Word: tolls
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...followers of Indiana's U.S Senator William Ezra Jenner have been locked in a furious battle in the state's General Assembly (TIME, March 7). Feuding bitterly over control of the Hoosier G.O.P., the Craig and Jenner factions concentrated this year on the issue of toll roads. Jenner forces tried to push through a bill to hamstring toll-road construction, thereby hamstringing the governor's political power and patronage. Last week, after stopping its clocks and stalling for 28 hours and 11 minutes beyond the 61-day constitutional limit on the length of its session, the assembly...
...state house of representatives, a Craig-controlled committee effectively smothered the Jenner forces' road-blocking bill. Thwarted there, the Jenner men made a last stand in the state senate by tacking an amendment onto the budget bill to prohibit the use of state funds for any toll-road purpose. When the budget got to the House-Senate Conference Committee, Craig announced that he would refuse to sign a budget bill that included the amendment. Instead, he would let the assembly adjourn, then immediately call it into special session and present a new budget bill...
...senate's official electric clock. As the overtime hours wore on, the conference committee members wearied of the stalemate, and the Jenner legislators finally capitulated: they agreed to accept a compromise provision that no state funds could be spent on roads that would serve "only" as feeders for toll roads. This was such a minor limitation that jubilant Craig men talked of sending down to the drugstore to get some "face-saving cream" for their foes. Cracked one Craig partisan: "We can build outhouses on the toll roads if we want...
Last week, only ten days before the legislature's deadline, faithful Judy B was still sitting tight on the toll-road bill. The clear-thinking men had called in experts, held hearings, discussed at length, and had reached a "hopeless impasse." A clear majority wholeheartedly agreed that it was a very bad bill, but they just could not figure out how to amend it. A motion on the floor of the house to "blast" the bill out of committee and place it before the whole membership failed by one vote. The Craig forces were winning the fight by suffocation...
When Craig moved his Legion strength into Indiana politics, he took quite a few of his friends along, e.g., John A. Stelle is now vice chairman of the Toll Road Commission, and Doc Sherwood is one of the governor's close advisers. The Legion is a powerful force in Indiana, where the state, with tax funds, built both state and national headquarters buildings for the organization. Craig shrugs off his enemies' charges that he is still a puppet of the Legion kingmakers. Says he: "I think the American Legion is the best political avenue for expression of ideas...