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Show Too Much Legislation for State's Welfare. When this session of the Legislature opened, sixty days ago, a few, a very few, members an-noanced an-noanced thai, in their opinion, the duty to be kept in mind was not to pass too many laws. In how hopeless a minority the legislators of this belief have been may be seen by an inspection of the House and Senate flies. Four hundred measures drawn,.debated and passed upon itr forty days' actual ac-tual working time! We hare had bills dealing with every subject, from divorce to Divinity, from coyotes coy-otes to City Councils. Many of the proposed acts were so hurriedly and crudely drawn that if they meant anything at all, the intent was not apparent to the committee having the bills in, hand, and it was necessary to amend the measures until the introducers in-troducers were unable to recognize them. Now, why this multiplicity of desired changes in existing conditions? This effort to add to, amend or eliminate elimi-nate almost every provision of the code now in force leads to the conclusion that according to the Assemblymen, Assem-blymen, who will very soon return to their customary custo-mary avocations, their predecessors were conspicuous conspicu-ous for failure to recognize the needs of the people. It may be so; or, are these lawmakers planning to make themselves solid with their constituents by displaying their alleged ability to swell the total of the State's printing bill? Do each of these statesmen states-men expect to go into party conventions two years hence and crush his opponents by proudly pointing to his record and saying: "You can see for yourselves your-selves what we did for you last time. Here is the proof in black and white. Twenty-seven bills that bear my name were introduced. True, none of them was important or was passed, but I introduced them, nevertheless. Send me once more and I'll make it thirty?'' In all seriousness, many discussions discus-sions on the floor of the House hare made it clear that the tendency has been to consider, not the ultimate, ulti-mate, but the immediate effect of a change in existing exist-ing laws, and in numerous cases the local, not the general result. Had the motto of the members been: The State first, legislation for small sections and single individuals second, the clock need not have been stopied and the sifting committee could have attended to other business. |