The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-09-23
LAW ENF FORCEMENT FUND INCREASE IS
 PASSED BY HOUSE
Measure Is Defeated in Senate By Majority of One, and Will Be Resubmitted With
 Hope of Passage
By FRED H. GORMLEY
 Montgomery Bureau The Aas-Hsraid
 22l.2 First National Rank RuiIdina

moHt9omcfy buTeau inc AQt-heraiu
 22i-2 First National Bank Building
 Montgomery, September 22-(Specialg After the senate had defeated the meas ure by majority of one, the house of representatives late Wednesday, after noon passed the administration bill in- creasing the appropriation of the state law enforcement department from sso,oco: to s50,oo0 and allowing the appointment of twenty additional officers Therefore the same proposition was resubmitted to the senate, and administration friends announced that the measure would pc passed and would become law, as ab- sentees who favored the bill would be present and would vote when the house bill comes up.
 The measure was passed by the house after a long fight, which was led by J. Lee Long of Butler an opponent of the administration, who has been opposed to practically everything the admins tration has favored from the time the legislature assembled for the first time, January IA, 1919
 Mr. Long charged that agents of the law enforcement department have gone into the various counties and violated the laws promiscuously by entering the homes of citizens without search war rants and confiscating such things as they desired. He said one person had informed him that the officers had robbed his watermelon patch. MT. Long was aided by J. D. Clayton of Bar bour county and J. D. Truss of Jeff fsrson.
 BAKER SUPPORTS MEASURE
 E. M. Baker of DeKalb made ring ing address in behalf of the bill, de- claring that representatives of the de- partment had done a great work in rid ding the state of undesirables, and charg- ing that those who were opposed to the measure were either yiolators of the pre- hibition laws or were willing to permit others to violate the laws. He said the department only recently had gone into his county and had made arrests of tour persons on charges of illicit distillinS when county enforcement officers had been unable to make the arrests.
 Chauncey Sparks of Barbour, colleague of MT. Clayton, made an address in sup port of the bill, in which he said he and his colleague could never agree on measures, and that he believes the Ia" enforcement bill is one of the best things the legislature had done for the advance ment of law and order in the state. ,. A. Carnley of Coffee and Oscar L. Tompkins of Houston, administration floor leader also made addresses en the bill wherein they enumerated the gooa which had been done for the statc' quoting from the records of the state 10 show that arrests and confiscations made by the department had netted the gov ernment more than it had spent in main- tanning the department.
 This was the first contest the ad- ministration has had over measures ;n- cluded in the governors call except the constitutional convention which was defeated last week. In the former instance the administration made TO effort to pass the bill and did no more than announce that it was included at the request of a large number of cit izens with the idea that anything the Lawmakers did would be satisfactory.
 LITTLE OPPOSITION
 The administration public utilities and blue sky bills passed with Dracti- cally no opposition The former re- ceived fifty-nine votes to stwenty-one against it. while the latter was passed by a vote of seventy to four An in teresting fight developed over an amendment of Representative Cobbs cf Mobile to the public utilities bill which would have recognized contracts now EX1StlnR DeLWecH pubii@ oth 'A~c VI f'SA ations and municipalities. The admin istration was defeated.
 Under the bill, as now written, sever al municipalities, including Mobile will lose all rights now guaranteed by dontracts made between the towns and the public service companies regula- ting maximum charges and guarantee ink certain minimum service. The committee will have the power to ay whether or not the contracts shall con tinue to exist and if it believes can celiation is for the best interests for public and utilities it may order the discontinuance of contracts or ignore then, entirely.
 The blue sky law. which had prac- ,ticaly no opposition abolishes the |present blue sky commission which is 'composed of the superintendent of
 Continued on Page Two)