SENATOR FOSTER
said: Mr. President, I have no other object in view but fair play in this matter. I want my good-looking newspaper men on this floor to understand that it is through my interposition that they have seats here. The gentleman from Posey can not object, for the newspaper men have published nearly every word the Senator has spoken while some of us have said nearly as much and have been noticed less frequently, so that the Senator from Posey can not complain on this score. I am not a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, or any other office that so places me under obligations to the Journal or Sentinel, so I have nothing to expect from either except fair treatment. The question is, is it right that these pubiications should be made. For one I contend that it is proper and right that foreign Insurance Companies should be compelled to make semi-annual statements of their condition and standing in order that the people who insure may know what are reliable Companies and what are unreliable. Since the law went into effect compelling such publications, we find that about fifty-two spurious Companies have been compelled to withdraw from the State, and the Companies now doing business in the State are reliable and safe to deal with. The arguments of some of the Senators that the advertisements set in solid type is sufficient I think is not correct, and unwise. If the publications are to be made at all, let the Companies--the officers of which spend $15,000 to $20,000 for suppers and wine and revel in luxury--pay for a respectable display that will not require spectacles to discover and read it. The Senator from Rush says that he is in favor of helping the poor printer and publisher; they are a poor class, page: 101[View Page 101] and hardly able to take care of themselves, which statement is entirely incorrect; newspaper men are generally well fixed financially, but I must say that lawyers are the most forsaken, poverty-stricken class on the face of the earth, I never knew a lawyer to have $5 in his pocket-book at a time in my life. [Here the Senator from Rush shook his pocket-book at the Senator from Allen, saying he had more than that.]
Probably you have, for I just saw you draw your salary as a Senator. Taking all things into consideration, I am in favor of the minority report.
