Pocahontas star herald., 1925-02-19

| "hN pay Si'uhu ioi lllt ANNUAL reunion
of its citizens. To all its people the
educational value of the State Fair is
unquestioned and mmeasured."
| Only three weeks of the session re-
mains There is large amount of
work that must yet be DONE including
the passage of the appropriation bills.
A great deal depends upon the decision
of the special Supreme Court in the
case of the constitutional amendment.
Their decision is expected almost any
dayday. Should the amendments be
declared adopted, it will prohibit all
further local legislation and will nee
essitate n considerable amount of new
| legislation in the enactment of enab-
ling laws
In the meantime Governor Terrals
program is being carried out with
scarcely hitch. While this program
involves the abolition of numerous gov
ernmental agencies that have been pro
vided by other legislatures, the Cover
nor insists that it is unfair to speak
of il as an abolition session, since he
considers the legislation progressive
and instructive.
There have already been created the
new departments of Charities and Cor
rection, Conservation and Inspection
and Insurance and Revenue No ap-
pointments have been made by the
Governor for these new positions and
ii is understood that none will be made
until after the adjournment G1 the
legislature.
The General Assembly, however has
not yet completed the work of aboli-
tiOn, as outlined by various pending
bills. There are propositions to abol-
ish the Arkansas Railroad Commission.
the Arkansas Veterans Bureau. the
Actuarial Bureau, County Boards of
Education and County Superintend-
ents, and the most popular bill of all
is one that proposes to abolish the
special road taxes that have to be paid
by the property owners.
There promises to he a warm debate
on the subiect of substituting super
visOrs of county schools for county
superintendent and county boards of
education. Several counties are at
tempting to secure this change by local
bills and the House has passed one of
them. for Poinsett county. The Repre-
sentative of Craighead county has a
bill which applies to his county alone
and declared on the floor that they
have Il rotten situation i'm the county
and this is the only way to get rid of
it" Several members are consistently
opposing these bills on the ground
that the general school system should
not be tampered with.
Representative McLester of Cleburne
county, however, sounded a note of
warning when he asserted that if men,
bers insisted upon thein efforts to
block the will of individual counties in
matters concering themselves only. the
whole system of county superintend-
ency might he defeated. The issue is
expected to be brought to a head this
week.
The administration road bill was in
troduced Saturday by Speaker Hill.
II amends the Harrelson law i'm two
important details. 1t provides for an
increase in the gasoline tax from four
to five mills and that the amount to be
applied annually from the Highway
FUND to the payment of highway bonds
is increased from S30OO.OOO to S5.OOO.-
600. 1t is tsated that there is now a
total of $62,000,000 in highway bonds
in Arkansas and Mr.. Hill estimates
that by his bill even should there be
no natural increase in the revenues
derived, it would be possible to wipe
out this Indebtedness in thirteen years.
He says this is a much more desirable
measure than the so-called Coleman
bill, which he believes would increase
the bonded indebtedness. rather than
diecboro,o IL