The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-02-14
JUST TOO KILLING
Senate and Its Committees
Slaughter Number of Bills.
Anti-SmOking Measure Among
Those GuillOtined.
NO MORE LEGAL HOLIDAYS
Sparks Mining School Scheme
Also Meets Sudden End.
Memorial Tree Idea Reported
and Recommended Adversely.

If Kansas gets more legal holidays
on the calendar it will have to be done
when the senate is asleep. The upper
house of the legislature does not want
to give lazy people chance to lay off
honest labor every other day or so. A
few holidays like the Fourth of July
and Thanksgiving and Christmas may
be all right-so far no bill has been
introduced to abolish these-but the
senate has made it most evident that
it does not banker for a whole clutter
of holidays
The first indication of the attitude
of the senate on this matter came
when a bill was introduced to make
the day on which the armistice was
signed a holiday. This bill was killed
promptly. Then this week when Lin
coins birthday anniversary came,
some one mentioned the fact that it
might be legal holiday. This was
enough. The senate promptly took
steps to avoid adjourning the night be-
fore and worked thru the anniversary
of the Great Emancipator under the
preteXt that it had only recessed thru
the night.
And now the senate fatty refuses to
make the birthday anniversary of the
state a holiday. A bill was introduced
by Senator Montee at the request of
the Kansas Day club to make January
90 a day of rest and jollificatio but
the committee on federal and state af
fairs has killed it
Disappoint Lady Again.
II the lady member of the lower
house of the legislature has had any
idea she might be able to turn the
laugh on those who made her anti
smoking bill 2 mere "carry-alr' for a
joker by getting a chance to put thru
the Hickey bill introduced in the SEN
ate she is doomed for another disap-
pointment. The Hickey bill carried all
bill and like the measure introduced
in the house, it was intended to make
the after dinner smoker go to the
curbstone of the street for his smoke.
But the senate was not as kind, or
courteous, or humane as the house.
Possibly the senate had a license to
be more ruthless, as Senator Hickey is
merely a lecturer while the author of
the bill in the house is a lady lecturer.
Anyway, the senate did not waste any
time reporting the bill out of it's COM
mittee. arguing whether or not a drug
store is a restaurant or inserting jok-
ers.
The Committee Killed 1t.
The anti-smoking bill of the senate
went to- the judiciary committee and
there it is and will stay. A report has
come out recommending that it be not
passed and whenever a bill meets with
such fate at the hands of this COM
mittee, which is made up of lawyers
ana heaQed DY senator Pr1ce-Well,
that's all there is to it.
1t was rumored that the friends of
| the anti-smoking measure, after they
discovered the joker the house slipped
| in, had hopes the bill would be passed
| by the senate and messaged over and
| that then the joke and the joker could
| be dealt with. If such is the case it
| might be somewhat educational for
| these persons to spend a few evenings
studying the French guillotine, the
| good uses of which compare very ia
vorably with those of the senate judi
| ciary committee.
Oh Sparks may get a. school estab-
| lished at Galena for the purpose of
| teaching miners how to mine, but his
bill providing for this will have moth
| ing but his own sturdy backing to sup
port it when it comes up before the
| senate. Even the members of the
| committee on mines and mining could
not see its way clear to recommend it
and the measure came from the COM
| mlttee just as 1t went in, unaided and
! unhampered by recommendations
! The committee did not even so much
| as recommend that it be amended to
| provide for a color line in the class
| rooms.
The committee on federal and state
| affairs was even more unkind to Sem
| ator Metcalf's bill creating a Kansas
| soldiers and sailors tree memorial
/ board. When this bill was reported
! out it bore the recommendation that
| it be not passed. However, it is I'M
| derstood that Senator Metcalf has a
substitute bill and that an effort will
be made to have this substitute come
| before the senate thru Senator Bergen
as committee bill. The substitute
cuts down the appropriations to about
one-tenth those specified in the orig
/ inal bill and is so safeguarded there is
! little danger trees will be planted
where trees have never been known to
! grow.