The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1919-04-17
THERE ARE AT PRESENT EIGHT
DISTINCT UTILITIES BILLS
NOW BEFORE HOUSE.
BILLS COVER RATE CONTROL
Wiley Compromise Bill Starts Lively
Session When Brought Up In
House of Representatives.
BY William Lee calnon.
Lansing, Mich.

| aNANCo ONNA puOllC uliAlllCE lO6 lbAdllOA -
at high tension, judging from the way
members fiared mp over the whole
subject the moment ii was brought
before them through the medium of a
favorable report by the private cor
porations committee on the so-called
Wiley compromise bill. There are
eight distinct utilities bills before tn >
house and one proposal to amend the
constitution so that further utilities
legislation may be had. The bills
cover the whole gamut of poss be law
making concerning rate control.
Friends of the other measures inn
mediately objected to the Wiley corn
promise bill having precedence and
asked that it be sent to the state af.
fairs committee, before which three OF
the eight bills were pending. The 9TH
er five had been in the private corpora
tons committee. The Wiley bill
finally was so referred, carrying all
the other bills with It to the state
affairs committee.
The Wiley bill is a compromise be-
tween the Dafoe bill to give a state
utilities commission power over rates
and service of. all public service com
panies in the state, whether they are
owned by private companies or by
cities, and other bills to give cities
control over the rates of utilities op.
Grating within their limits, while che
state has control over all others. De-
troiters are jealous of their present
control over street railway and gas
as it specifically retains these rights
for Detroit.
1t would appear from the first de-
bate in the house on the subject that
it will make little difference what bill
is reported out to the house There
is bound to be big fight over every
detail and each point that is made will
be so made only because il manages
to summon the support of 81 or more
house members. One thing appears to
be certain and that is that the old
state railroad commission is due to be
replaced by some sort of public
utilities commission.
The deadlock between the senate
and the house on the style OF budget
bills has been referred to a confer
ence committee, which will endeavor
to solve 1t. The senate still is in
sistent on its plan of having each ap.
preparation bill specify down to the
last janitor just what his annual
salary is to be, while the house is just
as insistent that some latitude be left
to the institutions and departments
and they merely be allowed bulk
sum for the assistants and smaller EN-
ployes. The senate conferees in the
matter are senators DeLand, Clark
and Wood. The house conferees are
Reps. Wiley, Hopkins and Brewer.
Each house still is engaged prin-
cipally in passing its own bills, which
illustrates the fact that adjournment
of the session still is few weeks off,
at least, as the last two weeks find
each house engaged in handling the
bills of the other one in final clean
up of the calendar
The house has passed the last of
the bills validating the action of the
Detroit school board in taking over
the Detroit College of Medicine during
the war, when the college heads and
financial hackers all went to hospital
units in France or environments In
this country. Originally the house
tackled a referendum on one bill allow
ing the school board to conduct the
college, but the house now has accept
ed the senate bills, with the refer.
endum left out. II would not have
been possible to have the referendum
vote taken until November, 1920. and
the college would have been kept
closed for a year and a half had the
referendum been retained, before vo-
tiers would have a chance to permit its
operation.
School affairs have been getting a
lot of attention in the legislature. Both
houses have passed the Condor bill
to prohibit the granting of teachers
certificates to aliens and both have
passed another Condor bill for al
schools, public, private and parochial.
TO have the same grade system. The
senate passed a bill for the use of
only the English language in the
schools, but the house substituted the
Moore bill for this and then had quite
fight over its provisions. Sone
members feared It aimed - the teach
ng OF religion in parochial foreign
anguage schools. but this fear was
emoved by an amendment which Rep.
Moore said was not needed, but would
20 some good II IL made the law
clearer. AS the bill now stands IL
authorizes the use Of the English Ian
guage only up 20 and including the
eighth grade. but religion may be
taught in any language after the reg
uIar school lessons are completed