A Rural Statesman

A few days ago the dignifled senate of the state of Michigan, a body whose chief purpose seems to be to serve as a sort of a safety valve for the relief of the uncontrolhible añti-Pingree pres sure in the Republican machine, inadvertently passed a bilí allowing' the people of the townships interested to permit the constraction of a line of electric railway from Port Huron to BayCity. This was a harmless measure in itself. It simply permitted the people to exercise a jurisdiction over their own property which is usually an incident to ownership without special grant from the legislature.' J5ut, before it was too late, one of the railroad majority which dominates the action of the senat, passes anti-1'ingree resolutions and turns down such men as exGov. Lucp, discovered that there was a remote possibility that this proposed electric line might affect injuriously the business of a certain steam railroad running between the same towns, and the bill was recalled. Among the names of those senators who voted with the railroad lobby to kill the bill and deprive the farmers of that district of the desired railroad competition, was our own senator Campbell, of Washtenaw, whose election to the dignifled and responsible office of state senator was an incident of the Pingree wave which swept over the country last fall. Srnator Campbell has thus far distinguished himself by joining the railroad club of the senate and becoming the putative father of a bill intended to saddle a debt of $100,000 upon the city of Ann Arbor. Senator Campbell might, with profit to himself and his constituents, secure a copy of the rip roaring speech which he made on the day of his nomi nation and refresh his memory on some of the promises therein contained.