THE
BREVIER LEGISLATIVE REPORTS.
VOLUME
NINETEEN.
INDIANA LEGISLATURE.
IN SENATE.
WEDNESDAY, February 9, 1881--10 a. m.Prayer offered by Rev. J. B. Logan.
The reading of the Secretary's minutes was dispensed with, and the following described new proposition was introduced:
By Mr. Spann, a bill [S. 270]: To create the Forty-fourth Judicial Circuit, amendatory of the act approved March 6, 1873, and amending Section 9 of said act, concerning the Counties of Franklin, Fayette, Union, Decatur and Rush.
Mr. Spann's bill [S 57]: To authorize incorporated towns to contract with Water Works Companies, was read the third time and passed by yeas, 40; nays, 0.
Mr. BUNDY offered a concurrent resolution, which was adopted, authorizing the Joint Committee to investigate the affairs of the Asylum for Feeble Minded Children to employ a Clerk.
SENATE BILLS PASSED.
Mr. Urmston's bill [S. 58] to amend Section 74 of the school law so that school moneys shall be loaned at 6 per cent. in advance, was read the third time and referred to a Special Committee of three consisting of Messrs. Viehe, Graham and Urmston.
The Committee on Revision's bill [S. 153] concerning voluntary assignments of personal and real property for the benefit of creditors, was read the third time and passed by yeas, 35; nays, 1--Mr. Garrigus.
The Committee on Revision's bill [S. 155] concerning Circuit Courts, being read the third time--
Mr. MENZIES stated the only effect of this bill is to codify the laws in reference to Circuit Courts, and throwing all the statutes relating thereto, passed in the last thirty years, into one compact act.
The bill passed-yeas, 40; nays, 0.
PARTITION OF REAL ESTATE.
The Committee on Revision's bill [S. 156], concerning the partition of land, being read the third time--
Mr. MENZIES explained that the bill is amendatory of the partition act of May 20, 1852. It enlarges the first section; strikes out the word "co-partner;" inserts guardians and trustees, embracing them as tenants in common. It eliminates some four or five sections, which refer to proceedings in Courts in relation to partition suits. It permits Commissioners appointed to divide land, to acknowledge their acts before any competent officer, and send, the same to the Court, instead of incuring the expense of traveling some distance to the County seat for the purpose of presenting it in open Court. Then it divides expenses of the suit ratably among parties thereto. Now, in some cases, one party pays expenses for services that inures to the benefit of all. This bill simplifies the partition act, and eliminates much that is mere verbiage.
Mr. HEFRON had great respect for the Revision Committee, but pointed out objections to this bill. The Legislature intends to give widows a homestead on partition, and give her a right to say in what place her share should be set off to her. This bill gives her no more rights than other tenants in common. Then it provides that all expenses, including attorney's fees, shall be paid ratably. Other tenants may not desire partitions, while the one bringing suit does, and under this bill all must pay a proportion of the expense. Where a man is required to pay something, he ought to have a voice in the contract. There should be no taxation without representation. He could not understand how an administrator or guardian could become a tenant in common.
Mr. BELL contended if the administrator guardian, executor or trustee could not show interest he would go out of Court. The only question that can be raised against the passage of this bill is the clause as to attorneys' fees. If they are not sui adjuerus the only manner in which partition can be had is by applying to the Courts, and on proper consideration the distribution of expense will be found advisable.
Mr. VOYLES favored the bill. He thought the clause proportioning attorneys' expense pro rata was a good one.
Mr. SPANN opposed the clause to repeal the act of March 5, 1859. The bill is too sweeping in striking down a law that has stood for twenty-two years. By this bill the widow is left on the same plane with every heir or tenant, whereas the sacred traditions, hanging around the old homestead should be respected. Sons-in-law page: 152[View Page 152] may take umbrage at the widow and oust her from the homestead to advance their own ends.
Mr. BROWN reminded the Senator that the act of 1859 was only advisory.
Mr. SPANN insisted that it has been looked upon as directory in general practice.
Mr. HENRY referred to some points against the bill, notably the provision concerning the taxation of attorneys' fees. He was not pleased with the wording of the first section, and doubted if it will give satisfaction to the people generally if passed into an act.
Mr. MENZIES replied to objections to the bill. Administrators have been trea ed as tenants in common since 1875, and this bill does not change the practice under that act. He moved the bill be recommitted to the Committee on Revision, with instructions to consider the provisions with reference to widows, attorneys' fees and administrators.
The motion was agreed to.
CARE OF POOR CHILDREN.
Mr. Spann's bill [S. 130] to provide for the support and care of pauper children more effectually [see these reports January 20] being read the third time--
Mr. SPANN believed this bill would work great good in providing for destitute children now in Poor Houses--near 1,000 in number--by bringing them into a family group under the care and control of a mother. That they should be reared in the family crib is God's plan. The bill is commendable upon the ground of economy in that it limits the expense to thirty cents a day per capita. Then it is not mandatory in any of its provisions.
Mr. WHITE said the Committee had given this bill careful consideration, and it was of the opinion that it proposes a plan admirably adopted for the care and custody of the pauper children of the State, and he hoped it would be passed into a law.
Mr. VAN VORHIS had carefully examined the bill. It does credit to the head and heart of the author. Its provisions are well guarded, and he hoped it would pass.
Mr. BUNDY believed his County and but one other has a similar plan in operation. It is a subject of common remark that these children in his County are advancing more rapidly than many children enjoying the blessings of a good home. He preferred this system to the aggregate plan of an Orphans' Hospital.
Mr. GARRIGUS claimed such a system for his County, and knew the plan works well.
Mr. RAHM would take great pleasure in voting for this bill, as it embraces a much-needed measure for the relief of a deserving class.
Mr. FOSTER had prepared a bill looking to the care of this class of children, which he was much interested in, but believing this one would do the work, he hoped it would pass.
Mr. HEFRON appreciated the generous feeling of humanity that prompts the favorable consideration of such a bill, but believing we should be just before being charitable, he would have to oppose it. There are features in it which will take away many of its intended benefits. It places in the power of the matron to farm out the children, with the consent of the Commission. We have a law already that will operate as just as this bill, and much more cheaply. The plan of the bill would beget in the children a spirit of dependence on the Home for sustenance and protection, while the very desirable elements of self-reliance are taken away. The present law is much preferable.
Mr. OWEN very heartily indorsed the bill. It promises more for the good of society than any measure yet brought before this body. The Poor House is a kind of reservoir for the most infamous slums of society, and these children, by this measure, would be taken away from such contaminating influences.
The State takes care of her poor, feeble-minded children, and yet is degrading those who posses brains.
Mr. BELL fully concurred with what was said by the Senator, who has just taken his seat. That such a measure as this has not been passed by the General Assembly heretofore reflects not to the credit of the State. He hoped the bill would pass.
The bill passed by yeas, 31; nays, 7.
Mr. Traylor, when his name was called, said he should vote for the bill inasmuch as it is not mandatory. These children ought to be provided for better than they are in our Poor Houses.
The LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR laid before the Senate the following report of the Insurance Commission:
The Legislature of 1879, directed the Governor to appoint some person to act with the Attorney- General and Auditor of State "to constitute a Commission whose duty it shall be to prepare and present to the next General Assembly of the State, a bill for an act embracing a codification of the insurance laws of the State; so amended and with such additional sections and provisions as will, when passed upon, provide an insurance law which will properly regulate the business of foreign and domestic Insurance Companies doing business in this State, and provide for a proper collection and accounting of all moneys due from such Companies, and embrace such other matter as in the opinion of said Commission will be necessary to frame a good insurance law."
The Governor accordingly appointed John A. Finch to this position. The Commission was immediately organized. John A. Finch was elected Chairman.
At our first consultation it was determined we would make no omission or change in the present law, and add nothing to it except upon the clearest public necessity. The policy of the State touching insurance business should not be changed without it appeared to be imperatively demanded. We have been firm in adhering to this rule. We report against no existing section, make no change in any section, and add no new section without the fullest consideration and what seemed the most satisfactory reasons. It was also determined to make a thorough examination of all existing statutes of the States of the Union, and of the United States and of all foreign countries. The Chairman has collected all these statutes and patiently read their curious and complex provisions, and made report to the other Members of the Commission. Whatever seemed to be of probable value to a State like Indiana was reserved for more careful consideration.
In the consideration of the various intricate and delicate questions involved, the Chairman of the Commission was led into a very extensive correspondence with officials of other States in charge of insurance departments, with experts in insurance theories and practice, and in the law of insurance, with officials of Companies and with writers upon insurance topics. Patient attention was given to every communication received. This voluminous correspondence has been preserved and is at the service of the Committees on Insurance.
The Chairman also attended the Convention of Insurance Commissioners and Superintendents in St. Louis in September, 1879, and again in Chicago in September, 1880. The views of the gentlemen composing these Conventions were, from their official positon, of very great value. Many of them have been retained in their positions for many years, through changes in the politics of changing administrations. The Chairman also attended the sessions of the Association of Fire Underwriters of the Northwest in Chicago in September, 1879, and again in 1880. This is a body of men of singular activity and energy, and no one can attend one of their meetings without profit.
The Chairman and members of the Commission had also the benefit of an extended visit from Hon. Cornelius Walford, F. I. A., F. S. S., a most page: 153[View Page 153] eminent English barrister, who has a reputation as wide as civilization as a student and writer in insurance.
From his extended correspondence and acquaintance, and especially from interviews with the Commissioners and Superintendents of State Insurance Departments, the Chairman has had a pretty thorough information as to the general subject of insurance legislation. The points of discussion and for determination developed in this way have been canvassed with the Commission, and we have been in substantial accord on all leading propositions.
Upon the organization of the Commission, the Auditor of State notified all the Insurance Companies doing business in the State of the fact and invited suggestions from them. Similar notice was sent to all the newspapers in the State and to all citizens who might feel disposed to aid in the work to be done. There was some response to this from citizens and through the press, and valuable suggestions were received. The Insurance Companies without the State made no response. Later, the Chairman called particular attention of these Companies to special questions, and by repeated efforts in this way a fair expression was had.
Gentlemen interested in local Companies and other desirous of seeing strong local Companies organized have pressed upon our attention the fact that for some cause, and that ascertainable by reference to existing statutes, Indiana has been forced to buy insurance from corporations of other States. It was apparent that some change was needed--that this unnatural and unhealthy condition should be corrected.
It has long been a matter of surprise and regret with the best citizens of the State that the business of insurance should be so largely done by Companies organized without the State. It would seem that in a State of such wealth and population and energy as this, the business of insurance should largely be done by home Companies. The sums sent out of the State for insurance annually for the last thirty years make an immense aggregate. It is felt to be a drain from the State that prudence and enterprise would seek to diminish and balance by forming home Companies of strength that would, while doing all of the home insurance they prudently could without incurring danger from conflagration risks, also draw from other States in some such proportion as they draw from us. That this has not been done is a matter demanding attention, and we have given it a thorough investigation.
We do not believe any fostering legislation will develop home Insurance Companies. They must come from the energy, enterprise and intelligence of the citizens. They should be under no regulation or requirement that will chafe the management or imperil the business. It is an earnest hope of the Commission, as of every citizen of the State, that the insurance of property and life in Indiana should, so far as practicable, be by home Companies. The State can grant no special favor to incorporators of Companies for insurance that upon equal terms is not given to incorporators of Companies for any other business. Neither should the State impose conditions upon incorporators of Insurance Companies unknown to other business beyond the strictest necessity growing out of the of the nature of the business. With this thought we have considerately gone through with the existing law. No one need feel surprised at the fact of so few Companies for insurance having ever been attempted in this State. Since 1852 the law has been practically prohibitory. It has required every Company organized under the general law after notice of a loss "to pay the amount so lost within sixty days after such notice, under a penalty of ten percentum damages for every thirty days such loss remains unpaid thereafter."
It allowed an Insurance Company so organized to take real estate security, and to realize the debt, to take title to such realty. But "such Company shall be required to offer said real estate once in every two years at public auction to the highest bidder." This is simply a prohibition. Under these provisions a contested claim draws 120 per cent. interest, and in a suit to recover the claimant might delay a final trial until his claim would be quadrupled. A depression in prices, such as we have lately witnessed, would, under the rule of forced auction sale speedily bankrupt the most solvent Company. It would, indeed, be in such imminent hazard constantly that prudent men might well, as experience shows they have for thirty years, refuse to so place their capital.
These sections and many other minor provisions we omit. We have, indeed, entirely revised the law for the incorporation and management of stock Insurance Companies, and while we have most carefully guarded the solvency of the Company that might be organized, we have made no provision that will bear unfairly upon or harass the Company when organized. The policy holder and the stockholder will be equally safe.
Very decided changes are made for the admission of Companies of other States, and of foreign countries. Under the present law a Company is required to appoint its agents every six months, and authorize them to accept service during that time. Under this rule a Company may, as many have, come into the State and remain a short time until a considerable liability is incurred and then, by failing to renew its appointment of agents, can withdraw from the State. A citizen of this State having a disputed loss in such a Company, would be required to go to the State or foreign country where the Company is located in order to litigate. Under the present law the requirement, it will be noticed, is wholly upon the agent. The Company, as a Company, directly does nothing toward securing the right to do business in the State. Its first act is to appoint an agent, and the agent, before he can transact any business of insurance for the Company must do certain things. In this a change is made. The application for admission is made by the Company. It must present a detailed statement of its condition and comply with other requirements. It must appoint some person upon whom service may be had as long as any risks of the Company exist in the State. In case of the death, resignation or removal of such person, and the failure of the Company, for thirty days, to make a new appointment, service, it is agreed, shall be upon the Auditor of State. This provision will effectually secure citizens from annoyance by being unable to litigate against a Company upon a disputed claim in this State.
The same provision is made for Companies of foreign countries. They are required to make three statements-one showing the condition and business of the Company in the United States; one showing condition and business in the aggregate. These statements are to be made in a prescribed form. If such Company is required, where organized, to make a report to any official, it shall also file with the Auditor of State a copy of such report. These reports will, if truthfully made, give satisfactorily full information concerning these Companies. Under the provisions of the bill we report, all Companies, organized without the State issuing any form of policy or certificate, by which anything is promised in the event of loss of property or life, are upon equal footing. The only exception is in favor of Companies insuring only against injury by accident, or loss of time by disease. It would seem that $100,000 of capital unimpaired, or of accumulated surplus, would be amply sufficient to meet their liabilities. This may exclude from the State a class of Companies issuing certificates of membership by which at the death of a member, an assessment on existing membership is promised. Experience has fully page: 154[View Page 154] justified grave doubts of the permanency of this form of Company. No such Company has ever succeeded for any long period. Membership is not held by any obligation beyond agreement to pay the assessments as made. It is Impracticable to compel payment by litigation. As a result of this, it has, without exception, been the rule, that as the age of members increases, and the death rate increases correspondingly, new members will not unite, and those who drop out are the strongest and least liable to die. The selection is thus against the Company with an inevitable result of practical dissolution. It is not believed that any benefit from such Companies, organized in other States, has been realized equal to the loss. A Company without capital or accumulation can give no guaranty to our citizens. Such a Company can only do a business satisfactory to its membership, when its management is within immediate observation of all those interested. The Commissioners and Superintendents of Insurance Departments of other States are unanimous in condemnation of this system. In many of the States they can only organize by full compliance with the law concerning the organization of Life Insurance Companies.
While making this requirement as to the assessment Companies, we have made no change in the law for the organization of such Companies in this State. They are organized under the law for organization of Voluntary Associations, and that is not within the laws referred to this Commission. All such Companies are, however, required to make annual report of their business and condition, and the reports are required to be published, as are the reports of other form of Companies. We can see no objection on the part of any Company to this requirement. So far as we have had expression from any of these Companies, they all favor an annual report. Officers of these Companies, as a rule, think it as important that such Companies should make report as that Companies upon any other theory should report. Upon the theory that the patrons of every sort of Company doing insurance business in any form should have for their information sworn reports of what the Company is doing, we have provided that Companies whose business is limited to one County shall make report to the Auditor of the County. For this only a nominal fee is provided.
Statements of all Companies doing business in the State are required to be filed in the office of the Auditor of State. Certified copies of these must be filed in the office of the Clerk of every County where they do, business. These are to be kept by the Clerk for public inspection, and this will give full information to all concerned of the condition of every Company, The Auditor of State is required to publish, in his annual report, the amount of fees and taxes paid by each Company, and to send a copy of his report to every Company doing business in the State. This will be sufficient guard for correct accounting. His report shall also contain an abstract of the annual statements of the Companies and such other information as he may deem proper to publish.
In framing the provisions affecting the relation between the Companies and the public who patronize them, we have kept this principle in mind, that in a Government like this, the State shall do no act for a citizen that he can as well do for himself. We dislike tampering with contracts by-legislation. Only considerations of grave public policy will justify this. We have endeavored to interfere with the terms of contracts as slightly as is desirable asa matter of public policy. As a general rule, we think the parties to a contract should be left to its terms. But this rule only fully applies where contracting parties are on equal terms. The ordinary policy-holder and the Insurance Company are not on equal terms. Therefore, we make certain requirements touching the contract. The most important of these may be mentioned:
1. After three annual payments of premiums on any life policy, death by suicide shall not avoid the policy, if the person on whose life the policy was written, shall commit suicide when insane.
2. After three annual payments of premium on a life policy, a paid-up policy shall be issued for such amount as the unexpended part of the premiums paid (technically called the reserve) will purchase at the then age of the person on whose life the policy was written. This provision may be waived in favor of any other provision, which shall, however, be fully stated in the waiver.
3. After five annual premiums have been paid on a life policy, the Company issuing it can not defeat recovery on account of any misstatement or omission in the application, unless the misstatement or omission was fraudulent. Error as to age may be corrected by accounting when the policy matures.
4. Every policy must have attached to it every instrument in any way affecting it. Other changes are made, but they are of slight importance, and do not need recapitulation.
Under the provisions of the bill we report, the Auditor of State is given the right to visit the agents and offices of all Companies doing business in the State, whenever in his discretion the public good requires it. The expenses of such examination is borne by the Companies examined. This isa large power, and, if wisely exercised, will guard the State from Companies of doubtful solvency. The Auditor is required to report the cause upon which he acted making or ordering an examination.
The Auditor of State, by this bill, is intrusted with the heavy responsibility of saying to the people of the State in what Companies they may safely insure. This duty requires such technical knowledge that many of our citizens have urged upon us the necessity of providing for the appointment of an especial officer, who shall be skilled in such matter. In nearly all of the States there is such an official. It would, on many accounts, seem to be desirable that Indiana should have such an official. If a salary would be given sufficient to secure the services of one technically informed and devoted to this specialty, and he be made only removable for cause, it might reasonably be expected that a more perfect service would be rendered in this Department. But it is not the policy of the time to create new offices or to give inviting salaries or indefinite term of office. And it may be said in justification or extenuation of the present system that the people of Indiana have not suffered more by failure of Insurance Companies than have the people of other States protected by special Departments of Insurance.
And further, that in New York, where the statutes relating to Insurance Companies make a considerable volume, and a department is provided with a well-paid official in charge, there have been most disastrous failures, particularly in life insurance.
Then came the recess till 2p. m.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
POWER OF ATTORNEY.
Mr, Chapman's bill [S. 189] defining power of attorney, was read the third time.
Mr. VIEHE objected to the penal clause in the second section.
Mr. BROWN regarded this bill as appointing a guardian for all mortgagees and alienees, and its enactment would result in great confusion.
Mr. CHAPMAN considered that every feature of the recording law would be open to the same criticism. He moved to set aside the order for the engrossment, and recomit the bill.
It was agreed to.
page: 155[View Page 155]GRAVEL ROADS.
Mr. Ristine's bill [S. 54]j to amend Section 7 of the gravel road law of March 3, 1877, in relation to assessments and outstanding bonds, [see these reports page 80,] was read the third time.
MR. RISTINE said the only change was in reducing the rate of interest from 7 to 6 per cent., increasing the amount of outstanding bonds from $50,000 to $100,000. An emergency clause is added for the reason that the limit of $50,000 in many Counties has been reached, having roads uncompleted for want of funds.
The bill passed by-yeas 32, nays 2.
WARD CONSOLIDATION.
Mr. Smith's bill [S 16] to amend Section 79 of the general city incorporation act, so as to authorize cities to consolidate wards, being read the third time--
Mr Smith explained the bill simply authorizes the consolidation of one or more Wards, there by decreasing the number and also the number of Councilmen. It is not directory or mandatory but simply discretionary.
The bill passed by-yeas, 35; nays, 0.
INTEREST ON SCHOOL FUNDS.
Mr. Rahm's bill [S. 13] to amend Section 8 of the Common School law of 1865, so as to reduce the rate of interest on school funds to 6 per cent., being read a third time--
Mr. VIEHE saw no objection to the bill, except it does not require the interest to be payeble in advance, as has been customary with all school funds.
Mr. TAYLOR opposed the bill because it will cripple the school fund one-fourth. He was satisfied that eighty-two out of the ninety-two Counties of the State have already their money loaned at 8 per cent., and could not see the consistency of reducing the income to the school fund one-fourth because some few Auditors have some money on hand unloaned.
Mr. MENZIES said the author of the bill agrees to have it lie on the table, to be considered when the school of law codification is considered.
Mr. FOSTER objected to delay.
Mr. OWEN had a list covering one-fourth of the Counties, showing that but 3 per cent. of the whole amount remains unloaned. The question should be: How much can we get legally and not usurious? If the legal rate of interest is reduced from 8 to 6 per cent., the rate on these funds ought to be reduced, and the bill should await action on the interest bills before the General Assembly.
Mr. VOYLES believed that the rate of interest on the public moneys ought to be lowered.
Mr. Rahm thought it but right and just that the rate of interest on school funds should be reduced. Senators should relieve those so poor as to have to mortgage their farms to get this money from paying 8 per cent., when 6 is enough, He believed it wrong to ask more, even if we could get it. In his County money can be obtained for less than 8 per cent., and some $7,000 or $9,000 of the school funds are now lying idle. The bill read that the interest should be paid in advance, and he desired it should read so now.
Mr Chapman considered it as well to meet this this question now as at any other time, whether the rate of interest of the school fund shall be reduced from 8 to 6 pe cent. He opposed the proposition, and opposed delay.
Mr. URMSTON believed the bill it passed as it is, would change the rate of interest entirely. Then the title and the body of the bill are at variance. It should be recommitted.
Mr. HENRY desired to see the bill defeated or indefinitely postponed.
On motion by Mr. CHAPMAN, the bill was indefinitely postponed--yeas, 21; nays 19.
SENATE BILLS FINALLY PASSED.
Mr. Voyles' bill [S. 72] authorizing the distribution of the 3 per cent. fund by County Boards to Township Trustees, was read the third time.
Mr. VOYLES explained while the bill is general in its scope, it has direct reference to his County.
The bill passed by yeas 37: nays, 1.
Mr. Leeper's bill [S. 52] to amend Section 34 of the Common School [see these reports January 13], was read the third time and passed by yeas, 35; nays, 1--Mr. Garrigus.
Mr. Kramer's bill [S. 67] extending term of Township Trustee to two years, was read the third time.
Mr. KRAMER explained that the change of terms requires some provision for the next election, so where more than one is chosen, one-half, or those receiving the highest number of votes shall hold for two years. The object being to have one-half hold over. Another provision allows the Trustee to levy a road tax concurrent with the County Boards.
Mr. URMSTON was satisfied this bill has not been carefully examined, and should not be passed.
Mr. FOSTER favored the plan of having one-half the Board hold over. He moved to recommit the bill, with Instructions to add an emergency clause.
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. Menzies' bill [S. 213] authorizing the incorporation of Public Libraries, was read the third time.
Mr. MENZIES said the purpose of the bill was to authorize persons to associate themselves together for purpose of establishing Public Libraries.
The bill passed--yeas, 40; nays, 0.
Mr. Kramer's bill [S. 104] to amend Sections 2 and 4 of the Common School law, [see p. 116] was read the third time and passed--yeas, 32; nays, 4.
Mr. Wilson's bill [S. 147] authorizing the Governor to appoint all officers elected by the General Assembly, was read the third time, but failed to pass, by yeas, 18; nays, 19.
And then the Senate adjourned.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
WEDNESDAY, February 9, 1881--9 a. m.The session was opened with prayer by Rev. E. A. Bradley, of Christ Church, this city.
The reading of the journal of yesterday was dispensed with,
Mr. KENNER moved the adoption of the Senate concurrent resolution, for a Joint Convention on Friday 11th of February, 1881, for the election of one Director for the Prison North, and three Directors for the Prison South.
The resolution was adopted.
The SPEAKER announced the consideration of the bill [H. R. 8] on compulsory education, pending at the adjournment yesterday.
Mr. MOODY--We are almost compelled to believe from the discussion of this bill that all that that has occurred in this Republic to the common welfare of the people, their educational reform, etc. was given to us by legislation on the part of the Republican party. I think, as the gentleman from Huntington (Mr. Kenner) has said, that there is no politics in this measure. The Speaker (Mr. Ridpath) stated in his argument, presented yesterday, that he did not expect "Democratic steam" for the purpose of carrying into force the measures and operations of this machine, if the bill should become a law, but would rely mainly on "Republican steam." With all due courtesy and respect, these remarks remind me of the boy on his father's farm who has grown too large for his own clothes, and imagines he owns the homestead. If it had not been for the magnanimity and philanthropy of the Democratic party of old Virginia, the Speaker of this House would not possess to-day, the "Republican steam" with which to run the machinery, he talks of putting on wheels. When the Demo- page: 156[View Page 156] cratic party came into power in 1801, there was no such thing known to this Republic as a free school. The Democratic party gave impetus to the system, and fostered it until the Government was turned over to the present party in 1860. In some of the Eastern States compulsory laws have been in existence for the last ten years and do not give satisfactory results. In the State of Michigan only 77 per cent. of the children between the ages of ten and twenty-one attend their school under a compulsory system of education. In New York the same proportion and in Connecticut almost the same. Their average is a little better than the State of Indiana, It seems to me that the most tenable objection there is to this bill is the one made by the gentleman from Putnam (Mr. Neff) on Section 5. Before voting upon this it will be well for members of this body who have the welfare of the school interest of this State at heart, to examine carefully the effect that this law would have upon our school fund. It occurs to me, upon casual examination of this section, that it would make a common pillage of our school fund.
Mr. TETER said: I come here to consider questions upon their merits, and not political bosh. I made my political fight last year, and have not come here to fight about politics. [Applause.] I told the people of my County that I was independently independent, and allow no man to control me in my action politically, neither do I try to control others. This question, in my judgment, is, a more important subject than polities. Education has been considered by many as the true basis of popular liberty. It is unquestionably true, and proudly acknowledged by every lover of modern popular liberty, that a widespread and sound education is indispensable in this country. But it is not liberty itself, nor does it necessarily lead to it. Prussia is one of the best educated countries on earth, but liberty has not yet found a dwelling-place there. The Chinese Government is avowedly based upon general education and equality in the hierarchy of officers, but China has never taken a step in the path of liberty. Education is almost like the alphabet it teaches. It depends much upon the use that is made of it. Many despotic Governments have found it to their interest to promote popular education, and the schoolmaster alone can not establish or maintain liberty, though he will ever be acknowledged as an efficient and indispensable assistant in the cause of modern freedom.
How, then, is real and essential self-government in the service of liberty to be obtained and be perpetuated? There is no other means than a vast system of institutions, whose numbers support the whole, as the pillars support the rotunda of our Capitol. They may be modest in their appearance, and even unnoticed by the casual observer, as those pillars are, but they are, nevertheless, the real support.
In order to appreciate this subject, it is desirable to inquire into the nature of institutions in general.
According to the highest meaning which the term has gradually acquired, an institution is a body or system of usages, laws, or regulations of extensive and recurring operation, containing within itself an organism by which it effects its own independent action, continuance and generally its own farther development.
The Congress of the United States is an institution, the United States Supreme Court is an institution, and "the school"--that is to say, the whole school--system of our State may be denominated an institution--one of the pillars which, united with many others, maintain, uphold and support the Government of the people of these States.
Mr. MELRATH thought this discussion should be dispensed with for the present and be continued when the bill comes up for final passage. He hoped the majority report would prevail.
Mr. O'NEAL said, as a Representative of the best County in the State, and Democratic at that, he ought to have a right to be heard on this question. He gave it as his opinion that the bill, as proposed, would entail an enormous expense upon the State, etc., etc. He spoke in opposition to the bill.
Mr. WIISON, of Morgan--I hope the minority report will not prevail, because the passage of the bill will be in the right direction. Some School Superintendents have complained of this bill and say that unless it is amended they can not support it. I will say that probably it needs amending, and am of the opinion that the men having the bill in charge will not permit it to become a law so as to confer dangerous powers.
Mr. MORGAN thought we all ought to look to the interest of the children of the State. It seemed that some members were inclined to think that this was a measure to force colored children into our schools. The colored people are anxious and glad to go into our Public Schools and drink of the fountain of knowledge. If the white children were as anxious as the colored people of the State, he thought this law would be unnecessary and uncalled for, and took it that we have a constitutional right to adopt this law and enforce it. Article 8 of our Constitution says it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage by all honorable means moral, intellectual and scientific improvement. Gentlemen of the Legislature are to be the judges of what are suitable means to encourage such education and learning. He believed education necessary to the maintenance of our free institutions, and considered the best mode of bringing about such a state of affairs was by the passage of a compulsory law.
Mr. CARTER thought the House had consumed too much time with this bill. We have been in session thirty-five days and only passed five House bills.
Mr. RYAN--the friends of this measure have been challenged to produce evidence from some home State in favor of compulsory education. The State of Michigan has had for some years compulsory laws, and under the operations of that law have secured 77 per cent, attendance, while Indiana has never succeeded in getting more than 34 per cent. attendance. Also Connecticut, where 80 per cent. attendance has been secured, and Massachusetts 78 per cent , Kansas 80 per cent and the State of Wisconsin 87 per cent.
In the United States, wherever compulsory laws were enacted, great benefit has resulted from them, and the laws have been sustained. But one exception to to this rule is found, where the compulsory provision has been abandoned, and I blush in saying to the gentleman from Clark (Mr Gibson) it was in the Democratic State of Texas, and in this case it was not abandoned by any direct vote of the people, but dropped out of the revision of the laws of the State by the Convention called for the revision of the laws.
It is the wisest magnanimity for the State to come forward to the education of her children. Legislatures have sat here and voted a tax of 2 per cent. for the purpose of building a golden calf to be worshiped by a hundred generations to come. Much better had they voted two millions of dollars for the purpose of establishing a system of common schools.
It has been said of the United States, by one who well understood Republican Institutions and was wonderfully familiar with all questions of Governmental policy, that it was "a Government of the people, by the people and for the people;" and there is, perhaps, nowhere in political literature a clearer or better definition of a pure Democracy. If, then, we be indeed a pure Democracy and have the ideal Government among Nations page: 157[View Page 157] as we think, we should well consider which of our institutions best tends to the security of its foundations promote its interests and foster its benign influences, and whether we be not over confident of our stability, and are not carelessly relapsing into that stage so fatal to the Republics of old--whether we are not becoming so lulled by our greatness and wealth we are neglecting the persistent development of civilization and intelligence by and through the operation of which we have attained our position among Nations as the greatest of the earth, and whether we sufficiently regard the foes popularly deemed insignificant, yet which insidiously work and deter, and slowly destroy us.
To the success and perpetuity of a Government of the people, for the people, these things are fundamental, and, therefore, necessary. A high degree of National intelligence, universal honesty and disinterested patriotism. If there be universal intelligence of a superior character, there will be a corresponding degree of moral honesty and devoted love of country. Without the first, there can not be the second neither the third, except under stress of great national peril.
There can be no popular government of great strength or powers of endurance without a high degree of intelligence among the governed. Men who are profoundly instructed in the science of government and the wants and best interests of 50,000,000 of free people, and capable of governing and legislating profitably to that people, will not be selected as governors and law-makers, unless there be intelligence among the masses to comprehend and recognize the necessity and determine the choice; especially so in a land where promotion to place is so easily secured by the use of money and other improper means. Men judge each other and determine of their ability, qualification, character, standing, etc., by comparison, and as a rule each man's standard is himself, and it is easy to see that anintelligent and educated constituency makes its selections by a higher standard than the class whose moral sense is so null and stupid as to be insensible to any other influences than those which appeal to its passions, prejudices and greed. There is, and can be no question, but that two causes exist in Indiana which determine the result, to a considerable extent, of every recurring election held in the State, either general or local. One of these causes grows out of the other. It is well known that in every voting Precinct in the State, at least where there exists anything like a close division of party sentiment, other means than appeals to a sense of good citizenship and the public welfare are resorted to most successfully to determine the result; and some of the means resorted to are such as to disgust intelligent and patriotic citizens to such an extent that many of them eschew politics entirely, and by withdrawing their votes and influence contribute to the unfortunate result. This element, in greater or less numbers, exists in all communities, and is drawn, in the main, from the ignorant and illiterate, and the fact itself at once suggests the remedy, because if the intelligent citizen is beyond the reach of such means, by making intelligence universal you extirpate a dangerous and turbulent element. A government by the people involves a consent on the part of the people to be governed by another part of the people, and to that end such a degree of education and intelligence is requisite as will enable the citizen to distinguish between good and bad government and cheerfully maintain and submit himself to proper and judicious control and to the just requirements of a wise administration of public affairs, not because, by reason of the power of the government, he is compelled to, but because he is able to see and comprehend that it is to his own best interest to do so; and so it finally resolves itself into the proposition that the permanent success of popular government depends upon universal intelligence.
We have a large class of people, native and foreign, who themselves know so little of the advantages and pleasures of education, they can not be left with safety to the care of the moral and intellectual training of their young. They do not mean to be unkind, they do not mean to be harsh or unjust to their children. They simply do not know; they can not rightly determine what they do not know and can not comprehend, and when we take, for such purposes as mental and moral culture, temporary control of their children from them, they should be sympathized with and made to know it is for the greater good of the child. There are grave State reasons for not wishing to allow the children of these people to grow up as ignorant and illiterate as their fathers. These persons, caring little for education themselves, make slight, if any, effort to secure it to their children, who are left to grow up the embodiment and new promulgation of the ignorance, bigotry and superstition of their progenitors. Such people, as a class, are always restless, thoughtless, unsteady and impressible. Seldom the owners of property are so identified with the country or its interests as to attach them to it, or render them supporters of it, from the ties of citizenship. Such an element can always be led by appeals to their passions, prejudices and their religion. Such an element when times are prosperous, money and employment plenty, are quiet inoffensive and for the most part tractable and contented. But reverse the conditions, and this element calls up his old world methods, and with the aid of native ignorance becomes a roaring, turbulent multitude, destructive alike to themselves and every interest which lies in their bloody, smoking path.
Perhaps little can be done in the way of reforming or instilling into the minds of these adlut citizens new ideas, or rather the American idea, that useful citizenship depends upon the ability of the citizen to comprehend, and his willingness to carry out under any and all circumstances the principles of Republicanism. One thing, however, can be done, and that thing or its equivalant must be done to repress the increase of those representing these inimical doctrines. We can lay hold upon the young--the children of these citizens--and compel their attendance, along with the more intelligent children at the Common Schools where a fair education can be imparted; and at the same time, that mixing up and leveling process take place which altogether starts the embryo citizen along in life's path in the true course of American citizenship. This will not do to be left entirely to parents, for it is well known, that, as a rule, illiterate parents neither comprehend or care for education, either for themselves or their children, and then again a large class of citizens are ever ready to parade their own want of thrift and indolent poverty as an excuse for pressing their children into the daily physical labor which deprives them of all school privileges. Such a class is a daily menace both to the peace and integrity of the country, its prosperity and the steady methods of business--it is the class which always, when times are hard, raises the howl of the Commune and demands a division of property. There is still another class of religious sectarians who believe according to the teaching of their Churches, the education of the young should be confided entirely to parochial schools or schools controlled entirely by the Churches, yet supported by a division of the public funds, and because that is contrary to the spirit of our Institutions, and can not be, and it being impossible for these people to sustain a school on private account, the children are kept out of school, and become the victims of the blind and fanatical bigotry of their parents. It is the interest of the State that all her children become self-supporting intelligent, thoroughly Americanized men and women, and furthermore these children's rights should be respected and justice should be page: 158[View Page 158] secured to them, and humane legislation should provide them what their parents in many cases have neither the inclination or ability to do. The State of Indiana, since framing the first laws providing a system of Common Schools, has acted on the well-received theory that it is not only the State's duty to provide a system of practical education for all her people, but that it was good policy and public economy to do so, and one of the chief problems now occupying the minds of those most deeply interested in the subject of popular education is how to make it universal as a system, and make it equally beneficial to all, it being a conceded proposition if one or a portion of the children are entitled to and do receive such benefit, all should. To meet this difficulty, a system of compulsory attendance at school so many consecutive weeks during each term of the public school has been resorted to in most of the countries of Europe, and many of the States of this Union, and everywhere put in operation has produced results in every way far beyond the expectations of its friends. It has, I believe, been attempted a few times in Indiana, but has always been met by such a furious storm from some quarters as either to defeat it outright or frighten its advocates into its abandonment, and one of the chief and, as I believe, most potent arguments produced by those at enmity with such a measure, has been the fact that in many instances of poor and infirm parents, the compulsory feature of the bill will work great outrages and hardships by depriving such people of the aid of the daily labor of the child or children they may have. This, of course, is true to some extent, as it is true of any measure whatever, which has for it object the affecting of large classes of persons. Some of the humanitarians when the civil war broke out argued and urged that it were better to let the Union stand dissolved than sacrifice so many lives as might be necessary to maintain its integrity. The interest of mankind cried no, let the war go on to the greatest good to the greatest number. So I say pass this bill, for we can not say that the hopes, prospects and future of half the school population of Indiana must be neglected and destroyed because forsooth the enforcement of a measure which brings them into the schools will inflict suffering and some hardships open here and there in each County. Now and then an infirm parent whose danger of real suffering, under our wise provisions for the support of the poor, is so trifling as not to weigh a feather against the humanity of a measure which confers lasting blessings and benefits on so many. But putting this matter in the strongest light claimed for it by the enemies of this feature of the bill, still it is no valid argument againt the bill. There is another side to the question as they put it. It at once becomes a question which of two interests, one of which must suffer, it shall be. As a question for the State to decide on grounds of policy and the best for the public good. The State elects to foster the child because of the prospect of its greater future value to the State; and again the important fact is either lost sight of or ignored, that while less than one-half of the children in the school age are in the schools, that proportion receive their own share of the school funds, and also the full benefit of the portion which rightfully belongs to those who for so many reasons are kept out of the schools, and their young lives trampled down beneath oppression's curse. The parent claims support from the child. The child's necessities cry aloud in its own behalf. Which shall we heed? Which has the greatest claim to our sympathy and humanity? Which is best fitted in the struggle for existence to meet the foes in life's battle, the eight year old boy or girl or the parent with a lifetime of experience in his favor? It may be said with justice and with force, if a man with a lifetime of experience and full of years has failed to put himself beyond dependence upon his infant children, it is the strongest argument that well could be made against wasting two or three fresh young lives in the support and further maintenance of the worthless existence. Again the fact of the failure of the parent's life argues vehemently and forcibly against permitting such incompetence and worthlessness to have change and control of children to bring them up as worthless to themselves and society as he has proved.
The 350,000 school children which the Superintendent of Instruction says are not in our schools, say to us, in the piteous pleading of soft-hearted childhood, the State has undertaken to provide conditions under which the youth within her borders may have free education, Why should we be excluded? These children say the State has admitted and committed herself to the principle of the free education of her young, and she can not now recede, but must go farther and provide the conditions under which this class shall have equal benefits and privileges with their more favored fellows. The child of poor or infirm parents is not responsible for its condition of helplessness, nor for its parents' poverty or infirmity. Of choice it would have ordered neither and to make it in any wise responsible, or compel it to bear the burden, is barbarous. The argument which denies to a child this privilege of emancipation from ignorance and its consequent calamities was the slave-drivers' argument in the old days for the continuance of African slavery and is inconsistent with the genius of American liberty, as well as in conflict with the first section of the eighth article of our State Constitution. which says the "General Assembly shall provide by law a general system of Common Schools, where tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all." There is not in this case even a moral obligation resting on these children to maintain their parents. An obligation presupposes some suitable consideration, and there is none whatever here; the father has given his child nothing but life--which, instead of being expanded into a glorious heritage, prove often a burden and sometimes a curse, which the enemies of this bill would embitter by keeping its helpless little possessor where its advancing life becomes an increasing load often to end in shame, crime or a penniless helplessness no better than its parents.
It is not only crime against society, but positive inhumanity to the child to take advantage of its young, fresh affections for its parents, and utter helplessness in their hands to compel it to a bondage and slavery which leaves it at the threshold of life--at that stage when the real struggle for existence comes to it, stranded and wrecked: left far behind those who have been its playmates provided for by the State, and out of the public beneficence equipped for the fight, with the crushing and cursed reflection that while the State has provided for his fellow, no more worthy than he, it had consigned him to ignominy and a fate which had destroyed him. Our friends who see so much interference with the right and liberty of the citizen in a measure which, without the parent's consent sends away to school the boy or girl to lay the foundation of success in life by the acquisition of a fair education from the factory, the field, the wood-chopper's ax, where it earns twenty-five cents per day and contributes it to the support or aid of an aged or infirm parent, can see no interference with "life, liberty ana the pursuit of happiness" in thus handicapping that child in the race of life with ignorance, illiteracy and the want of the means necessary to honest independence. Every indigent parent should sing daily peans of gratitude that he lives in a State which so generously and bountifully supplies to the child of his loins what he himself could not. Put these children in the schools, for, indeed, there can be no more pitiful sight in this world than the hopeless despair which ignorance, want, pri- page: 159[View Page 159] vation, neglect and brutality have written on the once fair young face of the half-developed boy or girl whose youth has been blasted and very growth stunted by being compelled to walk in the treadmill of daily, unremitting toil to support a pair of parents poor and old, whose own ignorance, want of energy and thrift have left them at the last end of their cheerless, wretched lives a charge upon childhood.
But all cause of objection to the bill on this ground is fully met and removed by the provision which allows either the maintenance of infirm persons by the public, or the payment to such parents the per diem valuation of the child's service while it may be in the schools. A measure imposes no hardships upon a people which, without complaint, taxes itself 2 per cent. on the whole valuation for a railroad, or assesses a belt three miles wide through their farms to construct a road at cost of thousands of dollars per mile. While in the one case they create and maintain a corporation which binds them hand and foot and grows to such giant proportions as to threaten the very life of the Nat on, while universal education and the morality and religion which it fosters is the life and bulwark of society and the safeguard of republican institutions. The statesmen and legislators who will have to grapple with the encroaching power of these giant corporations are the boys of to-day, and if we expect them to be fitted for these high responsibilities we must educate them, with their consent, if we can, without if we must.
Against this method on the principle involved in it the objection on the grounds of cost is not tenable, because if the principle of Common Schools in force in this State is the true one, and if that then is no longer any question, then it is worth all it may cost to maintain it and make its application within the State universal; and it is illogical to say the conditions shall not such, be made such, that every child shall not have equal opportunities with every other. It is profitable to the State to educate her children. It is a well-known fact that the illiterate and ignorant are not, as a body, of themselves and uncontrolled, capable of steady industry and economy. They live, but add nothing to the prosperity of the State or their own substance. Their wants are few and easily supplied; they are not calculating; they do not know how to think and manage; they have no ambition, and are not urged to a better state of living. Give them education and their wants increase, with that increase comes the use and application of means for their gratification; they begin to take thought for the morrow, and are stimulated to labor and save, and in every department of labor they operate with more success. Common laborers with such an education as our free Common Schools can give are found, by actual experiment, to be worth to the State, on an average, 50 per cent. more than if illiterate and ignorant. The property in the State is under obligation to educate every child within its borders. This is a law of modern civilization; Switzerland, Germany, England, France and Scotland are obeying with profit and peace this law. It removes from society one of its greatest dangers--masses of ignorant, unreasoning and prejudiced laborers; and, lastly, it adds from 50 to 100 per cent. to the producing power of a people in times of peace, and double its objective force in time of war.
In an elaborate paper prepared by Professor J. Roberts, of this city, much fault is found with this bill and the principle contained in it, and if I understand the Professor aright his chief objection to the measure in its interference with the liberty of the citizen, are its invasion of the sacred rights of family government. The Professor should have known that the principle of compulsory education was very nearly concurrent with the institution of the family and have its origin in the theory, that while the family was the proper theater for the moral training of the child, the compulsory idea of education was found necessary as a supplement to other in order to the position of citizenship. In the days of the old Jewish dispensation, Joshua, the son of Gamalu, had introduced a system of compulsory education; School Boards were established for each District, and every child more than six years of age, was obliged to attend the annual schools. Indeed every well ordered family practices the principles of this bill, in compelling the attendance of their children at school. And the State does only in a long way with reference to all children,--what a wise parent does for his own--compels their attendance at school, and it would seem to require no argument to prove if it is right to establish free schools it is right to secure the benefit of them equally to all. Perhaps a more practical answer to the Professors, while creed is found in the fact that last year 14,842 of the school children of his County, did not attend the public schools; and, in the further fact that in twelve years, or from 1868 to 1880, while the school population has increased nearly 200,000, the attendance at school is what it was twelve years ago.
In Republican Sparta, nearly 3,000 years ago, Lycurgus compelled the education of every citizen. Twenty-five hundred years ago Solon, the Athenian law-giver, made the education of the citizen compulsory. Charlemagne, in the ------ Century, required the children of all persons participating in the affairs of Government to attend school, so that power might be in cultivated hands. In China, the oldest civilization that has come down to us unbroken, the educated alone carry on the Government. The intelligence of a country must and will rule it; and until the whole people are educated there can in no true sense be a Government of the people, by the people. In 1793 France established a Republic on universal suffrage, but the majority of the voters were ignorant, and the Republic, after deluging the whole land in blood, in the short space of seven years became a despotism. She repeated the experiment in 1848, but then more than one-half of her citizens, though white, could not read their ballots, and four years after, or in 1852, by an overwhelming majority, they chose a military despot. Spain enacted the bloody farce, and her ignorant rabble in a few months exchanged the Republic of Castellar for the Monarchy with a Bourbon. These things carry the conviction that the success of popular government depends upon the intelligence of the people.
Assuming that our people are not greatly different from those of other countries and other localities, there is no reason to oppose the measure on the ground of any ill consequences likely to result from the penal features of the bill. In the first place, the continued non-attendance of such a large portion of the children of the State, for such a length of time, demonstrates that neither opportunities, solicitation, or the inconveniences attendant upon ignorance and illiteracy, are sufficient to induce an increase of attendance of the children of school age, and we are reduced to one of two extremities--either to submit quietly to the present order of things and allow the discrimination against one-half of the children of the State, whereby they lose all chances for an education, or devise such means as will enable us to secure this great right, and perform this high duty to these rising citizens. In the second place, the history of compulsory education in other countries teaches that the instances are very rare in which prosecution of parents had to be resorted to, and that, too, in countries where the lower and middle classes are very much poorer and more dependent than the corresponding classes in the American States. In the large cities of England and Scotland, particularly London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburg, etc., the reports made by the proper officers to the School Boards show that the instances are extremely rare in which anything more is necessary page: 160[View Page 160] in case of refractory parents than a visit of the proper officer of the school to explain and talk with the parents, with reference to the purposes and advantages of education to the child or children. In the third place, it has been attempted in this bill to soften and so arrange the penal features of it that they bear as lightly as is possible with their effectiveness and form, guarding the matter in such manner as to render it unprofitable for any one to seek to use the penal features of the bill for the gratification of malice, or the purposes of speculation, by cutting off fees where-ever possible, and reducing necessary costs to the very minimum.
In the fourth place, it will not be controverted that intelligence is a great aid to mankind in all the relations of life, and as these children have to be reared and maintained, is it not better to educate them as we maintain and rear them than to allow them to grow up in ignorance, to practice all the vice and crime consequent upon ignorance and illiteracy? If it be said it costs more to compel this attendance and maintain these children in a kind of exemption from all kinds of labor while attending school, the answer is, the cost is at least no more to educate. It costs the parent and tax-payer so much to raise and maintain his child; it costs him no more to send him to school meanwhile, because he is compelled to pay his proportion of the tax whether he send or not, and if it even cost some more thus to maintain and educate him, you thereby make him self-sustaining and accumulative, and not only safe against pauperism and crime, but a contributor to the general wealth and prosperity and increase his value more as a citizen than the making costs.
The magnanimity of a people which freely and willingly taxes itself to build a State House at a cost of $2,000,000, and has freely poured out the million and a half for the construction of this splendid temple, in order that credit and renown should be reflected upon the State, ought not to stultify itself by refusing provision for the care and culture of the children, out of the sweat of whose faces and the tears and pains and privations of whose toil the taxes which built them has geen gathered.
If it be argued that the compulsory feature of the bill is oppressive and restrictive of personal liberty, and therefore illegal, it may be conclusively answered, this State has settled the right of the question to be, that she has the power to pass all laws necessary for the protection of life, liberty and the rights of property, and to punish crime, and it would be futile to argue against the rights of power having authority to pass laws for the punishment of crime, and the invasion of any of these rights against the power to pass such laws, and make such regulations as would tend to prevent what it has the right to punish. Again, the State and Courts have acted upon the theory that it was not in contravention of the bill of rights pass laws creating reformatory institutions, when the youth can be held in enforced confinement for other reasons, and on other grounds than that for the punishment of crime.
The principle involved in the creation of the Reform School for Boys, the Female Reformatory for Women and Girls is the same as the principle involved in this bill viewed from the standpoint of the opposition. So it is the same principle which authorizes the State to provide for another class of helpless citizens--the insane. I maintain the bill is neither restrictive or subversive of the right of liberty and voluntary locomotion. The measure is protective and enabling, and assumes the callow, uninstructed, undeveloped child should be cared for, protected, developed and matured into the full fruition of the purpose of his creator, and the hopeless, piteous spectacle of 300,000 children excluded from the school room and deprived of the glorious, invigorating, happifying waters of the fountain of knowledge should be sufficient to call every man, who loves his children, remembers the dreary probation it may be, of his own joyless childhood, actively to the support of any measure which promises amelioration to this most neglected and unfortunate class; and now, Mr. Speaker, appealing through you to the Member of this Assembly, while I know it is hard for such of cultivated philosophy to put its ear
Another feature of the bill, I believe, promises real benefit to the school population of the state and that is the rigid restriction and strict adherence to a plain, simple, practical, short course of study in the Common Schools. The idea seems to have prevailed in the minds of the originators of the Common Schools that the generality or masses of the youth of the State could devote comparatively few years to the acquisition of education and therefore they should have opportunity to make the most practical use of it by not suffering any abridgement of it or unnecessary division of it by being compelled to study merely ornamental or showy branches. To these ends the system contemplates the thorough and faithful teaching of the fundamental principles of practical knowledge, and hence the course of study in these schools has never been varied from the eight common branches, until within a few years past certain interests have succeeded in procuring Legislative leave to introduce other branches and vary the course of study. The course of study in the eight branches prescribed in the law faithfully pursued and thoroughly mastered, will make better scholars, broader, more practical-minded men and women, than any graduate of any so-called High School in Indiana. These schools are for the masses, who should have the full benefit of their greatest possibilities, under the wisest and greatest possible practical management.
The opponents of this bill, and the principle contained in it, cry out against its inquisitorial feature as a violation of sacred family, an rights outrage that should not be tolerated--that a school officer should go into the family with a view to rescue the child. Laws are passed and enforced everywhere by which humane Societies are authorized to take by violence helpless children from the custody of their drunken and brutal parents. Is the parent who compels his child to grow up in a land of schools an ignorant, illiterate animal, finally to be turned loose on society, to glut his animal passions at any cost to human life and human rights, any the less a monster than he who, crazed and maddened with rum, brains him or cripples him for life? Shall it be said, in a land which makes it penal to neglect the wants and necessities of a brute, that the wants and necessities of the children shall not be protected from the course of life and influence which brutalizes them? These sickly sentimentalists and false philanthropists tell us you must not coerce. Professor Roberts says: "The times are not ripe for laws of this kind." I invite his attention for a few moments to some figures, drawn from official sources, which tend to inculcate different ideas:
| Total number of children of school age in the State, white and colored, May, 1879 | 708,101 |
| Average daily attendance | 315,893 |
| Out of Common Schools daily | 392,208 |
The last annual report of Superintendent Smart tells some sorry tales. On page 197 it is shown that in 1868, or twelve years ago, with a school population in the State of 592,865, the average daily attendance for the Counties in each District where schools were taught was thirty-four souls. Now, in 1880, after twelve years, which was under the management of the non-interference idea, we have a school population in the State of 703,558 or an increase of 110,000, while the average attendance in the Districts is just what it was twelve years ago--thirty-four souls to each school. page: 161[View Page 161] In this connection it must be borne in mind that the school facilities have kept pace with the increase of population. In 1868 there were in the State 8,403 school houses. In 1880 there were 9,647. Allowing sixty-five pupils to each school house, and deducting a small per cent. for those attending private schools, and we have school houses and teachers enough to accommodate every child in the State.
Why, let me ask Professor Roberts, do not these or superior facilities exhale "enough of their aroma from the circumambient air to turn the people's heads and change their hearts?" Let us dip again into the books lain upon our desks to aid us in our duties with reference to the schools. On page 188 of the same volume we are shown that in a period of ten years the increase of school population in Indianapolis has been the enormous sum of 116 per cent., while her average school attendance as a district has stood still for twelve years. To put it plain, the number of children out of the Public School in Marion County, where Professor Roberts resides, is 14,842. Certainly the time is very nearly ripe for such a law as this. But again: By the last census it is shown that in Indiana there were 39,513 adult persons who could neither read nor write. The Superintendent's report for 1878 shows also that there was at that time 2,744 minors between the age of ten and twenty-one years in the same deplorable state. In all 42,257 persons in Indiana who can neither read nor write. These are sorry facts, and if our Common School system, after forty years of active trail, can make no better showing of results, I urge upon you the necessity of some change looking to its improvement. In the light of these facts it will not do for us to say we have provided all the necessary facilities for the education of these Children, and if they do not avail themselves of them we are not responsible. They must not be left to the choice, for all know that when perfectly untrameled the normal condition of the average boy and girl is rather to fall into the early ways of indolence than seek the paths of learning. This twelve years' failure of the law to gather in the children demonstrates it will not do to leave it to the choice of parents. We must compel. The Superintendent's report, page 245, shows there was expanded on the Common Schools of the State for 1880, $9,065,254.2, or $12.88 for every child of school age in the State; 391,545 being out of the schools, their portion of this money, or in figures, $4,532,627.36, is lost to them each year, and those children whose parents value education get the benefit of this collosal sum in addition to an equal sum justly their own. Yearly these little fellows, who hew the wood and draw the water, and toil early and late during the hot suns of long summers and shiver through the bleak rigors of sunless winters at the corn-shock, the feeding rack, or the ax handle, the while the Churches gather money to send Bibles to Hindoo people, a tract to Hottentots, and Legislatures vote large appropriations, these neglected children help together to support institutions of learning, whose aching sight and tear-dimmed vision is never blessed with a sight of their interiors. Mr. Speaker, these are awful facts, and these facts the friends of these defrauded children hold up to you as the painful arguments in favor of your interference in their behalf. Shall we be dumb to the moving eloquence of these mute appeals? God, in the wise dispensations of His Providence, Created man in His image. He made no distinctions. Why should we? In contemplation of law and American Republicanism, these children are all equal, whether born in a palace, or their eyes first open amid the squalor and wretchedness of a hovel, and the argument against gathering them all together in our Public Schools because of this alleged disparity, is the cry of an aristocrat, an enemy of his kind, and unworthy a man who claims citizenship in a land, the keystone of whose political foundation is the Declaration of Independence.
This bill has been assaulted in the public prints of this city on the ground that if a law, it would contaminate the good children by compelling their association with the poor little wanderers the measure proposes to reach. This is the cry of the class-supremacy element of society, and it is sufficient to say to them, the Common Schools are for the benefit of the poor; and if the rich do not desire the association they afford, they can send them to swell institutions on the sea-board where the courses of modern society are taught and practiced. Men say to me, the teachers oppose the bill. Why should they? It is no business of theirs; the schools are created for the children, and not for them, and they are for the schools and for the enforcement of such laws as come to them--not to dictate legislation or to School Boards. Such is the burden of many songs which have been sung, and the key-note of them all is, the law would impose more labor upon and tax additionally the intellectual qualifications of teachers.
By many who discuss this measure, their objections are put upon the ground that the rights of the family are invaded, and the authority of the parent to control absolutely the destiny and future of the child is ignored. The other side of the question, or the inherent and superior rights of the child, is either overlooked or ignored, Bancroft, the great historian, says: "The universality of the intellectual and moral powers, and the necessity of their development for the progress of the race proclaim the great doctrine of the natural right of every human being to moral and intellectual culture. It is the glory of our fathers to have established in their laws the equal claims of every child to the public care of its morals and its mind. From this principle we may deduce the universal right to leisure, that is, to time not appropriated to material purposes, but reserved for the culture of the moral affections and the mind. It does not tolerate the exclusive enjoyment of leisure by a privileged class, but, defending the rights of labor, would suffer none to sacrifice the higher purposes of existence in unceasing toil for that which is not life. Such is the voice of nature; such the conscious claim of the human mind. God has made man upright that he might look before and after, and He calls upon every man not only to labor, but to reflect. Nature claims for every man leisure, for she claims for every man as a witness to the divine glory manifested in the created world. The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over brute force and wealth; in other words, the measure of the progress of civilization is the progress of the people. Every great object, connected with the benevolent exertions of the day has reference to the culture of those powers which are alone the common inheritance."
Appealing to the humanity and sense of justice of this Assembly, while I know it is hard for the pride of cultivated philosophy to put its ear to the ground and listen reverently to the voice of lowly humanity, I plead with you to listen to the soft sad murmuring and childish yearnings of the 300,000 children out of the schools, many of whom, without your intervention, are doomed to wander up and down the earth, homeless, helpless and despised. They call to us: "Give us this day our daily bread, and lead us not into temptation; save us from our hard task-masters." And think what will be your answer when the awful question comes to be asked of you: "Am I my brother's keeper?" Rescue these children from the awful fate which waits upon ignorance, and you will have builded for posterity to reverence a monument to your memory more shapely than marble, more enduring than brass, which will be the daily page: 162[View Page 162] tribute which springs spontaneously from grateful and overflowing hearts.
The minority report was rejected by yeas, 35; nays, 47.
On motion, the bill was recommitted to the Committee on Education.
INTEREST ON MONEY.
The SPEAKER announced the special order being Mr. Buskirk's bill [H. R. 3] to reduce the rate of interest from 8 to 6 per cent.
In pursuance of a previous order, the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole--Mr. Lindsay in the Chair.
Mr. BUSKIRK moved that the Chairman of this Committee report to the House that it is the sense of this body that the bill be engrossed, passed to the third reading and put upon its passage. He said: "I think it is the duty of every Representative on this floor, whatever his private convictions may be, to obey the wish of his people if he knows what it is, and I think if the members vote upon that rule that this bill will pass with an overwhelming majority. Knowing, as I do, that the State of Indiana is in favor of a low rate of interest, I consented to the amendments in order to get the main features of the bill into operation. I do not believe there ought to be an amendment, such as would take away the penalty for usurious charges. The time has come when interest should be reduced, because the people demand it. The stand taken upon this question, and the men who take it, shows conclusively that this bill ought to become a law. The strongest argument in favor of this bill is, that foreign Loan Companies will take their capital out of the State. By a high rate of interest these Companies have hooked upon our people their clutches in such a way that our citizens can not do as they please. That a high rate of interest is for the benefit of the few and at the peril of the many, can not be doubted. Furthermore, I do not believe that this bill will have a tendency to drive capital from the State. There is not a State in the Union where rate of interest is over 7 per cent."
Mr. CAUTHORNE--If any bill could pass this House that would, enable the people to pay their debts, or regulate a cheap rate of interest, I would vote for it, but I do not believe it can be done. We had a law sometime ago fixing the rate of interest at 10 per cent., but everybody knows there was not a dollar loaned for less than 12 per cent. Therefore, believing the people do not demand any change, I shall vote against the bill.
Mr. HUSTON said he felt satisfied that outside of National Banks all banks in the State favored the abolition of all laws regulating interest above 4 per cent. Borrowing is not confined alone to poor people. The rich borrow money and the rich loan money. The largest borrowers to-day in this State are those controling the most property and doing the largest business. The mortgaged indebtedness of this State to-day is over one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. Then is it not of importance that we protect the parties whose prosperity depends upon the use of that capital? I say enact laws that will protect poor people; give them the privilege of borrowing money until they shall be able to pay off their mortgages and leave them a home free.
Mr. MORGAN--The rate of interest, to a certain extent, is like the price of hogs and cattle- it is regulated by the law of supply and demand. I believe that it is in the interest of the people that this bill should pass. There are many farms mortgaged in every portion of the State, and by the enactment of such a law, they will be enabled to pay off the old mortgages and make loans at a lower rate of per cent., thereby making a larger saving to the people.
Mr. COLE said the people of his County cared very little about the interest law at present, but considered this enactment favorable to the loaning out of the school fund.
Mr. HAM spoke in favor of the passage of the bill.
Mr. MITCHELL said he was in favor of the bill as introduced. Money invested in agriculture for the last few years has only paid 3 1/2 per cent., and for that reason he was in favor of this bill. There has been no capital driven out of the State of Indiana because of former enactments. which is good evidence that it will not be in the future.
On motion by Mr. BUSKIRK, the Committee rose, reported progress, and asked leave to sit again on Friday next at 11 o'clock a. m.
Mr. FURNAS submitted a report from the Special Committee thereon on the bill [H. R. 252] concerning woman suffrage, recommending its passage.
The bill was read the second time, the report concurred in, and the bill ordered engrossed.
Then the House adjourned to meet to-morrow at 9 a. m.
