Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 1937)
PAGE TWO HEPPNER GAZETTE TIMES, HEPPNER, OREGON, THURSDAY, JAN. 14, 1937. STATE CAPITAL NEWS o Governors Speech 0 Lessard's Seat o Your Share $200 By A. L. LINDBECK . i 1 1 m SALEM. Governor Martin's mes sage opening the 39th regular ses sion of the state legislature was unique in two respects. It was prob ably the shortest message ever de livered at the opening of a legisla tive session in this state. It con tained no recommendations for new legislation. On the contrary it called attention to the fate of measures voted down by the people at the re cent election and cited these as man dates from the people against any tampering with the tax structure of the state or any fundamental change in the state organization. The message, less than one thous and words in length, called attention to the improved condition of the state's finances, pointed with pride to the disappearance of the general fund deficit. Directing attention to the balanced budget prepared by his budget director, Wallace S. What ton, the governor urged the legisla tors "not to rock the boat" by ex ceeding the recommendations of the budget and jeopardizing the state's financial credit or by passing new revenue measures and thus increas ing the burden of the tax payers. The governor pleaded with the lawmakers "not to be led astray by the deceitful, false and misleading shibboleths of demagogues who ma liciously try to create economic, so cial and political chaos" and urged that they "not be misled by plausi ble but designed arguments into en acting laws that will further the work of these destructive dema gogues." Demand upon the services of the state library have doubled in the past ten years. The biennial report prepared by Miss Harriet Long, state librarian, shows that 460,027 volumes were lent during the past two years compared to 237,110 vol umes in the biennium of 1925-26. The library now boasts a total of 365,354 volumes' on its shelves but even these, Miss Long declares, are not nearly sufficient to meet the de mand. Patrons of the library have spent approximately $12,000 during the two years on postage in the pre payment of packages mailed out and returned. Demand for books on bus iness, trades, skills or crafts increas ed nearly 50 percent over the pre vious biennium while demand for books on current problems, econ omic and social, increased by 40 per cent in the same period. The state supreme court refused to risk burning its fingers by med dling in the controversy surround -ind Dellmore Lessard's right to a seat in the senate. Lessard's eligi bility as a legislator had been ques tioned because he had accepted ap pointment as an attorney for the bonus commission. Holding that neither the court nor the secretary of state had any right to pass on Lessard's elegibility the seyen jus tices passed the question over to the legislature itself as the sole judges of the qualifications and eligibility of its own members. The act of 1935 directing the secretary of state to convene county commissioners to fill legislative vacancies was intend ed to apply only in cases of vacan cies caused by death, resignation or removal from the district, the court held. Legislators and high state officials together with their wives or lady friends, will be guests of honor at the biennial legislative ball to be heldo in; , the, armory next Monday night. The; affair,, which is spon sored by the Salem, chamber of com merce! is in charge, of; a, committee headed by Brigadier General Thomas A.,RUea?v-ti; .Mft 1 y.th"iiiiu wfj : "i!t rf..(,o-iirt ft :-.'!' - i -r ,,It you are an average Oregon citi zen your , share of the public debt, not including that of the federal gov ernment, amounts to nearly $200.. . j Figures compiled , by State Treas urer Holman , and released in his biennial report show the aggregate debt burden bond and warrant of the state and its numerous political subdivisions, to be $194,136,446.22. But even that figure is $36,000,000 under the figures for 1936 when the aggregate debt seems to have reach ed its peak at $230,200,948.12. Cities are responsible for the big gest contribution to the aggregate debt load probably because there are more of them. Anyway the total debt bond and warrant of the cities and towns of Oregon amounts to $76,243,498.84. The state debt, total ing $50,586,810 ranks second. Coun ty debts total $24,609,806.53; school districts, $19,612,750.62; irrigation dis tricts, $12,363,675.44; port districts, $7,561,214.58; drainage districts, $1, 978,369.61; water districts, $1,067, 320.60; highway improvement dis tricts, $105,000. Bond issues account for $179,126, 937 of the public debt in this state. but outstanding warrants as of last July 1 totalled $15,009,508. Holman's compilation shows that the state has reduced its debt load by $14,000,000 since 1928 when it reached its peak while the cities have whittled $12,000,000 off their debt load in the past four years, School districts owe $5,000,000 less than they did in 1932 and the load of irrigation districts has been re duced by more than $5,000,000 since 1930, largely through refinancing with federal aid during the past year, While the gross debt of the state and its subdivisions totals $194,136, 446.22 sinking funds and other as sets amounting to $42,885,974.61 re duce the debt to a net of $151,250,- 471.61. Assets of state departments alone amount to more than $27,000, 000, most of this being represented by first mortgages and real property held by the World War Veterans' State Aid commission. Cities and towns report sinking funds of nearly $12,000,000 while the sinking funds of school districts- total nearly $2,- 000,000. William E. Lamb, Oregon's official hangman, who died this week in the Veterans' hospital at Portland was one of the most interesting charac ters this state has ever known. Mild mannered and as gentle in demeanor as his name might indicate he ad mitted to having officiated at the execution of more than 700 persons one of these a woman in the nearly 60 years of his experience in this unusual and gruesome profes sion. Most of Lamb's hangings took place in the Philippine Islands where he served for 17 years with the Uni ted States army. During the 16 years of Lamb's employment at the state prison here he officiated at 14 hangings. Lamb was a native of Virginia and was 79 years of age last September. Governor Martin will not be able to accept the invitation of the Port land Central Labor council to at tend a mass meeting to be held in the Labor Temple Thursday night of this week for the purpose of dis cussing the maritime strike. The governor and Mrs. Martin will be entertaining at an open house for legislators and their wives that night, he announced. Liberalization of Oregon's parole system, increase in the state parole staff, introduction of new industries into the penitentiary to provide em ployment for more prisoners and the rather than by the courts is recom mended in the report of the Federal fixing of prison sentences by a board Prison Reorganization administra tion to Governor Martin this week. The report based upon a "survey" conducted by a staff of several "ex perts" working for several months failed to develop any new ideas in prison reform but merely endorses measures which have long been ad vocated by Warden Lewis and other prison and parole officials. STANLEY REAVIS BETTER. Stanley Reavis, commercial agent in Arlington, is looking at the world with more optimism now since his physician in Portland has assured him that the infection in his jaw, which has caused him much pain and inconvenience in the last month, is almost defeated, reports current P. P. & L. Bulletin. On December 22 he ;was discharged from St. Vin cent's, j hospital, Portland, after his third, serious battle with the infec tion, which started with an infected tooth. He returned to Arlington De cember 22. . Reavis was bookkeeper with the local P. P. & L. office for several years. Governor Directs Lawmakers to Avoid Pitfalls Sound Financing, No New Taxes, Asked Of 39th Assembly. "To impair Oregon's financial standing is unthinkable: to imDOse further burdens upon our already overloaded taxpayers would be de plorable." Thus Governor Charles H. Martin admonished the 39th leg islative session at its opening this week, after declaring that Oregon had weathered the depression in good shape, had emerged with a bal anced budget, no unaccounted for deficit. The state executive advised a sound, middle-of-the-road course in telling the legislators to steer clear of the rocks of "soppy sentimental ity" or the "equally dangerous reefs of the greedy, vicious, vested inter terests opposed to the common good." He offered a program, with pro posed budget, which he believed to be in accordance with the will of the people as expressed at the Novem ber, 1936, election, and asked legis lators to give it their best consider ation. Governor Martin cited the $1,304, 200.31 deficit which faced the state at the beginning of his administra tion to have been converted into a surplus of $200,000, declaring it to have been the first time since 1925 that the state deficit had been elim inated. "Bonded indebtedness of the state has been reduced to $49,108,010, the lowest in 15 years. Out of this total approximately $46,800,000 is repre sented by the outstanding obliga tions of the Oregon State Highway commission and the World War Vet erans' State Aid commission. Both issues are self-liquidating, and will be retired on schedule unless ad verse action is taken. "The entire bonded debt of the state can be eliminated under the present program of retirement by 1960, provided no new bonds or ob ligations are incurred in the mean time," the governor commented on the state's financial status. Relative to the tax situation, he said: "For the first time in history, the state of Oregon will remove the property tax from real and personal property, except for that portion of the state levy outside of the consti tutional 6 percent limitation, of which more than oneThalf is for the elementary school fund which is not properly a state tax in that it is col lected and distributed solely within the counties. The tax levy for strict ly state purposes for this year is 1.15 mills as compared to 2.86 mills in 1936. This represents a reduction of more than $1,500,000. Due to excell ent administration of the World War Veterans' State Aid commission, the 0.5 mill levy for that commission has been waived for this year." The governor attributed the good financial showing to the system of budgetary control authorized at his request by the 38th legislative as-cembly. CARD OF THANKS. We sincerely thank the kind neigh bors and friends for their assistance and expressions of sympathy at the time of our bereavement; especially are we grateful to members of the Knights of Pythias for their help. Mrs. D. S. Barlow and family, Mrs. A. G. DeVore and family. Mrs. A. L. Anderson, Miss Oma Smith. Charles Valentine was up from the farm yesterday transacting business. rf 4fc Human byes Not Adavied Surveys show appalling need for Better Light and Better Sight! Do our eyes still belong to the Stone age? For millions of years we human beings got up with the sun, went to bed with the sun. Our eyes were used mainly for distant seeing out-of-doors in plenty of light. Close seeing didn't really become a general practice until 500 years ago with the invention of the printing press. 500 years is a mere fraction of time in the evolution of man and not long enough for our eyes to be come adapted to modern conditions. The reason so many people have de fective vision is insufficient light. To keep your eyes strong and healthy, be sure to give them the right amount of light for every vis ual task. Start in your home by hav ing your lighting measured with the Sight Meter, which shows both how much light you have now and the amounts needed f or easy seeing. i I j jSM ' Clean bulbs givte most light! a film of dust and grime on your lamp bulbs and re flectors can cut down your light as much as 20. To be sure you get maximum efficiency from the electricity you buy for lighting see that your bulbs and shades are always spotless. Now you can select the right amount of lieht far vnur avo! The new 3-way I.E.S. Better Sight Lamps give 100, 200 or 300 watts of light from the same bulb. When you are visiting with.friends, use the low intensity. For large type or coarse work, the mid le intensity is sufficient. But for reading the news paper, sewing or any prolonged work, 300 watts are necessary. See this and other LE G. models in dealers' and our nearest office. Look for the translucent bowl that diffuses the lig.it and the I.E.S. tag of approval. Your kitten's dish of milk costs at least lc. But you don't consider this cost impor tant because your kitten needs the milk Your eyes require light to see . . . plenty of light for effortless seeing. Because Pacific Power & Light Co.'s rates are among the lowest in the United States, you can operate a 100-watt lamp approximately 2y2 hours for the cost of your kitten's dish of milk Don't skimp on light, for light is inexpen sive. But sight is priceless. Don't guess about your light. Call or write your nearest Pacific Power & Light Co. of fice today for your free Sight Meter test. SEE ANY DEALER IN ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT or PACIFIC POWER & LIGHT COMPANY Always at Your Service