THIRD DAY. Lansing, Monday, March 25, 1912. 9 o'clock p. m. The Senate met pursuant to adjournment and was called to order by the President. The roll of the Senate was called by the Secretary. Messrs. Barnaby, Bradley, Cartier, Conley, Freeman, James, Kline, Mapes, Miller, Moriarty, Murtha, Newton, Rosenkrans, F. D. Scott, G. G. Scott, Vanderwerp, Walter, Ward, Weter and White-20. The following Senators were absent with leave: Messrs. Foster, Fowle, Kingman, Leidlein and Snell-5. The following Senators were absent without leave: Messrs. Collins, Lee, Putney, Taylor, Vaughan, Watkins and Wiggins-7. Mr. Weter asked and obtained leave of absence for Mr. Leidlein from all of the sessions of the Senate up to and including Thursday, March 28, on account of a death in his family. Mr. Weter moved that the other absentees without leave be excused from today's session. The motion prevailed. MESSAGES FROM THE GOVERNOR. The following message from the Governor was received and read: State of Michigan, Executive Office, Lansing, March 21, 1912. To the Forty-Sixth Legislature of the State of Michigan: Gentlemen:-The Legislature is authorized to consider a bill or bills to regulate the surety bond business in the State of Michigan. This has particular reference to the Michigan Bonding and Surety Company, which has a practical monopoly of furnishing bonds for saloonkeepers. No monopoly of this nature should be encouraged or permitted to exist in this state. Respectfully submitted, CHASE S. OSBORN, ( 25 ) The following message from the Governor was also received and read: State of Michigan, Executive Office, Lansing, March 22, 1912. To the Forty-Sixth Legislature of the State of Michigan: Gentlemen:-The Legislature is authorized and requested to consider a bill or bills to amend section one of Act No. 232 of the Public Acts of 1911 so that an error that appears in said act may be corrected. This message is in response to House resolution No. 10 requesting the same. Respectfully submitted, CHASE S. OSBORN, Governor. The following message from the Governor was also received and read: State of Michigan, Executive Office, Lansing, March 25, 1912. To the Forty-Sixth Legislature of the State of Michigan: Gentlemen-For your information, and because it has a bearing upon important legislation under consideration by the Legislature, I transmit to you the following letter: "Detroit Lodge No. 1 KNIGHTS OF THE ROYAL ARK JOHN GRIFFIN, Secretary 217 Michigan Avenue. "March 21, 1912. "Whereas, The Governor has seen fit to call the Legislature in a second extraordinary session, and whereas he has submitted to such extraordinary special session, among other things, the following: First. The brewery owned saloon. Second. Change in the saloon bonding system. Fourth. Women suffrage. "Therefore be it resolved, That the Knights of the Royal Ark of Wayne County at a regular meeting held Thursday, March 21, 1912, are unanimously opposed to any liquor legislation or any change in the present bonding law and women suffrage, and to the initiative, referendum and recall, and especially are we opposed to dealing with such important questions at a special session of the Legislature when due consideration. cannot be given them, and we respectfully request the delegation from Wayne County in the Legislature, to oppose these propositions. "Be it further resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to each Senator and Representative from Wayne County. This letter was sent to every member of the Legislature from Wayne County by special delivery post, reaching Lansing Friday morning, March 22, after your week-end adjournment. I have made the claim in my messages to you that the organized saloon and brewery interests were unwarrantably active in Michigan politics. The order of the Knights of the Royal Ark is composed of saloonkeepers. These saloon keepers are all dependent upon the Michigan Bonding and Surety Company for their bonds. Very many of them run brewery-owned saloons. The connection between the Knights of the Royal Ark and the Michigan Bonding and Surety Company and the large brewers of Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit and elsewhere, is direct and unbroken. They might be warranted in taking a position in opposi tion to the proposed brewery and bonding legislation; but when they extend their influence to such questions as the Initiative, Referendum and Recall and Woman Suffrage, it proves that they fear the wholesome public voice and are disposed to smother it wherever possible. It is apodeictic that "birds of a feather flock together." When the state is fighting a public enemy it is perfectly proper to call the attention of the people to the strength of that enemy in all directions of sympathy and connections. The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit Journal are active supporters of the Michigan Bonding and Surety Company and of the brewery-owned saloon. Large newspapers are quasi public factors. It is proper to publicly study their character and to point out wherein they are conducted in a manner inimical to the interests of society. I shall endeavor to briefly show, and without any more malice or anger or temper than the surgeon displays when he does his work in the operating room, why the Free Press and the Journal and the big brewers and the Michigan Bonding and Surety Company flock together. E. D. Stair, a large owner of these papers, won his money from the cheap and vulgar and suggestive theater business. So illy-conducted were some of them that one at least became known to the police and public in Detroit as the "crime academy." The business of obtaining recruits for this theater was only a thin stratum above the white slave traffic. This business and the saloon business have been injured by the development of the five-cent theater, which under proper regulations is a wholesome and inexpensive form of entertainment, competing to good public advantage with the undesirable saloon and immoral theater. In an editorial in the Detroit Free Press, March 22, 1912, the five-cent theaters were classified with the alleged dangerous crazes of the day in this phrase: "Prevalent madness for moving picture shows." Mr. Stair bought his newspapers with the funds obtained from low passion tariff and is running them as recklessly as one might who had purchased a high power rifle, the use of which he did not understand, and was shooting indiscriminately within the city limits. The business of conducting debasing theaters, and the business of keeping bad saloons, and the business of artificially stimulating the saloon business by big brewers, are all afraid of the extension of the decent influence of women into the political sphere, and they are all op posed to the Initiative, Referendum and Recall, the Presidential Primary, and other curative measures which will permit an honest public to get at and destroy their culture grounds of vice. The question before us seems to be plain, and that is how many of us will flock with the Michigan Bonding and Surety Company, the brewery-owned saloon and Mr. Stair, and who will forgather with those who are standing and hoping for better things in Michigan. The Agents of evil obtain their profits from the common people by selling them things that excite sensual debaucheries and then use the same money to prevent their emancipation and improvement, thus keeping them in a state of sad bondage wherein they are most easily preyed upon. Thus are the masses made to forge their own shackles and wear them. The argument is made for the Michigan Bonding and Surety Company monopoly that it refuses bonds to improper persons and thus improves the saloon business. It has not done this or there would be no saloon dives in Michigan. It refuses saloon bonds to only those who will not promise to heed its hight. It is the duty of the State of Michigan to retain and apply its police power as a state, and it should not turn the regulation of the saloon business over to such a malevolent monopoly as the Michigan Bonding and Surety Company any more than a wolf should be put in charge of a lamb kindergarten. Respectfully submitted, Governor. The following message from the Governor was also received and read: State of Michigan, Executive Office, Lansing, March 25, 1912. To the Forth-Sixth Legislature of the State of Michigan: Gentlemen:-You are authorized and requested to consider a bill or bills for the purpose of abolishing the office of State Inspector of Oils and of transferring the duties of that office to the department of the Dairy and Food Commissioner. You are also authorized and requested to consider a bill or bills to abolish the office of State Salt Inspector and to transfer the duties of that office to the Department of the Dairy and Food Commissioner, This is in accordance with my first message to the Legislature. The work of these departments, if necessary, can be performed by the same officials that are now doing the work of the Dairy and Food Department. The work of the Dairy and Food Department requires the inspectors of that department to go to the places where salt and oil may be inspected. The work can be as effectively done by the Dairy and Food Department as it is performed now, and without much additional cost to that department. The saving to the taxpayers of Michigan accomplished by this legislation would be very considerable and worth making. If the machinery of government can be improved without reducing the efficiency of performance, and a saving accomplished at the same time, there can be no sufficient argument against the passage of these measures. Respectfully submitted, CHASE S. OSBORN, The following message from the Governor was also received and read: State of Michigan, Executive Office, Lansing, March 25, 1912. To the Forty-Sixth Legislature of the State of Michigan: Gentlemen :—In response to a request for authority made through the medium of House resolution number 12, you are authorized to consider a bill or bills to amend Act No. 119 of the Public Acts of 1893, entitled: "An act to define what shall constitute fraternal beneficiary societies, orders, associations, etc.,” in such way that the Insurance Department may refuse a certificate to domestic or foreign associations hereafter organized unless their rates are based on a standard table of mortality. Respectfully submitted, CHASE S. OSBORN, The messages were ordered spread upon the Journal. Governor. ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE SECRETARY. Pursuant to Rule 9 of the Senate Rules, I respectfully report that Senate bill No. 1 (file No. 1), Was received from the printer on March 21, and is now on file in the document room of the Senate; Have this day been received from the printer and are on file in the document room of the Senate. ELBERT V. CHILSON, Secretary of the Senate. PRESENTATION OF PETITIONS. Petition No. 1. By Mr. Weter: Petition of R. R. Moore and 13 other citizens of St. Clair county in favor of the passage of the so-called Watkins-Field bill, and urging that favorable consideration be given the measure known as the Taylor-Ball bill. The petition was referred to the Committee on Insurance. Petition No. 2. By Mr. Weter: Petition of C. M. Estes and 33 other citizens of Macomb county, on the same subject. Same reference. |