IN SENATE.
FRIDAY, February 18, 1881--10 a. m.Mr. MENZIES, for the Committee on Revision, introduced a bill, [S. 298] concerning the relocation of County seats which was laid on the table until 200 copies could be printed. (It provides that County Commissioners shall order an election upon the question whenever they shall receive a petition therefor from one-tenth of the voters of the County, one-half of whom shall be free-holders, who shall specify the site and guarantee a good title to two acres thereon for County buildings, give a bond of $200 for architects' plans, and bond for the payment of all the expenses incidental to the election. The election shall be by ballot, and shall be considered carried if 55 per cent. of those voting are in favor of relocation. The old Court House shall be sold and the proceeds devoted to the erection of the new buildings necessary.]
THE CIVIL CODE.
On motion by Mr. COMSTOCK it was ordered that the bill [S. 271], concerning procedure in civil cases, be considered till noon.
The question pending at the adjournment yesterday being an amendment to Section 1, acts of 1879, proposing to strike out the proviso allowing the Court to give other instructions at the close of the argument--
Mr. MENZIES did not think the amendment would be productive of any good. If upon examination of the law during the trial the Court may think the instructions already given ought to be modified, restricted or amplified, he should have the right to do so.
Mr. GRUBBS submitted additional reasons why the amendment should not prevail.
Mr. VIEHE also objected to the amendment. He saw no reason why the Court should not give additional instructions.
Mr. BELL thought it would be well to limit the proviso.
Mr. VIEHE: Undoubtedly the aim of the law was to advise attorneys of the view of the Court. Counsel should have the opportunity to draw the fire of the Court and the Court should be permitted, also to draw the fire of the attorneys. This drawing of fire should work both ways.
Mr. VOYLES did not feel very comfortable in finding himself in antagonism to the lawyers who have already avanced objection to his amendment. If wrong, he was certainly in earnest in beliving the amendment would prove a valuable correction of the present practice. The Court has ample opportunity to make up the instructions correctly. The purpose of the statute is to form a legal basis upon which the trial should be based. The attorneys start out with that understanding, but this proviso allows the props to be knocked out. The basis should be firmly fixed before the argument is heard. The amendment might provide if the Court desires to modify or add new matter; the Court may stay the argument, and after submitting the new matter let the argument be resumed under some fair rules.
Mr. BROWN, upon reflection, could not favor the amendment. We must treat Judges as being impartial in the discharge of their duties, and if the Court thinks the ends of justice would be promoted by making modifications in charges, that right ought to be given. A skilled advocate might defeat the ends of justice in many cases if the Court had not the right to lay down the law to the Jury after the argument is concluded.
Mr. FOSTER was inclined to think the section ought to stand as it is.
The amendment was rejected.
Mr. WILSON moved to insert after the word "instructions" in the proviso, these words: "prepared by the Court or Counsel."
Mr. MENZIES believed the attorney would be in the dark acting under the propose amendment.
Mr. WILSON could not see how their action would be more obscure under his amendment than under the existing statute.
Mr. BELL referred to an instance where he thought the amendment would act disadvantageously.
Mr. WILSON had never known of such a case. He was satisfied it would prove beneficial to clients. If it necessitates delay, delay should be had in order to facilitate justice. Attorneys are about as likely to get at the true law in the case as the Court, who possibly has not considered the propositions as carefully as counsel has, and fre- page: 199[View Page 199] quently frames the charge without careful and studied consideration.
The amendment was rejected by--yeas, 10; nays, 34.
Mr. BROWN moved to amend so as to leave the same discretion as the law now does, but require the Court to submit instructions upon applcationof either party.
Mr. LANGDON understood everything implied in this amendment is already provided for in existing laws.
The amendment was agreed to by yeas, 31; nays, 8.
And then came the recess till 2 o'clock.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
CONSTITTIONAL AMENDMENTS.
On motion by Mr. SHAFFER, the Senate took up the House amendment to the Senste amendment to the bill [H. R. 16] for re-submitting the proposed Constitutional Amendments, which House amendment changes the date of submission from April 4, to March 14, 1881.
Mr. LANGDON moved to count in the House amendment, and demanded the previous question.
Mr. BELL questioned whether the Legislature is properly in possession of any amendments to resubmit to the people.
Mr. BROWN protested against the other side of the Senate pressing this demand for the previous question.
The demand for the previous question was seconded by yeas, 24; nays, 19.
Pending the roll call--
Mr. TRAYLOR, when his name was called, said he desired to state the reason for voting as he would. He thought the time is entirely too short to send this bill out to the various Counties of the State. There is not time enough given to get the notices sufficiently printed, even in the newspapers, so that the people everywhere may learn of the day fixed for submission. He voted "no."
Mr. VIEHE, in explanation of his vote when his name was called, said he had favored this bill and still favors it, but the amendment made by the House of Rpresentatives he did not favor, because the time fixed for submitting these proposed amendments to be voted by the people was too short. Therefore he voted "no."
Mr. WILSON, when his name was called, in explaination of his vote, said he protested against this bill being considered a political question; but because it is a Democratic measure, and a good one voted "aye."
The vote was announced as above, and so the previous question was seconded.
The question being, Shall the main question be now put? the Senate so ordered by a vote of yeas, 26; nays, 18.
The main question being, Shall the Senate concur in the House amendment? it was so ordered by yeas, 24; nays, 20, as follows:
Yeas--Messrs. Berry, Bundy, Chapman, Davis, Garrigus, Graham, Grubbs, Hostetter, Kahlo, Keiser, Langdon, Lockridge, Macartney, Owen, Poindexter, Rahm, Ristine, Sayre, Shaffer, Smith, Spann, Van Voris, White, Wilson, Wood and Yancy--24.
Nays--Messrs. Briscoe, Brown, Coffey, Compton, Davidson, Foster, Hefron, Howard, Hutchinson, Kramer, Leeper, Major, Marvin, Traylor, Urmston, Viehe, Voyles and Woollen--20.
Present, but not voting--Messrs. Bell (paired with Comstock), Bischowski (paired with Hart), Henry (paired with Menzies).
Pending the roll call--
Mr. VIEHE in explanation of his vote, when his name was called, said: "Believing as I do, that the time fixed by the House is too short in which to accomplsh the work required to be done, I vote "No."
So the House amendment was concurred in, and the date fixed for the re-submission of the proposed Constitutional Amendments is March 14, next.
STATE BOARD OF HEALTH.
On motion by Mr. VAN VORHIS his bill [S. 93] to establish a State Board of Health, and prescribing a system of registration (see these Reports, pages 83, 84, 85 and 111), was taken up, with a Comnmittee report thereon, recommending its passage with amendments; reducing the number of the Board from seven to five member, reducing the pay of Secretary from $1,500 to $1,200, and striking out the requirement that each County shall furnish an officer for the oard, etc., etc.
Mr. VAN VORHIS said:
In offering this bill to the Senate I have been prompted by an earnest and intense conviction not only of the advisability, but of the paramount necessity for the enactment by this General Assembly of a law establishing a State Board of Health. And if at the end of this session I shall not have given my best effort to secure the passage of such an act by pointing out to Senators the necessity for it, I shall feel that I have but poorly executed the trust confided to me in common with other Senators on this floor. And as the importance of this measure is borne in upon me, I feel most keenly my want of ability to present it in a way at all commensurate with the importance of the subject in a way demanded by the interests of this great Commonwealth.
It is the duty of a government the people themselves have formed--legislative, judicial and executive--to so enact, judge and execute laws that greatest good of the people may be subserved.
But the responsibility resting upon us is far greater than that upon either of the other departments of the State Government. The one interprets, the other executes; but upon us is the responsibility of declaring the will of the people.
Coming as we do directly from the people, bearing credentials evidencing the confidence of our several constituencies, their interests press heavily upon us, and our duty is not to be lightly considered or carelessly performed.
Now, sir, if I have been able to comprehend the interests confided to us they may be divided into two classes--
1. Those interests pertaining to the lives and the health of the citizens of the State.
2. Those interests connected with and growing out of their material possessions.
These two classes of interests are often most intimately connected, and, yet, I take it, the distinctions easily made.
It will require no argument, I apprehend, to convince any intelligent man that those interests pertaining to life and health are of first and highest importance to the people of the State. Individually this is true, and it is no less true when the entire citizenship of the State is considered.
The valuation placed upon life increases with the advance of civilization, and this State common with all the States of the Union and with all civilized nations of the world, has given evidence of the high value it places upon human life by inflicting a terrible penalty upon anyone who, without legal excuse, shall take life.
There are few laws upon our statute books looking to the preservation of public health, and what there are are of little value for the want of a proper department, charged with the duty to, and supplied with the necessary legal machinery for, enforcing them.
Almost the entire law for the preservation of the public health is comprised in the following:
An act forbidding the importation of Texas cattle during certain seasons, as having certain diseases.
An act prescribing how hogs dying of "hog cholera" shall be disposed of, and prescribing a penalty for a violation of it.
page: 200[View Page 200]An act to prevent sheep afflicted with certain contagious diseases from running at large.
An act to prevent the throwing of carrion into a running stream, etc.
An act to prevent feeding coculus indicus to fish in streams.
A act to prevent sale of unwholesome food.
An act to prevent the adulteration of intoxicating liquors.
An act to prevent, the admixture of poisons with food.
An act forbidding the employment of males or females under sixteen years old in cotton or woolen mills for more than ten hours each day.
The nuisance laws contain a provision for the suppression of whatever is injurious to health.
These laws are referred to in an address of the President of the Indiana State Medical Society, pages three and four, a copy of which was several days ago placed upon the tables of each Member of the Senate.
I am sure I do not make a mistake when I assume that not a Senator who hears me to-day but will gladly give his vote for any bill, whether it appropriates $5,000 or inore of the money from the Treasury of the State, if he believes that such a bill, by becoming a law, will save one human life that would otherwise be needlessly sacrificed. More than this: I am confident, if it could be clearly shown, that the appropriation of $5,000 would prevent--nay, if it would give but reasonable assurance of preventing an epidemic in any part of this State that would endanger the lives of any of its eitizens, the money would be appropriated without a dissenting vote.
You would do it as humanitarians, and I do not believe you would stop to inquire what would be the money value of a human life to the State, or would spend a moment's time in considering what the loss of time occasioned by the sickness cousequent upon an epidemic would be worth in dollars and cents.
I believe if you saw that a life could be saved, or suffering prevented, or had a reasonable assurance that such would be the result, upon a proposition looking to that end, you would answer "aye" as your names were called.
But, sir, leaving out entirely in the consideration of this subject all humanitarian ideas, and without one reference to the benevolent spirit of the time, and without one single appeal to the sympathies of the human heart, and see the whole subject be stripped of everything that appeals to our higher and better motives--leaving nothing but the sordid skeleton of man and interest and there is still sufficient upon which to base an unanswerable argument in favor of the purposes intended to be accomplishd by the provisions of this bill.
Human life has a money value and so has physical health.
It is against the feelings of my better nature to consider the subject from this point of view. It almost makes one shudder to think of examining a human life with the icy coolness of business shrewdness and calculation, and measuring human suffering by the heartless standard of profit and loss, that we may determine whether, in dollars and cents, it will pay to save the one or prevent the other.
But, sir, it is a matter of financial interest to the State whether her citizens live or die. It is a matter of the gravest business concern whether they are sick or well.
Disease is a calamity to the State as well as to the individual, and Professor Waterman, to whose address I have before referred, has well said that "disease, considered only from a financial point of view, is one of the most expensive and wasteful directions in which imperfectly organized society is taxed for its carelessness and ignorance."
I imagine that one who has not examined this subject will be startled at the results of calculations, and may be incredulous until he has given the subject careful attention. But when such attention has been given, the earnestness and even enthusiasm of those who are impressed with the approximate accuracy of the results will cease to be a cause of wonder.
To give you an idea of the losses to society by sickness and death--before attempting to show you approximately the loss entailed upon Indiana every year by preventable diseases and avoidable deaths--I desire to read some extracts from the address of Professor Waterman. [Reads from Waterman's address, page five, etc.] Now, sir, it is a fact that I do not think will be questioned by any one laying claim to even a moderate amount of information concerning the subject, that every year a large number of lives are lost and much time consumed--to say nothing of expenses entailed--by diseases known to be preventable. To those who have not though of this subject to any extent, if there are any such among th Senators, I refer to a few extracts from a paper in the Report of the Bureau of Statistics for the year 1879, [Reads from pages 467, 468, 470, and from the report of the State Board of Health of Connecticut, page nine.]
In this connection I desire to show approximately the loss to this State by this class of diseases. Making the calculation upon a basis recognized by scientific men the world over, and according to an estimate concerning death and sickness in Indiana considered entirely safe, and certainly much below what would be indicated by the reports of medical gentlmen, extracts from the which reports I have just read.
From all the available statistics the death rate in Indiana can safely be counted at twenty per thousand. Now experience and statistics show that by a proper system of sanitary regulation the death rate can be reduced to fifteen per thousand. In other words, in Indiana 25 per cent. are the result of preventable diseases. The population of the State is in round numbers about 2,000,000, of which about 40,000 die annually. At least 10,000 of these deaths are the result of preventable diseases.
Now, estimate each life to be worth $500 to the State, one-half the amount estimated to be the value of a United States soldier, and $120 less than the estimate made by the Superintedent of the Statistical Departmentn of the Register General's office in England, and the total loss to the State would be $5,000,000 annually.
Now, suppose the persons thus dying, are not short of the average expentancy of life five years, a very low estimate indeed, and you will have a loss of 50,000 years' labor. Counting the labor worth $50 a year and the loss in labor to the State will be $2,500,000.
According to the estimae made in England, based upon their statistics, there are enough sick to make an average of 730 days of sickness, counting those who die and those who are sick that to not die to each death.
If this calculation be restricted to the 10,000 supposed to be preventable deaths in Indiana and reducing the English average number of days of sickness from 730 to 400, so as to be absolutely safe in the calculation, and it shows 4,000,000 days of sickness that should be prevented. If the loss of time and expense on account of sickness be counted according to the Massachusetts estimate of $2 per day, it will show a loss to the State on account of preventable sickness alone, of $8,000,000.
RECAPITULATION>
| Value of lives lost at $500 each | $5,000,000 |
| Lost labor by reason of death at $50
per year |
2,500,000 |
| Lost time during sickness and
expenses during sickness |
8,000,000> |
| Total | $15,500,000 |
This enormous sum represents the amount that would be saved annually to the people of the State by reducing the death rage from twenty to fifteen per 1,000, and the sickness in same proportion.
Typhoid fever is a preventable disease clearly, and yet this city has lost every year for the last eight years on the basis of the best sanitary calculations about $100,000 per annum from this disease alone--and in this calculation we have well-collected statistics upon which to base our calculations, and therefore claim that it is correct.
These calculations are based on reports furme by the President of the Board of Health of the city of Indianapolis, Dr E. S. Elder.
I do not wonder that those who hear such statements for the first time, without having had an opportunity to examine into the matter closely, have their credulity taxed to its utmost.
Surely making ever so much allowance for overestimation (and I ask you to observe that in this calculation I have made a very much lower estimate than is made by the highest authorities in the world, who have made their estimates upon carefully prepared statistics after many years' observations), there is sufficient in the estimate to show that in this State each year there is enormous waste of the power of the State by diseases that are preventable.
Can it be doubted that it is the duty of this General Assembly, without longer delay and withous hesitation, because of a few dollars' or a few thousand dollars' expense, to take some steps toward an orgaization that shall have for its object the prevention of such diseases?
Surely, whether the subject be considered from a humanitarian or a financial point of view, this must be the conclusion.
Whether the bill under consideration or some other bill having a similar purpose should become a law, depends upon whether it is necessary, for the work to be in any degree successful, that it should be undertaken by the State, under its direction and at its expense.
If lives are lost by disease that can be prevented, and time wasted and expense incurred by sickness that should not occur, it is certainly evident that somebody should undertake the work of prevention.
Who should do it? is the only question left to be considered prior to the consideration of the special provisions of this bill.
If the State for the purpose of protecting and fostering the material interests of its people creates and keeps in operation an expensive judicial system, it is difficult to understand why it would be unwise to create an organization having for its object the protection of their lives and health, even though it should cost ten times the amount proposed to be appropriated by this bill.
The English statesman Disraeli has said, "The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their power as a state depends. The health of the people, in my opinion, therefore, is the first duty of a statesman; and I am convinced there is no object of higher importance to engage the attention of society."
It seems to me to be sufficient answer to the question, should the work be undertaken under the authority of the State? that such work never has, never will and never can be prosecuted with any considerable degree of success by any other authority. The General Assembly has ever been ready to provide, and the people to sustain them in such provisions for those unfortunates, who are simply burdans upon society; and so there has been reared in sight of the builning we now occupy vast piles that are monuments to the spirit of benevolence and charity that pervades our great State. But does it speak well for the intelligence and business sense of the Legislative Department of the State that she is so far behind in all those efforts to protect life and health, and prevent the occurence of those calamities that increase each year the number required to be cared for by the public charities of the State, and of the Counties of the State?
Is it logical, let me ask, that laws should remain upon our statute books for the encouragement of emigration, or that we should further enact such laws when we fail to properly care for and protect our own citizens, and children who are "to the manor born?"
I can not bring myself to believe that any Senator upon this floor, when he comes to consider the subject in the light of the knowledge of the year 1881, will require argument to convince him that the necessity exists for the enactment of some such law as that proposed by this bill for the protection of life and health.
The report of the Committee was concurred in, the bill considered as engrossed and passed by yeas, 36; nays, 3.
REMODELING OF ROAD LAWS.
On motion by Mr. BELL, his bill [S. 187], making the Township Trustee of each civil Towhship Superintendent of Roads, and fixing a commutation road tax in lieu of road labor, was taken up, it being a special order set to follow the bill just disposed of. After it was read the second time, he said it was a complete remodeling of the laws of the road laws of the State. It has been a quarter of a century since the substantial features of our road law were enacted. He cared not so much for the form, but desired it got in the proper shape to meet the wants of the times, and believed no more important matter can command the attention of the Senate.
Mr. KRAMER said: The Trustee is not the proper person to levy a road tax in incorporated towns.
Mr. GARRIGUS offered an amendment to do away with that objection by striking out the first three lines of Section 3.
Mr. MACARTNEY opposed the amendment.
Mr. URMSTON thought the amendment all right.
The amendment was agreed to.
On motion by Mr. CHAPMAN, the Committee on Prisons had leave of absence in order to visit the Penitentiary North.
Leaves of absence were asked and obtained for about a dozen Senators, and it was ordered that when the Senate adjourn it adjourns till Monday at 2 o'clock p. m.
And then the Senate adjourned
