486 



ILLINOIS. 



bers (Mr. Trusdell) in the debate on the 

 bill: 



He denied Mr. Erliardt's statement that, because the 

 Constitution gave one man the right to carry arms, 

 any number had the same right. There was such 

 a thing as constitutional authority which must be 

 obeyed. No body of men in the State had the right 

 to drill and carry arms hi defiance of constituted au- 

 thority. He knew the people were able to suppress 

 riots, out it was not fair to require them to meet sud- 

 den dangers without sufficient preparation, and these 

 dangers must arise unless these men are compelled to 

 lay down their arms. Such defiance of law can not 

 be tolerated for a moment. He knew that an armed 

 body of men existed in Chicago who were a menace 

 to the peace and order of that city. He cared not 

 what they were called, but was in favor of compelling^ 

 them with shotted guns to lay down their arms, and 

 preventing the bloody contests that will inevitably 

 come if they are not disbanded. If they had griev- 

 ances, they must redress them at the ballot-box. No 

 other remedy can be allowed them. He was in sym- 

 pathy with them and knew their grievances. Their 

 condition was pitiful and painful, but it was not the 

 law that made it so. Their condition was vastly bet- 

 ter than it was in Europe. Their homes were pro- 

 tected, and no execution officer can enter there to 

 Btrip them of their home comforts. In every way, 

 Democrats and Republicans alike had emulated each 

 other to elevate the condition of the workiugmeu. 



The bill passed the House by a vote of 100 

 yeas to 37 nays. Of those voting for the bill, 

 71 were Republicans, 23 were Democrats, and 

 6 were Greenbackers. Of the 37 voting no, 

 3 were Socialists, 2 Greenbackers, 2 Republi- 

 cans, and 30 Democrats. It provided substan- 

 tially that the entire male population shall be 

 enrolled in the militia, and that only a portion 

 consisting of 8,000 men shall be organized and 

 armed ; and the parade and drill of all other 

 military organizations, except under certain 

 stated circumstances, is prohibited unless li- 

 censed by the Governor. This law when en- 

 forced would oblige the armed companies re- 

 puted to be Socialists in Chicago to disband. 

 A test case under the law was therefore made 

 up by one of these companies, which drilled 

 without a license. One of its members was 

 arrested and convicted, but subsequently re- 

 leased on a habeas corpus writ by the Circuit 

 Court. It declared the law to be unconstitu- 

 tional on two grounds : first, that the right to 

 bear arms is an inalienable one, of which a 

 man can not be deprived except under due 

 process of law ; and, second, that Congress by 

 its act of 1792 has enrolled every able-bodied 

 citizen in the ranks of the militia, and no State 

 law can provide for drilling and organizing 

 only a part of this militia force. This decision 

 is based nominally on the amendment of the 

 Constitution of the United States which de- 

 clares that " a well-regulated militia being 

 necessary to tho security of a free State, the 

 right of the people to keep and bear arms shall 

 not be infringed." The case will be taken to 

 the highest Court for final decision. 



A compulsory education bill, requiring the 

 attendance of children between the ages of 

 eight and fourteen for at least twelve weeks 

 in each school year, unless the child is excused 



by the Board of Education or School Directors 

 when it is shown that its bodily or mental con- 

 dition, or application to study for the required 

 period, prevents its attendance, or for any 

 other sufficient cause, passed the House by a 

 vote of 87 yeas to 49 nays, and became a law. 



A " store-pay " bill, as it is usually called, to 

 prevent the payment of any laborer, miner, or 

 mechanic, as wages, with goods or supplies, or 

 any order, check, device, etc., after passing the 

 Legislature, was vetoed by the Governor. His 

 objection was based on the hardship which 

 would ensue to the laborer without money, to 

 be thus cut off from the credit he requires to 

 obtain goods or supplies. 



The number of prisoners in the penitentiaries 

 of the State at the beginning of the year was 

 1,893, of whom 29 were females. A proposi- 

 tion to change the law relative to life-sentences 

 was again presented to the Legislature by the 

 Committee on Penitentiaries. It was urged in 

 its favor that the tables of Joliet Prison, as 

 well as other prisons, show that a man sen- 

 tenced for life rarely lives more than ten years. 

 After that time the terrible strain upon his 

 mind, with no hope of ever again being per- 

 mitted to see his friends in this world, causes 

 him to give up in despair and die, or he becomes 

 a maniac and is sent to an asylum to spend the 

 remaining years of his life. If the law was so 

 amended that a convict should not be sen- 

 tenced for a longer term than thirty-three 

 years the average life of man he might, 

 under the present good-time law, shorten his 

 time one year and three months in the first 

 five years and one half after that ; so that if a 

 man is sentenced for thirty -three years, he 

 can, by obeying all the rules of the prison, end 

 his sentence in a little less than twenty years. 

 The committee say they are of the opinion 

 that, if a man can not be reformed in that 

 time and safely returned to society, he ought 

 to have been hung in the first place. 



An act was passed to create a Bureau of 

 Labor Statistics, with five Commissioners, 

 three of whom shall be manual laborers. Its 

 duties are to collect, assort, systematize, and 

 present in biennial report to the General As- 

 sembly, statistical details relating to all depart- 

 ments of labor in the State, especially in its 

 relations to the commercial, industrial, social, 

 educational, and sanitary conditions of the 

 laboring classes, and to the permanent pros- 

 perity of the mechanical, manufacturing, and 

 productive industry of the State. The com- 

 pensation of the Commissioners is limited to 

 $150 per year, and of the secretary to $1,200. 



The returns of the local assessors of the 

 State made in August show the valuation for 

 the year in all but five counties. The follow- 

 ing are the returns since 1872: 1873, $1,194,- 

 221,550; 1874, $1,194,456,451 ; 1875, $1,025,- 

 428,289 ; 1876, $958,405,803 ; 1877, $892,380,- 

 972; 1878, $818,987,409; 1879, $752,239,937. 

 in addition the Board of Equalization assesses 

 annually about $40,000,000. These figures 



