a B26 ba) = C Zz @) Oo Z oO > © Z ee oO UD oC re O, e ~ ¢ «< f. oO = 0 ~ w yas “0 Y e+ O “zt sits Be [x o O a "AVG \ WIBSSY Aya ITY ; } & @ i Eth, i ba é } a ; x a ; i ‘ . . oe - : ) r ha tT tue ' : : . , + = re i , « \ ‘ ys . , . ;* 7 : : A ; 2 PE og : oe) ioe 7 : y., . . . it; «re ‘ Me: | 4) eae tae > at ; : >= — i F ey ? . cs. ee . / ; : . , : ; = os i = x o3 nN : ; . wee > . » ~ 4 ) . ¢ ) ’ 4 i - : > : af “"s / % P ; | .. ‘ 7 "y a % = 4 . E) ‘2 7 . , | | | 4 eet 5 ; | | = ‘ » ; , R « i A ; ‘4 ' oa if | > + OO "” ve 4 “iae ' ni a iy Lt uv its. a wa a rt ue 3 , 4 ‘ me f Me do ‘ ' i nu: Tt ne Me : ) 4 , ¢ oer “Oe i 4 Special and Veto Messages of Judson Harmon Governor of the State of Ohio 79th General Assembly 1911 ia pier? Be, fe ‘a : SPECIAL AND VETO MESSAGES OF Judson Harmon Governor of the State of Ohio 79th General Assembly Lr SPECIAL MESSAGES. To the General Assembly: Pursuant to the provisions of the Act approved May 13, IQIO (101 v. 200), I transmit herewith the recommendations sub- mitted to me by the State Highway Commissioner for a system of highway laws to take the place of all existing road laws, to- gether with his letter to me which accompanied the same. The Commissioner informs me that the proposed bill in which the recommendations are embodied was prepared with the assistance of the Attorney General, as provided in the Act. The recommendations having only been submitted to me to-day, I have had no opportunity to examine them with sufficient care to express an opinion about them, and I do not take the time to do this because, under the Act, I consider it my duty to trans- mit them for ‘your consideration without delay. Jupson Harmon, January 25, IQII. Governor. 123260 To the General Assembly: I have the honor herewith to transmit the report of the committee appointed under House Joint Resolution No. 20, at the last session, to investigate conditions at the Girls’ Industrial Home and report its findings, recommendations and suggested legislation. The advisability of providing a reformatory was also among the subjects to be dealt with, and Senate Joint Resolution No. 24 afterward included the question whether the proposed rebuild- ing of the women’s departnient at the penitentiary should be in connection with the reformatory for women in case one is to be established. The committee was authorized to incur all necessary ex- penses, but as no appropriation was made it had to forego visits to similar institutions in other States, except to the new one at Indianapolis, where the members went at their own expense. So information about these had to be gathered from official reports and by correspondence. Nevertheless, the committee has done its work thoroughly and furnished a basis for your action on which full dependence may be placed. Public sentiment has become acute on the subject which the report of the committee brings before you. Much time and study have been devoted to it by the women of the State generally and by many of the men. Ohio established the first industrial home for delinquent girls, but long ago lost the lead to other States which have not outrun us in care for delinquent boys. Discrimi- nation between the sexes in this respect through neglect is blame- ‘worthy. I cannot believe that in an intelligent and moral com- munity it could be intentional. The report confirms the unanimous judgment of officials and others as to the proper course to pursue at the Girls’ Home, and I concur in all its recommendations. The establishment of new institutions is not to be undertaken lightly. They create fixed charges on the people of the State which are certain to increase necessarily and apt to increase need- lessly. But I have been forced by the facts to the conclusion that the public welfare requires a reformatory for women. I hesitated because I thought the number of inmates would be too small to justify the expense of a separate institution. But 5 what I have learned from the judges of the juvenile courts and others amply confirms the recommendation of the committee that a reformatory should be provided without delay. Fortunately, the rebuilding of the women’s department in the penitentiary has not yet been commenced, so that it may be abandoned without loss and a prison for women be combined with a reformatory, keeping them entirely separate but under-a single management, which will be an economy involving no loss in efficiency. There is no doubt that women should be put in charge of both prison and reformatory. The legal difficulty which has been supposed to stand in the way can be avoided by providing that the management shall be in the hands of a matron as the execu- tive head with such other female assistants as may be required. If masculine attention be desired it can be supplied by a board of trustees. The same end can be secured at the Girls’ Home by abolishing the office of Superintendent and putting a matron in charge. Reluctant as we all are to make a permanent addition’to the expenses of the State, I recommend that the necessary steps be taken at this session to provide a reformatory for girls and a penitentiary for women on the plan stated. Jupson Harmon, February 6, IgIt. Governor. To the Senate: A deep sense of public obligation leads me to urge the passage of several measures, in addition to those heretofore recommended, which I fear are becoming imperiled with the close of the session so near. These are: 1. The election of delegates to the Constitutional Conven- tion by non-partisan ballot. If we are to have a proper instru- ment which will meet the approval of the people, every precau- tion should be taken to have the men who are to frame it chosen on their individual merits as patriotic citizens well qualified for the task. And I am convinced that as a further assurance of this the nominations should be by petition only, which an amend- ment to the pending bill could easily provide. The constitutional objections which have been raised to the course proposed are not sound. All the requirements of the Con- stitution will be met by electing the delegates by ballot and in the same districts as members of the House of Representatives. The time of election and form of ballot may be fixed by the General Assembly. 2. The abolition of the party emblem in purely municipal elections. There is the direst need of improvement in the gov- ernment of our cities, and the great parties by whose means the State and General Government are conducted have no proper place in those of municipalities. The party emblem-in such elec- tions is an aid to the ignorant and those who corrupt voters and no help to upright and intelligent electors. And both parties would be better off in their proper function if they were kept out of purely municipal affairs, in which, as a matter of fact, it is only their names that are used. The general ideas and policies which distinguish them from each other do not apply at all to the subjects with which municipalities deal. 3. For reasons already stated city councils ought to be com- posed of a less number of members, a large part of whom should be elected at large. The smaller the district from which members are chosen the greater the risk of improper or unwise selection, the narrower their views and the greater the likelihood that the common interests of the entire city will not receive due attention. 4. The nomination by State wide primary elections of all who are in any way to act for or represent the State officially eo eter ee es ay 7 or politically, and the determination by such elections of the choice of the State for Senators of the United States. Until provision shall be made by amendment to the National Constitu- tion, this result can be secured by the method provided in the bill now pending. Such amendment is still uncertain and years may be required for its adoption by the States even ifiemie proposed at this session of Congress. These measures are in line with the best thought of the country, which is devoting itself with increasing earnestness to the betterment of conditions in order that government by the people shall bear its full fruitage of benefits and thereby insure its perpetuity. I am certain the people of the State generally, without regard to party or other divisions, earnestly desire the passage of these measures and will not be content to wait two years for them. Jupson HARMON, April 6, 1911. Governor. VETO MESSAGES. To the General Assembly: After careful consideration I feel bound to withhold approval of Senate Bill No. 3, entitled “To amend Sections 4943 and 4799 of the General Code, relating to the salaries of Deputy State Supervisors, Clerk and Deputy Clerk.” The only purpose and effect of the bill are to authorize increases in the compensation of the officers named in the five cities of the State having over one hundred thousand population. It seems to be not generally known that the regular salaries provided by the sections which the bill proposes to amend are not the entire pay the officers in question get. Section 4990 gives, in addition, to the members of the boards two dollars each per precinct and to the Clerk three dollars per precinct for services at primary elections, without limit. As the Boards have power to create new precincts this seems to be an unwise law and, besides, sound policy requires that the compensation of all officials be definitely fixed by a single law. This is an inopportune time to increase salaries of public officers, whatever the merits of such proposals. The most urgent present necessity is the proper making and adjustment of the tax duplicate, to which a low limitation of the tax rate is essen- tial. The steps now being taken to those ends would be seriously impeded by any increase in public expenses, especially in official salaries. The enormous growth in the expenditures of municipalities is an admonition to retrenchment whether these be considered alone or in comparison with increases in population. In the five cities which would be affected by the bill the figures for the past ten years are as follows: Increase in Increase in Population. Taxation. Cleveland! 2: i533 ex sues eo ee 46.9% 92% Cin cintiati*t*s tec. atte no eee 11.5% 43% Columbus: 4. cee, eer es 44.5% 145% Tolédo™ 22 Keo a eee ee ee 27.8% 50% Dayton: -: 0 S¥ieo0.as 5 os hcokucte oa eee ae 36.6% 42% 9 But, without regard to existing public exigencies, the pro- posed increases in the pay of election boards and their clerks cannot, in my judgment, be justified. Their present compensa- tion is ample in view both of the service they render and the time it takes and of the compensation other officials receive. Tak- ing Cleveland, for example, the present compensation authorized for each member of the board is $2,432 per year and for the clerk $3,550, and those amounts will be largely swelled, as I am informed, by the increase in wards and precincts which must shortly be made. The members would now receive, under this bill, more than $3,000 each and the clerk more than $5,000 per year, to be still further increased as new precincts are formed. The deputy clerk is paid a straight salary of $1,800.00 per year, which appears to be full pay for the time and service re- quired. It is equal to the pay of the examiners in the Bank and Public Accountancy Departments and to that of other deputies who give all their time to the public service and expert qualifica- tions, too. I always reach with reluctance conclusions adverse to yours, but in this case I must return the bill unapproved to the Senate, as I herewith do. JuDsOoN Harmon, February 27, 1911. Governor. 10 To the General Assembly: For more than thirty years physicians have been required to furnish the Board of Health a certificate of recovery or death in cases of various infectious diseases so that such board may do its work of disinfection (G. C. 4432). Failure to file such certificate is punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both (Ga C. 4414). Senate Bill No. 4, “To Amend Sections 4432 and 4433 of the General Code to compel the disinfection of a house and con- tents in which a person has had pulmonary tuberculosis,” adds consumption to the list of such diseases, and this part of the bill I should gladly approve if it could be treated separately. But the bill also provides for paying physicians a fee for each cer- tificate, not only in cases of consumption, but in all others, a purpose which the title of the bill does not disclose. There is no good reason why this simple act, so long done by physicians without pay, as part of their ordinary duty, should now be paid for from the public funds. And as this provision is not separated from the other, I must return the entire bill unap- proved to its House of origin, which I herewith do. Jupson Harmon, March 31, 1911. Governor. ET To the General Assembly: I think it my ao to return to the Senate, without approval, Senate Bill No. 45, “To amend Section 2941 of the General Code relating to emergency ; relief in Soldiers’ Relief Fund,” and here- with do so. This is from no backwardness on my part i in furthering the patriotic benevolence which has always distinguished the people of Ohio, but from the conviction that my action will help in the fulfillment of their generous purpose. From the fund provided each year by taxation relief is granted, on the order of the Soldiers’ Relief Commission in each county, by monthly payments of money. And by said Section 2941 the Commission may now, on the recommendation of a town- ship or ward relief committee, grant immediate relief, by an allowance of money, “under such rules as it may designate,” in case of sickness, accident or great destitution. The amendment provides that nurse hire may be paid, too, at not exceeding two dollars per day. The Commission’s authority under the present law is not limited. It may now, in proper cases, make the allowance large enough to cover nurse hire. Then if, as very often happens, the necessary nursing is provided by kinfolk, comrades, or neighbors, the unfortunate will profit by the saving, while if it is paid for out of the public treasury he will not get this benefit and the consequent reduction of the fund will shorten the hand of the Commission with respect to other cases, because with direct pay- ments from the treasury this expense is bound to increase rapidly. Experience and observation convince me that while the motive of the proposed amendment is praiseworthy it would prove most unsatisfactory in its results. Jupson Harmon, March 31, Iort. Governor. 12 f To the General Assembly: The power conferred on the General Assembly to change the judicial districts of the State or the sub-divisions thereof, given by Section 15, Article IV, of the Constitution, must be exercised “in accordance with the requirements of Section 3” of the same article, as was expressly decided in the District Court case, 34 O. S. 431. Among those requirements is that the sub-divisions shall be “as nearly equal in population as practicable.” The three sub-divisions of the Fourth Judicial District with their population, by the census of 1910, are as follows: First Sub-Division: Lucas “County, populatiotacd oc. bucou td anne 192,728 Ottawa County, population............2.c..see-. 22,360 Sandusky County, population................... ata al Erie County, populitios...y-cac 0 seers ee oe _ 88,327 Huron’ County, populationia.. = HAR Y STATE: \ 10 Ns Bee PP a a - ay eS Baad : fas Uni versity coed OI Hi Ul lm eS, is tcl feed 582 mY, special AND SS he eos OF welt HARM jeg ss j : ing & EP ae boll THE OHIO § STATE UNIVER has © ve. _ J Hin I i | tH 1 % ~J 008. 6 |