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Houses, stores and factories are as important in the community as bill-hoards, but local building regulations consistent v/ith the general laws and state regulations do not have to receive the approval of any state commission in order to be effective. (See G. L. Chapter 143, Section 3; also Chapter 40, Section £4.)
For whose special benefit were bill-boards given this special advantage over everything else requiring regulation? Hot, certainly, for the benefit of the towns and. cities of Massachusetts. The principal beneficiaries are the big bill-board advertising corporations , whose expert legislative counsel have appeared at the hearings and worked untiringly to defeat this bill, as they last year succeeded in doing, Next come the mer employed by them in the decoration of our highways and some concerns who sell them the materials for their 12 and 15 feet high bill-boards. It would toe an economic benefit to Massachusetts if these men were turned to more useful employment and the materials put into the building of homes.
These corporations toy national organisation are seeking with some success to control the out-door advertising of the United States. One of the principal reasons they have not tosen able to exploit their business so successfully abroad is that in most foreign civilize' lands - such for example as England, France and / the leading South American countries - the control of bill-boards is vested in the local Municipalities.
The towns and cities of Massachusetts, however, are not asking , i this bill for the full control enjoyed by foreign municipalities. ; The making of general rules for the state would be left exactly where it is now,- in .he hands of the Highway Division; the bill asks only 'hat hie right of one cities and towns o "further regulate" by local by-laws, "not inconsistent with said rules", as contempla .e • by the law of 1920, be no/, nullified by the "weasel words" it proposes to strike out.
We do not wish to reflect in any way on the present, Commissioners, some of whom wiz h :o retain their unprecedented power; but the . nly other opposition that has appeared against the amendment is wholly selfish. Tlio bill-board interests oppose it, because 'conformity to various local rules will cause them mom i:..convein 1 clan conformity only to rules of state-wide application. " Bn""v°” cannot expect the people’s mandate in the constitution to i>"." -ruled in order to save them any inconvenience. Ho rood been, suggested why they should rot be placed in the^same	-	as
.in regard to local regulation as other contractors. “	1	0tol	':ion
Hone of the advocates' of this bill at tlr- hearings hav® hod any private interests t« serve, or are paid for thej.r°efforts	t
was the same in the Constitutional Convention when counsel	.	.
boards interests red in vain tc. prevent the passage o /'"•••litQl 0 tutional amendment which was supported by tlie leaders of -■!'COnQti-vention.	U!Elc con-