HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
WEDNESDAY, March 9, 1881--9 a. m.The session was opened with prayer by Rev. T. A. Goodwin, this city.
Mr. CAUTHORNE offered a resolution that the Judiciary Committee be instructed to inquire into the propriety of repealing an act of December 3, 1872, which provides that the Secretary of State shall organize the House and the Auditor of the State the Senate, and to consider as to the number and pay of employes, the manner of appointment, etc., and to report the result of their deliberations to this House without delay by bill or otherwise.
Mr. CAUTHORNE said the objection in repealing the act referred to is the saving of several hundred dollars expense which may be avoided. He considered the act unconstitutional, because the Secretary and Auditor of State under that act are intrusted to legislative duties in appearing here to preside during the organization, when in fact they are a part of the Executive Department of the Government. He considered the law loosely drawn. And then there ought to be some manner of appointing the employes, limiting their number, etc., etc.
On motion by Mr. KENNER it was ordered that this duty should be performed by the Committee on Ways and Means.
The resolution as amended was adopted.
PUBLIC OFFENSES.
The reading of the bill [H. R. 393] concerning public offenses was resumed, commencing at Section 264.
Mr. O'BRIEN moved to amend Section 277 in line 2 so as to read: "Any amount not to exceed $5," and in line 3 "Any amount not to exeed $25," and in line 4 "An amount not to exceed $50 and may be imprisoned in the County Jail not to exceed thirty nor less than five days." He thought the section as it now stands is too severe. The amendment would make the matter somewhat discretionary with the prosecuting tribunals. Under the section as it stands it becomes imperative to imprison a person for drunkenness. There are some men so accustomed to drinking that they are slaves to their passion. If this section prevails he thought it would crowd the Jails with multitudes of men who are unable to pay their fines.
Mr. NEFF thought the amendment a good one, and one that should be adopted.
The amendment was adopted.
Mr. COTTON moved to amend Section 272, line 2 by inserting after the word "debt": "Or to eject or threaten to eject from any house he may occupy." He said nothing affects a family so much as ejectment for a debt or other cause; therefor he moved to amend.
Mr. KENNER thought a person trespassing should be ejected from the premises.
The amendment was adopted.
Mr. KENNER moved to add a section to punish, by fine and imprisonment any who set gill nets in the night in channels where fish pass to and fro, and thus slaughter them by the thousands. Under the present law it is hard to convict a man, because it can not be proven whether he catches the fish with a net or otherwise. He favored passing a law to prohibit putting such nets in the water.
The amendment was adopted.
Mr. CAUTHORNE demanded the previous question, and under its operations the bill passed--yeas, 67, nays, 9.
SPECIAL SESSION EXPENSES.
Mr. MEREDITH introduced a bill [H. R. 458] to appropriate money to pay the expenses of the present special session of the General Assembly, and directing the manner of its employment. Amount $75,000. On his further motion to suspend the constitutional rule, the bill was read page: 18[View Page 18] the second time by title, third time by sections and passed--yeas, 67; nays, 7.
The bill [H. R. 340] legalizing ordinance No. 63, passed by the Trustees of the town of Edinburgh, was read the second time, the constitutional rule was suspended, the bill read the third time by sections and passed--yeas, 43; nays, 1.
SCHOOL TAX
Mr. Fancher's bill [H. R. 322] concerning Common schools was read by sections.
Mr. RYAN moved to amend Section 12 so as to increase the special tax levy from thirty-five cents to the present limit, fifty cents on each $100, and also empower the Trustees to impose an additional school tax of fifteen cents on the $100 and twenty-five cents on each poll, to provide for future as well as present indebtedness for school buildings, etc.
The motion was agreed to.
AFTERNOON SESSION
MEDICAL LEGISLATION
The House proceeded to the consideration of the Sanitary Affairs Committee reports on the bill [S. 74] to regulate the practice of medicine. The majority recommended the substitution of new matter, and the minority recommended the passage of the bill.
The minority report was rejected-yeas, 22; nays, 57.
Mr. ADRAIN-I think it right and proper to make a few remarks in reference to the importance of the measure before us. Two bills are before this House to regulate the practice of medicine in this State, both of which provide for the same thing and the accomplishment of the same ends, viz : To protect the people from the imposition practiced by the charlatans of the country. Now, I take it for granted that the physicians in this House are not personally interested in the passage of either of these bills. Why, then, do you ask us why we are clamoring for the passage of one of those bills? I answer, it is in behalf of our constituents, who ask the physicians in this House to do something by which they will be protected from the imposition imposed upon them by these I quacks going about the country imposing upon the community worse than the pestilence that stalketh in the darkness. The question presents itself to each and every member on this floor, which one of the bills will best accomplish that object, and do it the most satisfactory and easily, that is the only question that comes before this House. In my candid opinion, the bill recommended by the majority report will accomplish the object the most readily. The Senate bill is somewhat cumbersome. Both bills, I grant, you have the same object in view, and would accomplish the same end, but the Senate bill is somewhat complicated. There is too much machinery in it. While the House bill does not suit me by any any means, in it provisions it is plain, simple and practical. I was not a little amused at the gentleman from Washington County [Mr. Mitchell] in the debate on yesterday. He claimed that the practice of medicine was a natural gift. With all due respect to the gentleman, I dissent from him. I do not believe that any man is born with a spatula in one hand and a pocketcase in the other. He believes in the old idea of "natural doctors"--that a doctor is born so. I dissent from the gentleman who occupied the floor yesterday. He says a diploma is no evidence of the qualification of a physician to practice medicine. In every well-regulated College in the State of Indiana, and throughout the length and breadth of this Republic, in every well regulated College, I say, they require that student shall pass and procure a certificate to establish the fact that he read medicine three consecutive years in an office of some reputable physician.
The bill provides further that he shall attend two full courses of lectures in some reputable College. I ask the gentleman where he can find a more desirable and more trustworthy evidence than a diploma for the practice of medicine in the hands of a man who wants to qualify himself in the art? In many of the Colleges at the present day they demand as a prerequisite of students, before they enter the portals of the College, to present to the Dean or Faculty of the College a certificate of the possession of certain literary attainments before he is matriculated. It occurs to me, gentlemen, that this is sufficient evidence, and it should convince any man that a diploma is a passport of some confidence.
Mr. MITCHELL made the explanation of his statement made on yesterday that he did consider a diploma an index of qualification, that he did not fully develop the thought upon that point. He had reference to the purchase of diplomas and those issued by unreliable institutions, etc.
The majority report was adopted--yeas, 56; nays, 27--and the bill was read the second time.
Mr. FRAZER moved to amend the bill by inserting the following in Section 5: All physicians of good moral character who have practiced medicine, surgery and obstetrics in the United States twenty years continuously, immediately preceding the passage of this act, shall have the right to practice the same in the State of Indiana. He said he offered the amendment in good faith; that it was intended to meet a certain class of cases.
Mr. McINTOSH thought the amendment a dead letter as ample provisions are made for such cases as in another section.
The amendment was rejected.
Mr. MITCHELL moved to amend Section 4 by striking out the words "three years" and insert the words "two years." [That being the length of time required to have practiced after taking one course of lectures.]
The amendment was rejected.
Mr. JOHNSON moved to amend Section 2 by striking out the words "of either school of medicine represented by either of the four now existing Medical Associations." He could not see the necessity of having that condition in there--it would be fully as well without it.
Mr. RYAN said that number [four] may or may not embrace all the schools of medicine as the best schools. He favored giving all the boys an equal chance, no matter what school his theory embraced, therefore he hoped the amendment would prevail.
On moton by Mr. Edwins, the amendment was laid on the table.
Mr. GILLUM moved to amend by striking out the words "County Clerk" and inserting in lieu the words "Board of Health."
Mr. EDWINS--I desire to present my views of this matter fairly and squarely to the members of this House. I desire, in the first place, that every member of this House should not vote blindly. I desire him to have a comprehensive view of this case as it is now presented by the Committee authorized to take charge of the whole subject. I, perhaps, have paid more attention, devoted more of my time to medical legislation, and studied medicine and sanitary science in the last six years more than any member on this floor. Some two years ago I used all the energies of my nature, all the advantage I possessed as a member of this House, to forward some measure looking to the interest of the medical profession and also to the interest of the people. It is not in the interest alone of the medical profession that I desire this bill to pass. It is for the purpose of protecting the people of this State against the ignorance of our noble science, thus enabling them to protect themselves.
We are assailed daily, monthly and yearly with quacks and empirics. They flood our State from page: 19[View Page 19] all the States surrounding and, in fact, we are made the cesspool of our Nation. We are made the resort of almost every quack in Christendom. Two years ago I succeeded in pasing a measure through this House looking to the interest and advance of the medical science to a higher standard of medical education, to which every student of medicine, every practitioner, should and gladly ought to aspire. I succeeded in passing that measure through this House and the other Chamber. It failed to pass. You all know why. Gentlemen, I present before you to-day a measure which certainly does interest, not only every medical man in the State, but the whole people. One year ago I, with four other gentlemen, were appointed to draft a bill that would be alike acceptable not only to the people of the State, but to the entire profession of the State of all schools of medicine. I labored through the summer of 1880, and finally produced a bill which, in my judgment, was complete in all its details, so far as Board bill could be. I presented that bill to the Committee raised by this House to investigate and select such work as they, in their judgment thought proper to put before this House. That Committee unanimously almost, myself excepted, recommended the passage of the bill now under discussion. Some gentlemen on the floor of this House are now antagonizing this bill--the very men who voted in the Committee Room for the adoption of this bill, and recommended its passage through this House. I see a disposition on the part of this House, to treat this subject with levity. Gentlemen, it is not thus that the fourteen medical men in this House have treated every subject you have presented to them for their consideration. They have treated you courteously and kindly. The have given all your measures careful attention, and in view of that fact, I only ask the same in return. This bill has been sought to be loaded down with amendments, calculated, as every gentleman is aware, to kill it. I care not which bill you accept. My preference would be for a common and substantial measure that would be satisfactory to the people and to the medical profession of the entire State, and I do hope that the pending amendment will not be adopted, but that the amendment recommended by the majority report will be ordered engrossed.
Mr. NEFF wanted to be as courteous to the medical profession as they are themselves. He did not see the propriety of adopting the amendment, for the reason that the Clerk simply hears the testimony as the bill provides.
Mr GILLUM said the idea he had in presenting the amendment was this: That every County Board had a physician. He did not consider the County Clerk the proper person in whom to lodge this power.
The amendment was rejected--yeas, 20; nays, 63.
The majority report was concurred in, and the bill was ordered engrossed.
LEGISLATIVE RECESS.
The Senate concurrent resolution, that the General Assembly adjourn Friday evening, March 11, 1881, to meet again on Tuesday, March 15, 1881, at 2 p. m., being read--
Mr. BAKER said: I voted for those Constitutional Amendments to the scratch of "t" and a dot of an "i," and I wish to do so again. I am in favor of going home to vote as I consider the Constitutional Amendments of more importance than any legislation that can be enacted during the two or three days proposed for the recess.
The resolution was adopted--yeas, 54; nays, 36.
SCHOOL TAX.
The House returned to the consideration of the bill [H. R. 322] regulatng Common Schools.
Mr. WALKER moved to amend Section 27 by inserting afer the words "except married women" the words, "When their husbands attend such meetings."
Mr. COMPTON hoped the amendment would prevail, as there were a great many men who do not care about school matters, and at the same time their wives are much more interested than they are. If the husband will not take interest enough to attend school meetings, the wife should be entitled to the privilege of voting.
The amendment was adopted.
THE GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE.
The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole [Mr. Buskirk in the Chair] for the consideration of the Governor's message.
Mr. KENNER moved that so much of the Governor's message as refers to the swamp lands be referred to the Committee on Swamp Lands; that part relating to taxation be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means; that pertaining to the laws to the Revision Committee; that part relative to defective phraseology to the Committee on Enrolled Bills.
The motion was agreed to.
The Committee then rose, and the Chairman reported to the House the action of the Committee.
The report was concurred in.
Then the House adjourned.
