Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1919-02-03
PAST WEEK IN
LEGISLATURE:
Petitions to Members of
House or Senate of Little
VaIue-Letters
Better.
DOCTORING PRIMARY
County Option Feature Will
be About all the Road
Legislation.
BY G. l.. CASWELL.

AAS'S pSSitloAS plCsCIllCu III Liz MUS
or senate are about as useless as
prayer to Allah. Before people a
home get into the notion of circulating
petitions to the legislature for this, tina
or the other thing, let us urge upol
them to take the time and write per
sonal letters, giving their views il
friendly conference with their mem
ber
Petitions to the general assembl.
have been coming in thick and fas
during the past week. Twenty-0nt
different petitions were sent up to tn,
secretaly's desk in the senate on Mon
4 day and half dozen in the house
Among those in the senate were: ST,
petitions relative TO the proposed bet
ter housing law: four relative to i'm
proved roads and highways; four, fol-
increasing the pay of county super.
visors; one for the protection of game
and one relative to profiteering by pub
lie utilities. On Tuesday so many pc
tons came to the senate members that
ii taken to the desk one by one and pre-
scented to the secretary in the usual
way, it would have required an hour
of time. Instead of doing this sena.
tor suggested that all such petitions
be gathered up by page and deliver.
ed in bunch-and there they are and
forgotten.
In the senate a petition is present
ed by the member receiving the same
addressing the president and stating
that lie has petition on this or that
subject. 1t is then delivered to a
page and left at the secretary's desk.
But when numerous petitions are to be
- ia4 the mthaber usually rises and
motions to the page. hands the petition
to him and in the journal of the SEN
ate the next morning you read that
Senator So-and-SO presented a petition
from his county relative to the road,
schools, salaries or other questions. In
the house the journal boils this down
to report that "Sayers Of Iowa coun-
ty, petition. Referred to committee
on roads and highways" And so for
half an hours reading, perhaps, while
the petitions themselves get no further
consideration, and result in about as
much influence. Nobody is apt to ever
look at them again.
And yet every member of the house
and senate likes to hear from his con
stituents ana learn their views. He Of
ten writes scores of letters to them to
ask their views on some of the very
subjects for which they have signed
petitions.
The personal letter to member of
the legislature means that the writer
is earnest and sincere enough in what
lie says to take the time to write it,
to furnish the paper and stamps ana
mail it. Tie petition is known to be
usually request by some enthusiast
for his friends and anybody or every
body he meets to put their names down
on a piece of paper. the contents OF
which they know very little about. Pc
titiOns come in that are laughable,
many of them illegible and all of them
waste of time and material involved.
Provoking Resolutions.
About as useless as petitions to the
legislature is the value many of the
members attach to resolutions Of
fered in both house and senate endors-,
ing this or that, or directing congress
to do something. Several times in the
past week have members soaked such
propositions, and one was the ,resolu-
ton endorsing the league of nations.
Presented in the house by Nebiker of
Burlington at time when the mem
hers were evidently in an ugly mood,
when something else had gone wrong,
or when too much of the same stuff
was appearing, and also not liking the
perspicacitt of the author of the reso-
luton, this memorial to congress to-
put across what President Wilson and
all our peace ENJOYS are in Europe to
promote, met with disaster, tangled up
in the first barb-wire, fell into the front
trenches, gassed and gone. Likewise.
one endorsing the improvement of the
st. Lawrence Welland canal, etc. But
in each case it took oratory and time
TO do the useless job.
Printers Accused Of Delay.
Members of both house and senate
were more than peeved Monday when
they found the printed copies of most
of the bills offered had not yet reached
them to study these bills and allow
the committees to act upon them. Two
house committees were ready to report
bills out for passage, but the printed