The Topeka state journal., 1919-01-21
Montee Senate Bill Is Aimed at
Worthless Oil Stocks.
Companies Would Report Pro-
duction Every Six Months.
SOLDIER FARMERS NEEDED
Laing Introduces Measure To
Bring Them Home.
SchOch Wants New Limit on
Topeka Tax Levy.

Selling fake oil stocks to suckers
will not be so easy in Kansas if a bill
introduced in the senate today by
Montee of Crawford county is passed.
In fact, selling worthless oil stock will
be entirely wiped out-or can be-if
the Montee measure is enacted and
rigidIy enforced.
According to the provisions of the
bill every person, company or corpor-
alton having control or management
of oil and gas wells will be required
every six months to make a true re-
port of the total amount of oil or gas
produced during the preceding six
months to the secretary of state. Then,
when a salesman of oil stocks comes
around, all the purchaser has to do is
to go to the secretary of state and find
out Just what the company has done
and what its wells are producing.
1t is asserted that thousands OF dol
lars are invested by persons every year
upon false representations made by oil
stock statesmen and by literature that
is gotten out exaggerating the pros
poets of companies and painting false
pictures of easy roads to wealth 1t
is to give the careful investor chance
to learn about these false representa-
tions that Montee seeks.
SoIdier-Farmcrs Needed at Home.
Senator Laing of Russell wants the
war department to release the Kansas
farmer boys from the army as soon as
possible SO that they can come home
and help feed the stock and prepare
for spring planting. In a concurrent
resolution introduced by him he says
that the shortage of man power on
the Kansas farms has become acute
and that with the largest wheat crop
| in the history of the state, or of any
state, in the making it is absolutely
necessary that the boys be returned
home as soon as possible so that they
may help in handling it.
He says that it is absolutely neces-
| sary for this crop to receive consider
alton if peace conditions are to become
normal again and his resolution asks
that the secretary of the senate and the
chief clerk of the house be instruct
ed to send a copy to the war depart
ment at Washington with the urgent
request that the farmer boys be dis
charged as soon as possible:
The Laing resolution has the back
| ing of thousands Of Kansas farmers
who have complained bitterly to state
and national officials that the women
folks have been compelled to feed
stock this winter and do other farm
work while the boys in the camps in
the United States were held without
any apparent reason.
| Limit Topeka Tax Levy.
One of the important local measures
into the hopper proposes to limit the
/ levy of taxes in cities between 10000
and 10000 inhabitants. The bill Is
intended to. apply to Topeka.
1t provides that a tax levy OF not
more than six mills may be levied
| for the general fund and other levies
as follows: For water, one mill; for
judgments, one-fourth mill; for parks.
one and one-half mills; for library,
one-fourth mill; for light, six-tenths
of a mill, and for bridges, one-half of
| a mill.
Getty Comes to Bat.
Senator Getty, of Wyandotte. came
to bat with his first bag full of bills
late Monday afternoon and almost
choked the hopper. Most of the Getty
| measures apply to Kansas City, Kan,
and Wyandotte, but some of them are
of statewide interest.
One of his proposed measures pro-
videS that when an emplOye is injured
he may not collect both damages and
compensation. Another provides that
blind person may waive claim for
compensation when taking a job.
The Getty bills applying to Kansas
City. Kan, range all the way from
bridge building and coal mining within
the city limits to taking over and oper-
voluminous of his measures grants
permission to Kansas City, Kan, to
take over and operate the street cars
| of the Metropolitan that run on the
Kansas side, and is, undoubtedly, Of
fered as a solution of the strike and
| fare controversies that have made
street car service so unsatisfactory in
both the Kansas Cities during the last
year.