Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1920-01-28
Wednesday, January %.
Our Columbia Letter.

Columbia, Jan. 81 Doubtless
many persons who are not familiar
with the routine or modus operandl
of legislative bodies wonder why the
legislative mill grinds so slowly. In
matters of general character, those
affecting the people and State as a
whole, there is no short cut in legls-
lation. Purely local and uncontested
measures can be "railroaded
through" one body and then sent
over to the other for concurrence
with great rapidity. But all general
legislation mu st be referred to the
proper committee after the first read
ing and there it lodges from one to
several days before being sent back
with a favorable or unfavorable re-
port, or perchance both through a
majority or minority report. Upon a
second readingt after being acted
upon by the committee, it is then
thrashed out on the floor of the
House or Senate, according to which
body has it for consideration, and
with each step there is more or less
delay. In committees bills are fire.
questly held up in order to accord
hearings to persons who are interest
ed in their passage or failure to pass.
There being many minds IN body
of more than hundred men, 124 in
the House, it necessarily follows that
there are many pet schemes, each
man claiming that his educational
measure, his good roads bill ,or his
something else, is the best. These diff
ferences must all be discussed and
reconciled before any final conclusion
especially favorable conclusion, can
be reached. 1t is not infrequent that
an entire morning or night session
is consumed with the discussion of
some small measure that is finally
killed, or with some measure of state
wide Importance and, failing to reach
definite conclusion, debate is ad-
journed to another day, at which
time the measure is made a special
order-given priority, so to speak
and then the whole matter has to be
gone over again.
For this weeks legislative pro-
gramme there is no one item or phase
of legislation that towers above an
other, only minor matters are being
disposed of. Probably the most i'm
portant on the calendar at this time
is bill that would make some chang
es in the Tax Commission. A decided
effort was made last session to abol-
ish the commission entirely, but sem
timent is not sufficiently strong for
that. Some men whose pocket nerve
has been pricked through the raising
of certain taxes by the commission,
in some of the Pee Dee coun-
ties, are endeavoring to change the
personnel of the commission. 1t is
conceded by men who are informed
upon such matters, especially those
who realized what farce the old
State equalization board was, that
the act creating the tax commission
was one of the wisest pieces of legis-
lation that has been enacted in the
past decade. The commission may
make mistakes, it's members would
be more than mortals were they not
to make mistakes, but upon the
whole it has caused the tax burden
of South Carolina to be more equit-
ably distributed than it has ever been
before.
The two great questions that stand
out boldly above all others for this
general assembly to consider are
Education and Highway improve
ment, and before an adjournment is
reached, some time the latter part
of February, something definite and
I trust practical and helpful, will
have been done. / am preparing a
good roads bill for our county, look
ing to referendum on bond issue
for the county, which l shall intro
duce if concurredin by the othc- riem
bers of the delegation. A State high
way system, connec' ing county-seat
with county-seat, is all right as far
as it goes. But what we need most
in Edgefeld county is an improve
ment of the public roads leading
from the railroad back into the rural
Businesses over which farmers can
haul fertilizers in the spring and
+be;,. crons To market in the fall. 1t