IN SENATE.
MONDAY, January 31, 1881--2 p. m.The Senate met pursuant to adjournment, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hanna, of Allen County, in the chair.
Prayers were said by Rev. J. M. Duncan, of Grace M.E. Church, of this city.
ADDITIONAL DOORKEEPERS.
Mr. COMSTOCK from the special Committee, to which was referred a resolution authorizing the employment of additional Doorkeepers, returned a substitute therefor, authorizing the employment of two, at a per diem of four dollars. One to take charge of the door at the ladies' gallery, and one to take charge of heating and ventilating the Senate Chamber.
Mr. LANGDON moved to lay the report and the resolution on the table.
This motion was rejected by yeas, 16; nays, 18.
The question recurring on concurring in the rport of the Committee, it was rejected, by yeas 12; nays 20.
STATE UNIVERSITY.
Mr. HEFRON offered the following:
Resolved, That the Committee on Education be and they are hereby instructed, to make inquiry as to the propriety and practicability of consolidating all the Educational Institutions in the State under one management and at the same place, viz: The State University, Purdue University, and the State Normal School, and report to this Senate as soon as possible, by bill or otherwise.
Mr. HEFRON explained that his resolution binds nobody; is not even an expression of opinion but it simply requests the Committee on Education to inquire into the feasibility of consolidating the State Educational Institutions named specifically, and to report their conclusions to the Senate. That is all intended by the resolution.
It was adopted.
SYMPATHY WITH IRELAND.
Mr. BRISCOE offered the following concurrent resolution, which was adopted:
Resolved, By the Senate, the House concurring, that the sympathies of the people of Indiana are with the masses of the people of Ireland in their present legal struggle to reform the system of land laws at present existing in that country.
NEW PROPOSITIONS.
The following described bills were introduced, read the first time and referred to appropriate Committees:
By Mr. Urmston [S. 201]: To amend Section 78 of the general practice act approved June 17, 1852.
By Mr. VAN VORHIS [S. 202] To provide for the appointment and confirmation of the Trustees of the various Benevolent Institutions of the State.
[It provides for the abolition of the office of President of the Board of Benevolent Institutions and the government of said Institutions, and that the Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children and the Solders' Orphans Home shall each be governed by a board of three Trustees. The bill does not seek to remove any Trustee appointed and confirmed prior to this time, but provides for the filling of vacancies as they occur, so that said Boards shall be composed ever after of two from the political party having the highest and one from the political party having the next highest number of votes on joint ballot of the two Houses of General Assembly. The bill further provides that the Trustees shall serve without compensation. Also, that all industrial departments shall be managed by the Trustees and Superintendent, and that said departments shall in no event be leased out, but shall be run in the same way that the literary departments said Institutions are run.]
By Mr. VOYLES [S. 203] : To amend Sections 24 and 26 of the fee and salary act. [The bill provides for amending Section 24 of the fee and salary law of March 31, 1879, so that the Auditor shall index carefully all matters found upon the minute books of Boards of Commissioners; but the provisions do not extend to record where an index has already been in some form made. The bill amends Section 26 of said act, so that no Sheriff can possibly obtain fees by constructive mileage without violating the letter of the section.]
By Mr. YANCEY [S. 204] : To regulate the tolls chargeable on plank, macadamized, or gravel roads, ceded by the United States to the State of Indiana, and matters connected, therewith.
By Mr. BELL [S. 205]: To amend Section l of the act incorporating the German Theological Seminary, of the German Evangelical Synod of page: 106[View Page 106] Wisconsin, Ohio and other States, approved January 21, 1850; and legalizing certain acts of Directors done thereunder.
By Mr. COFFEY [S. 206]: To amend Section 22 of the act regulating the granting of divorces.
[It provides that the decree for alimony for the wife shall be for the sum in gross, but the Court in its discretion may provide for the payment of the judgment in annual installments, with or without interest, and make such order in reference thereto as will, in the discretion of the Court best protect the rights and interests of the wife for her support. Upon the death of the wife unmarried and without children by marriage other than with the defendant after such a decree, and before payment I the last installment the Court may make such a disposition of the amount of the decree as may be rendered proper and just in the consequence of of such death. The husband shall not be entitled to the benefit of a decree of payment in installments unless within thirty days from the date of the decree he shall cause the amount of the decree in gross to be secured by entry of replevin bail in the same manner as the stay of execution in ordinary judgments are procured. The provisions of this bill shall apply and govern in all cases of divorce, whether now pending or may be hereafter established.]
By Mr. COMPTON [S. 207]: To allow Street Railway Companies to occupy the common highways of any County; to assess damages for street railways outside of cities on public highways; requiring the Company before taking possession to have the damage appraised and the money paid to the Treasurer of the County for the use of the owners of the land, and file their receipt with the Auditor of the County. Either party may appeal to the Circuit Court.
By Mr. HEFRON [S. 208]: To amend Section 6 of the act to provide a Treasury system for the State of Indiana, for the manner of receiving, holding and disbursing the public moneys of the State, etc. [Treasurer of State shall give bond in sum of $500,000, with fifteen freehold sureties, together with double the amount.]
By Mr. Hostetter [S. 209]: To legalize the acts of Notaries Public, whose commissions have expired, or who were ineligible to office.
By Mr. GRAHAM [S. 210]: To amend Section 44 of the general practice act, approved June 17, 1852. [So as to permit a surety or bail to surrender his principal and pay such costs as the Court in its discretion may adjudge him to pay. The law sought to be amended requires him to pay all cost].
On motion, it was ordered that when the Senate adjourns, it will adjourn till Wednesday, at 10 o'clock a. m.
BILLS READ THE SECOND TIME.
Mr. Benz's bill [S. 47] concerning the license engineers to run stationary engine [by the Governor], was read the second time and ordered to be engrossed for the third reading.
Mr. Van Vorhis bill [S. 162] to amend Section 3 of the act concerning the incorporation of voluntary Associations was read the second time and ordered engrossed.
Mr. Ristine's bill [S. 54] to amend the gravel road act of March 3, 1877, was read the second time.
Mr. URMSTON called attention to the fact that the bill was a special order.
The LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR announced its second reading, and said the bill has been set down as a special order for Wednesday.
The bill reported by the Committee on Revision of Laws [S. 170] regulating the adoption of heirs, was read the second time and ordered engrossed.
Mr. Spann's bill [S. 57] authorizing incorporated towns to contract with Water Works Companies for water, etc., was read the second time and ordered engrossed.
Mr. Urmston's bill [S. 58] to amend Section 76 of the school law, so as school moneys shall be loaned at 5 per cent., coming up in regular order, with a Committee report making the rate of interest 6 per cent., the report was concurred in and bill ordered engrossed.
Mr. Spann's bill [S. 130] to provide for the care and support of pauper children more effectually [see description heretofore in proceedings of January 20], was read the second time, and ordered engrossed.
Mr. Coffey's joint resolution, S. 5, requesting Indiana Congressmen to favor an act pensioning disabled soldiers--ex-prisoner of war--was the second time, ann ordered engrossed.
RESTRICTING MARRIAGE LICENSES.
Mr. Voyles' bill [S. 26] in relation to issuing of marriage license [described heretofore in proceeding of January 12], being read the second time with an adverse majority report, and a minority report recommending its passage--
Mr. VOYLES said: I hope the minority report will be concurred in. By concurring therein the bill having been read a second time, it will stand open for amendment or engrossment. I am no extremist, and no stickler for or against any proposition. This bill was not introduced by me for the purpose of trifling with the Senate, or for the purpose of impeding proper marriages. If the Senate will pardon me for a moment, I will only, at this time, discuss the legal bearing and practicability of the provisions of the bill, and leave the general features of the proposition to be discussed fairly and rightly when the bill shall have reached further along on the calendar. I believe the bill as it is drawn has the double merit of affirmative as well as negative restrictions against incongenial and improper matrimonial alliances. I do not claim for the provisions of the bill that they are a nostrum for the cure of all of the ills to which the greatest social problem subject, but I do certainly claim that the bill is feasible in point of its legal character and provisions. It provides first that the right of any person to have a marriage license who is an habitual drunkard shall be suspended and held in abeyance until the habit has been abandoned. Upon that subject the bill means that and nothing more. Is that not right? If not right, why not?
Secondly--It provides that one who has been adjudged guilty, by a Court of competent jurisdiction, of two or more several felonies shall not have the legal sanction to blur the social institution of marriage, or extend the influence of his outlawry. If this is not right, why not?
Why permit the law to aid acquiesce in that which we find is condemned by all well-meaning and well-disposed people?
Thirdly--The bill provides that persons who by imbecility of mind or idiocy are unable to manage and take care of their property and provide for their well-being and maintenance shall not have sanction of the law to marry.
Does it not increase unnecessarily the burdens of the public, to have such persons crowded upon us? Is it not enough to have our public charities strained, or shall we so act that they shall be overwhelmed? I could give instances, as doubtless every Senator in common with me could, proving that there is a class of marriages of the kind. I think this bill is designed in some degree to prevent, that are only fruitful for filling up our public Almshouses and Benevolent Institutions.
By the provisions of the bill no wrong can be possibly done to those to whom the bill is not made to apply, for if there should be any evasions of its provisions, they must necessarily be over the legal barriers of the bill, and consequently the violators will get the best of the law and the public the worst of the transaction.
But no law has yet been made even in defining crime, no matter how frightful the penalty, that absolutely prevented violations. When we shall page: 107[View Page 107] have reached that perfection, when there shall be no violations, possibly we may need no law.
Legislation must comport with the actual condition of things as we find them, rather than to that perfected state of things which would need no legislation.
Fourthly--The bill provides that any person who has been adjudged insane, and whose parents had also both been adjudged insane before him, is not a proper subject to whom a marriage license should issue.
Possibly it may be said that such a person could be hardly be found, yet I apprehend that if there be such a person in all Indiana, no reasonable being would say that he should be permitted to have a marriage license. Yet the law as it now stands, opens the door as wide to him as it does to any one. I do not believe that baleful hateful hereditary results follow inevitably from every case of insanity, but I do believe that in cases marked so strongly as those designated by this bill, that positive inherency has dispelled reasonable hope.
The bill provides in a second section that any person resident of the County may file a written objection to the issuing of any license to the person mentioned in his objection, and that the objector shall not be subjected to civil liability.
It will certainly be not improper to allow a citizen to interpose an objection of this kind to prevent the consummation of the evils which this bill seeks to guard against. Moreover, the bill prevents any lawsuit from growing out of the objection, by providing that the objector shall not be subject to civil prosecution, because if there were no civil immunity given, perhaps the bill, when it became a law, would have no friend good enough to aid its enforcement by an objection; fearing that the cost of defending captious suits by vicious or over persuaded persons, would be unprofitable. But have controverted cases no remedy? I answer yes. By the third section, it provides that any person against whom an objection has been filed may override the objection and have his license, by procuring the affidavit of three disinterested witnesses not of kin to him to the effect that the objection on file is not well-founded in fact. I have heard it remarked that it transforms the Clerk of the Circuit Court into a Judge with judicial functions in the matter, but certainly no good lawyer will so hold. The ministerial capacity of the Clerk remains unimpaired by the bill. He decides no more upon such an affidavit as is required by this act, than he decides upon the sufficiency of any other affidavit that is filed in his office in reference to the proper age of the party applying to obtain a license to marry.
The affidavit of the three persons must show that the witnesses are not interested in the marriage, and that they are not of kin to the applicant for license, and that the objection is not well founded in fact. When such an affidavit is filed, the duty of the Clerk is not discretionary, and he has no judicial question to determine; he must then perform a ministerial act, and that is to issue the license at once. This provision is plain, and compliance therewith can be had without delay and without a lawsuit. The last section simply provides a penalty to be enforced against any Clerk who shall issue a license where an objection is on file without first requiring the affidavit of the three persons.
I hope the minority report will now be adopted, so that the bill may have a fair and just consideration in the Senate.
Mr. BELL--I suppose the proper time to discuss the merits of this bill will be when it comes up on its third reading, but I desire to say a few words, on order that I may point out to the Senator from Washington (Mr. Voyles) some objections that occur to my mind in regard to this measure. I recognize and appreciate the law which provides for the survival of the fittest, and also understand the fact that almost all paupers and criminals spring from a disadvantageous parentage, which will account for the acts of the offspring, largely. The Senator's main idea, I admit, is correct. that such persons ought not to be allowed, if by human law we could restrain them from procreating and increasing their offspring and leaving them amongst us; and if the Senator will show me how his bill will prevent the propagation of those persons, I will be with him in its advocacy. He is not punishing in this bill the crime of begetting children that ought to be begotten, but he is withholding licenses to marry from persons who may beget such children without. There is a case of one woman, familiar probably to all of us--a single woman--who lived in New York, I think, from whom there sprung a progeny of no less than 800, every one of whom were idiotic, criminal or insane, and not one of whom was born in the bonds of lawful wedlock. It may be they were not all so, but a great majority were at least. I ask the Senator how the withholding of a marriage license from persons belonging to this class is going to prevent the begetting of children?
Mr. VOYLES--It is a restriction within legitimate bonds of wedlock that the bill is aiming at.
Mr. BELL--In my experience I find that you must take humanity as it is and deal with humanity as you find it, and not as you would have it. Take another provision of this bill-where a remonstrance is filed on the simple objection of some one person. I remember a class of persons once who were denominated idiots because they believed in saving money. I think the Senator who introduced this bill will agree with me that such a point should be carefully guarded. No doubt a restraint should be placed upon such matters, but I, for one, can not see how this bill would even restrain the evil. I think it embodies an idea that is good, but it seems to me it does not furnish the remedy for evil.
Mr. SHAFFER--This bill has been to a Committee, and has been carefully considered and acted upon, and while a minority of that Committee has reported in favor of it,a majority thought it unwise at the present time that this bill should pass. I am in favor of concurring in the minority report. There are principles in that bill which should arrest the attention of everyone of us. There are principles in it that need discussion to bring out their important ideas, and make them more plain, and I hope they will be brought out in a regular discussion in this body. As I have remarked, there are principles involved in this bill which are of great and vital interest to the people of the State of Indiana, as well as the society in which we live. As an illustration, take that clause in the bill intending to prevent the marriage of habitual drunkards. I have in my hand the proceedings of the Association of Medical Officers of American Institu1tions for idiotic and feeble-minded persons, and I find in a table of 100 idiotic and feeble-minded persons in the Institution at Barre, Mass., the cause of every feeble-minded child in that Institution can be traced back to its parents who were either feeble-minded themselves, or habitual drunkards. There were thirty-eight out of 100 whose father was an habitual drunkard. And so with other diseases. An habitual drunkard, as a matter of course, is a diseased person, and he will transmit that disease to his progeny. From 38 to 40 per cent. of all confined in that Prison are the direct result of idiocy, imbecility and feeble-mindedness. But I had not intended to say anything in regard to the merits of this bill. I hope the minority report will be adopted so that the bill may be placed on the tiles and be discussed in the Senate at some future time.
Mr. VAN VORHIS--This is one of probably the most important subjects that has ever attracted page: 108[View Page 108] the attention of science, concerning the social question. I have had no opportunity to examine this bill. I should like to have that opportunity. If the Senator has introduced a measure that willi any degree relieve society of some of the evils brought about by the causes he has mentioned even though it relieve society of but one of these evils, it is worth our while to carefully consider this bill and pass it into an act. I move--and I hope it will meet with the approval of the Senator--that the bill be recommitted to the Committee on Public Health and Vital Statistics.
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. Langdon's bill [S. 149] to amend Section 28, of the act of May 12, 1869, concerning the organization of Savings Banks was read the second time, and passed to the third reading.
Mr. Langdon offered the following:
Resolved, that the Committee on Prisons be and it is hereby directed to return, instanter, the resolutions on the subject of prison reform and the consolidation of the management thereof, referred to said Committee January 24, 1881.
On the adoption of this resolution, Messrs. Langdon and Yancey demanded the yeas and nays, which being ordered and taken discovered no quorum present.
On a call of the House ordered by the Lieutenant Governor, but thirty-one Senators answered to their names, and thereupon--
On motion, the Senate adjourned, under an order adopted this afternoon, till Wednesday at 10 o'clock a. m.
