Legislators at Lansing

Somewhere near the Capitol at Frankfort, Olympia, Augusta, Helena, Jefferson City, Salem, Pierre, Tallahassee or any other State capital is generally to be found a low, musty, old-fashioned hotel with a stuffed elk's head and plenty of spittoons in the lobby. If the Legislature is in session rooms there will be at a premium. The capital may have a newer and swankier hotel, built between 1924 and 1929, but the farmers, the smalltown lawyers, the minor merchants who compose the bulk of State legislatures are not interested in swank. All they want for their short, frequent sessions is a cheap (about $1.50), convenient bed in a place where they can circulate from room to room swapping stories, dickering deals, playing poker.

After the fire which destroyed the Kerns Hotel at Lansing, Mich. last week, Representative John Dykstra of Muskegon declared: "The only reason I'm alive now is that I spent so much time in the hotel that I knew every turn in its corridors." It was the same with most of the 26 other Michigan lawmakers who registered at the old Kerns one day last week. They were all in Lansing for a special session to re-count the votes for Secretary of State and Attorney General in the November elections. But nobody wanted to hurry. When on the first day Senator John Leidlein of Saginaw proposed a resolution of sympathy for a Senator who was ill his colleagues urged him to hold it over until next day. "I may be dead tomorrow," cried impatient Senator Leidlein.

Dead indeed next day lay not only State Senator Leidlein but State Representatives T. Henry Hewlett. Charles D. Parker, Vern Voorhees, John W. Goodwine, Don E. Sias, D. Knox Hanna and at least 24 other guests of the Kerns Hotel. Soon after fire had broken out in the night, the tindery old hotel was roaring from end to end like a well-kept fireplace. For 20 minutes women with hair and clothes ablaze ran screaming up & down the halls while men leaped out to die on frozen sidewalks or in the ice-coated little river to the rear. Then the floors collapsed and all screams ceased. Only trace of Senator Leidlein in the charred ruins was his key ring.

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