Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-05-20
over 1900 BILLS
INTRODUCED AT
FIRST SESSION
Enough Work Provided to
Keep House Members Busy
for Year; Suffrage
q. Takes Lead.

Washington, May 1o.-Enough
] bills. were introduced in the house
today to keep that body continu-
ously at work through the year
More than 1890 measures were
placed in the house hopper.
While most of the bills provide
for the donation to various COM
munities of cannon and German field
pieces captured by the American
expeditionary forces, much of the
legislation that failed at the last
session was again introduced and
new measures came from the re-
publican side as part of the legis-
iatiye program agreed upon at the
& party caucus.
First on the house calendar is the
joint resolution of Representative
Mann for a federal constitutional
amendment providing equal suf-
frage. Next is the bill of Repre-
sentative Stevenson of Minnesota,
providing for immediate return of
telegraph and telephone lines now
controlled by the government.
Repeal Bills introduced.
Bills to repeal the wartime pro-
llibition, the luxury tax section OF
the war revenue bill and taxes on
soda fountain products went early
into the hopper. Among the repeal
bills wer~ half dozen of the
measures aimed at the daylight saw
ing act, most of them sponsored by
farmers organizations. -
Numerous other bills would pro-
vide larger bonus for men dis
charged from military and naval
service than the 500 set aside under
the war revenue bill. Soldier legis-
fation also included a bill for acqui
sition Of an American burial ground
in France for men killed in action
or who died in service abroad. An
other bill called for the immediate
discharge of men entering military
service after the declaration of war,
and of men who enlisted in the navy
for four years instead of duration
of war. Preference in civil service
employment to former service men
was provided for in many bills.
Would Furnish Transportation.
Representative Laguardia of New
York introduced bill under which
the government would provide
transportation to France for the
nearest of kin of all soldiers buried
overseas, this being put forward by
him as preferable to the plan of at
tempting to return all bodies to this
country. Prohibitory immigration
legislation is embodied in another
bill introduced by Representative
Lufkin of Massachusetts,, who asked
early consideration for it. ~
What was regarded as an out
growth of the ratification OF the
prohibition amendment was bill
proposing constitutional amend
ment providing that all future
amendments to that document be
ratified by referendum vote in each
of three -fourths of the states.
The oil land leasing bill was in
troduced in substantially the same
form as at the last session.
Wartime Pensions.
Wartime pensions reaching back
to the Spanish-American war, and
the Philippine instruction and the
China relief expedition would be
provided for in bill by Representa-
tive Sells of Tennessee.
Creation of a department of edu-
cation with cabinet officer at the
head and proposals that $l0O,5O0,00O
be appropriated for combating illit-
eracy and for Americanization were
contained in legislation presented by
Representative Tower, of Iowa.