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including a change in the governor's salary from $4,500 to $12,000 a year. During the first week of the legislative session a bill embodying the suggested salary changes was defeated in both houses.

The Executive Budget.-According to Oklahoma's budget law, the governor is required to submit to the legislature at the opening of every session, a budget covering estimated receipts and recommended appropriations and expenditures for the two fiscal years next ensuing. The fiscal year commences on the first of July. This means that if the present legislature, or any legislature convening at the opening of a year when a new governor takes office, should accept the budget as submitted, the new governor would be compelled to work for two and a half years under a scheme of finances arranged by his predecessor. There is nothing less likely, however, than passage of the budget as prepared by the chief executive. The budget submitted by Governor Robertson two years ago was used by the legislature chiefly as a point of departure. Although the political divisions which obtained at that time are now more or less healed, the traditional legislative jealousy of executive "encroachment" or "dictation" appears to be doing its work, the budget plan which was sent to the legislature at the opening of the session has been sunk without a trace, and appropriation bills are being prepared after the good old-fashioned hit-or-miss way.

Governor Walton's Program.-Governor Walton's first message to the legislature included many recommendations which were contained in the Reconstruction League's platform, such as the purchase by the state of a cement plant whose product should be used in public building projects, the amendment of the workmen's compensation law, the lending of state credit to cooperative associations of farmers for the erection of elevators and warehouses, the furnishing of free textbooks to school children, and the amendment of the State constitution in order to make women eligible to all offices. A soldiers' bonus was urged, as was a law requiring public utilities to pay taxes on the same valuation

which the corporation commission allows them as a basis for rate fixing. A later message again urged attention to these matters, and to various others, such as a road-building program and a revision of the educational system.

Freak Legislation.-Little of consequence has been accomplished by the legislature at this writing, though it has been in session nearly two months. A summary of its accomplishments in so far as they are of interest to political and social scientists, will appear in a later number of this Quarterly.

Freak legislation has been introduced in its usual abundance. The senate has passed a stringent anti-cigarette bill, and the house has added to the gaiety of nations by attaching to the free text-book bill which it passed recently an "amendment" stipulating that none of the money therein provided should be used for the purchase of texts or copyrights which teach "Darwinism" or "the materialistic interpretation of history."

NOTES FROM TEXAS

PREPARED BY THE EDITOR OF NEWS AND NOTES

THE WORK OF THE THIRTY-EIGHTH LEGISLATURE.-During the sixty-five day session of the legislature which has just adjourned, relatively few bills of major importance were enacted, although some twelve hundred measures found a place on the calendar. Most of the two hundred or more bills passed were, of course, of purely local character and importance, such for example, as the incorporating of school districts, the enacting of road laws, fixing the time of holding court in a number of judicial districts, and adjusting other matters dealing with local courts. Among the significant bills which finally passed were: that creating a Texas Technological College in West Texas, the one providing for an educational survey of the state, the bill merging all insurance administration into a separate state commission of insurance, and, perhaps, the most outsanding so far as immediate interest is concerned, a series of appropriation

bills which altogether call for the appropriation of nearly eight million dollars.

Perhaps the most important measure which failed to pass was the resolution calling a constitutional convention. Of the numerous constitutional amendments proposed only two were submitted. One would raise the Confederate pension tax from five to seven cents, the other would permit highway legislation in conformity with federal aid requirements, the first to be submitted at the general election of 1924 and the latter on the fourth Saturday of next July.

Among the important bills which failed to pass were: the public utilities bill, the carbon black measure, the bill to require reading the Bible in public schools, the bill enlarging the scope of the intangible assets tax law, the bill advocated by Governor Neff for the removal of local law enforcement officers who failed to adequately enforce the law, the anti-cigarette bill, the bill prohibiting the teaching of evolution in tax-supported schools and institutions, the measures whose purpose it was to provide for changes in the state prison system and the re-location of the state penitentiary, and the bill to increase the crude oil production tax.

Of thirty-eight revenue bills introduced in the House, only two were finally passed, neither of them being of major significance so far as general revenue is concerned. The two measures passed provided for a one cent a gallon tax on gasoline and for a two per cent tax on sulphur. The proceeds from the former are to be divided between the school fund and the highway fund, the former receiving onefourth, the latter three-fourths. The sulphur tax, which at best will produce but a relatively small revenue, is to be for general purposes.

A list of bills passed by this legislature which are of any significance at all will be found in the Dallas News, March 15, 1923.

A few days before the adjournment of the legislature Governor Neff issued a call for a special session to meet immediately after the conclusion of the regular session.

In this call he stated that the special session would be absolutely necessary because of the failure to pass necessary appropriation bills and bills providing adequate measures for the enforcement of state law. However, he later expressed his willingness to permit the legislature to adjourn immediately after the meeting of the special session if the legislature itself was willing to assume responsibility for its failure to pass much-needed legislation. This was the course followed by both houses, and it is now expected that a special session will be called some time during the spring at which the more pressing questions left over from the regular session will be taken up.

PERSONAL NOTES

Preparations for the fourth annual meeting of the Association at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, April 2, 3, 4 are about completed. The program committee composed of Professors J. P. Comer, Clyde Eagleton, Comer Woodward, and S. H. Moore of Southern Methodist University, Professor D. Y. Thomas, University of Arkansas, Professor F. F. Blachly, University of Oklahoma, Professor C. F. Coan, University of New Mexico, Professor G. P. Wyckoff, Tulane University of Louisiana, Professors M. R. Gutsch and W. M. W. Splawn of the University of Texas, and Mr. G. B. Dealey and Elmer Scott of Dallas, Texas, has decided upon a program of three days, devoting sections to Public Law, International Relations, History, Government, Economics and Sociology.

Judge C. B. Ames, of Oklahoma City, President of the Association and former Assistant Attorney General of the United States, has been named general counsel for the Texas Company with headquarters in New York.

Professor W. M. W. Splawn of the Department of Economics of the University of Texas has been appointed by Governor Pat M. Neff on The Railroad Commission of Texas.

The leave of absence of Professor Herman G. James of the Department of Government of the University of Texas has been extended and he will spend the remainder of the academic year in his researches upon the government of Brazil.

Mr. William A. Jackson of the Department of Political Science of Baylor University is on leave of absence and is holding a fellowship in the Department of Political Science at the State University of Iowa.

Friends of Mayor E. R. Cockrell of Fort Worth are predicting his re-election in the municipal election on April 3. Mayor Cockrell was Professor of Political Science at Texas Christian University before entering the public service two years ago.

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