The courier-index., 1918-12-27

Whether this course is taken or no and it is highly improbable, 1t IS l certain that the legislature, which | assemblies three weeks from today, will devote much of it's sixty-days
 session to a consideration of consti- | tutional questions.
 Among the very first bills to be introduced in the senate will be for an amendment to increase salaries
 of state officers. There should be
 no opposition to it, but there will be. Farmers get more for their products, | the laboring mans wage has been 1 doubled and trebled, the merchants prices have gone sky high, and the services of the professional man command larger fees, then why should those who hold office be de- nied a just and fair compensation? Already the first of the initiative petitions is being circulated It is petition to initiate as an amend
 ment the I & R plan that appears in | the original proposals submitted to | the constitution by the committee be- | fore it was changed by the conven- l tion itself.
 | And the suffrage forces are plan ming to submit the full suffrage amendment, either by initiative or | through the legislature. Even those
 who still oppose it are forced to ad-
 init that it is inevitable.
 The educational interests will in- itiate the more fundamental features l of the improved educational provis- ions of the rejected constitution,
 which all admit would have taken the shackles off our schools.
 And of course the bond amendment
 will come again, as it will keep com ing until it is finally adopted in some form, since the state can make little if any progress while held down by restrictions which were alright in 1874 but all wrong in 1918. The constitution of 1918 was de- feated, but Arkansas has not heard
 the last of it.
 **#&&*
 There are some interesting statis-
 tics about the forty-second general
 assembly which convenes on Janu-
 ary 13.
 There are no Republicans in the
 Senate and only five in the House,
 from Crawford, Logan, Newton, Van
 Buren and Searcy counties.
 The oldest member of the Senate is B. H. Greenhouse of Washington,
 aged 69, and R. R. Townsend of Pike is the youngest, 27. In the House Col E. T. Mcconnell, of Johnson, former superintendent of the state penitentiary, and T. T. Anderson of
 Little River, tie for the honor of be- ing the oldest member, each being 73 years of age. The youngest mem- | Der is Felix L. Smith of Hot Springs, aged 24
 1 Twenty of the thirty five members
 of the senate are lawyers, while only
 eight are farmers, and one classified | himself as a teacher farmer and one as a lawyer farmer. Eight occupa- | tions are represented in the senate, | there being three merchants, one in- surance agent, one cotton farmer one druggist, three teachers and one real estate agent.
 The members of the house ale more diversified in their occupations, eighteen being represented. Farmers
 lead with 34, and lawyers are close
 second with 27. Others are classified
 as follows Merchants, 4; insurance
 agent 1, teacher farmer 2, cotton
 farmer 1, druggist l, teachers 5, : stock raiser l, locomotive engineer : l, fruit dealer l, carpenter and min , ister l, ministers 5, teacher lawyer 1,
 physicians ?, bankers 4, editors 5, [ stenographer, 1, printer l. , Religiously, there are only four ' denominations in the senate, the
 Methodists leading with Is, and the { Baptists a close second with 12.
 There are three Presbyterians and