Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1921-04-14

ten by Senator Smith, of Winterset,
and Representative Harrison, Of
Pottawattamie county, and Francis,
| of Taylor county, with the aid of
Reporter Whitney the state has real
protection and a workable law that
should prove very satisfactory. 1t
provides that the auditor of state,
secretary of state and attorney gen.
eral, together with two practical
printers of at least five years ex-
| perience and not interested in any
state contract for printing, shall be
state printing board and this
board shall appoint superintend-
ent of printing who shall be the ex-
ecutive officer and keep adequate
records to show just what printing
| is done for the state and the
amount.
Boxing Contests Knocked Out.
American Legion friends over
played their hand in pressing the
boxing bill, say some of the senators
The Lake bill was passed in the
house, permitting boxing contests in
Iowa under supervision of board
who were to be surrounded with
plenty of restrictions. But in the
senate the members could not be in
duced to pass it, after hours of de-
bate.
However, soldiers of the recent
war and of other wars were favored
by the passage of a bill giving them
preference in appointments to office
and positions of various kinds in
this state.
Primary elections will not be
changed by any laws of this General
Assembly, and voting machines as
now in use in all counties were
made legal in the Iu,ure, whether
changed to permit the straight party
lever being used or not.
Some holes in the present insur-
ance laws of the state have been
stance of the insurance commission
e, though no supervision of rating
bureaus is included in this program.
Insurance companies are still per-
mitted to run wild and make their
own rates, except as competition of
outside companies keeps down the
rates on large risks. Smaller risks
are paying and will continue to pay
what the traffic will bear.
Appropriations Are Large.
Necessarily the appropriations
made at this session are large. In
creased costs of state institutions
and increased attendance at state
educational institutions must be
taken care of. Legislators who
promised constituents that they
would keep down appropriations
had good intentions but wrong ideas
of what could be accomplished.
Amounts asked for by the state
penal and charitable institutions
were pared down numerically. But
they can stand 1t. Many people
think too much comfort is provided
for culprits, anyway. But the state
educational institutions with third
larger attendance than heretofore,
with professors paid less than Sec
tion hands with losses of hundreds
of their best and most efficient
teaching force, with inadequate
buildings for all that is required,
had to be taken care of. Either
Iowa has to keep up with the pro-
cession of education or acknowledge
reaction and defeat of its plans and
purposes of years past. After cut
ting out hundreds of thousands
from the askings of the state edu-
cations board, members were still
impressed with the actual needs of
the time enough to take care of
pressing demands, and gave the col
leges of the state approximately six
millions of dollars for the two-year
period. Thus members have vindi-
Gated their election promises, but
it is fortunate for the state schools
that no more of them stood on that
platform.
1t may be interesting information
to a large number of our readers
that a one-mill levy of taxes for
state purposes produces over one
million dollars. The last two years
the state levy has been less than
tx mills. Possibly this session will
increase that levy to or s " mills,
the highest ever known in the state.
But in the average Iowa town and
city the total tax levy is around It's
to 100 mills, so you see the state
levy is a very small part of it all.
State revenues are derived from
many different kinds of fees and
licenses, as much as from direct
taxation, so there is little or nothing
in this claim that taxes are made
burdensome by state expenditures
or legislative action on state mat
tiers. 49,
Conference Committees Galore.
When house and senate have each
passed a bill with amendments and
one house refuses to concur in the
amendments of the other, confer
ence committee must be appointed
composed of members of each house
for the purpose of trying to iron out
the differences and get some action.
Such is the case with many bills
now. One such is the resolution
providing for holding the constitu-
tional convention, which was order
ed by the voters at the last election.
The house resolution says the selec-
tion of delegates to such convention
shall be a partisan affair and the
Senate insists that delegates to such
convention should be non-partisan
and elected without regard to par
tisan politics. Radicals in the
house will die in the ditch" before
they will change, they say, while
senators feel they should have some
final action. II they do not agree,
who or what or how will a consti-
tutional convention? Can anybody
tell? There will very likely be no
such convention held, even though
the voters did vote for 1t.
G. l.. Caswell.