AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
approval of those bills which were negatived. There was no extension of the right to take property by eminent domain, the effort to create new crimes by statute as an easy means of collecting debts or enforcing duties was ever looked upon with disfavor, and in no instance during my term did I permit increase in the number of the judiciary. Among the bills vetoed was one prepared under the auspices of eminent physicians and surgeons, ostensibly for the “Prevention of Idiocy,” which authorized them to perform experiments upon the inmates of the institutions for the feeble-minded, and another urged by the osteopaths which provided for a third board of medical examiners.
An act had been passed for uniting Allegheny City and Pittsburgh in one municipality. There was some protest, mainly on the part of those interested in maintaining a dual set of officials, and Governor Stone argued before me the objections at length, but I was heartily in favor of the project, because it would simplify the municipal government, lessen the expense and give Pennsylvania what no other state possesses—two great cities. In my message I had advocated the passage of the act and now I signed the bill. While I was being lauded in Pittsburgh, I was again being berated in Philadelphia. The Bullitt Bill, under which Philadelphia was governed, written by John C. Bullitt, a capable lawyer, concentrated all power in the hands of the mayor, upon the theory that in that way responsibility would be fixed. The mayor had the appointment of from seven to twelve thousand officials and this fact gave him great political power when he chose to exercise it. John Weaver, a lawyer, born in England, short, stocky and energetic, had been elected mayor by grace of the Republican organization. Then he turned on his old friends and sought repute as a reformer. Ere long he concluded that he had been deceived by his new associates and again recanted, but for the time being he was using his control over the officials for all it was worth politically against the Republican
