have to be built to stand the strain
to which, because of the war. the roads
are being subjected Macadam roads
have clearly shown they will not do.
Concrete roads give promise, but, they
too, may break down. And Maryland
doesn't want to waste any more money
on roads that won't stand up.