The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-02

Sabsy fH6lisAed in this city in which the
afternoon dispatches of the Associated
Press will appear.
THE PHILADELPHIA COMMISSIONS.
NOTWITHSTANDING the indignant protest Of
the Republican State Central Committee
against the proposition to creste a batch of
new commissions for the governm mt of Phi
ladelphia, and the disfavor with VIII ch this
project is regarded by fair-minded men of
all parties, it is by no means certa that the
conspirators against the people have yet
abandoned their nefarious scheme. The only
safe ground to take on this subject is to op-
pose the creation of new commissions of any
description or for any purpose by the Legis-
lature. Such body should be
prohibited by The Constitution from naming
persons who are to exercise important and
continuous executive powers, and it is against
the whole theory of our Government that
they should dare to exercise such extraordi-
nary functions. We had far better permit the
Legislature to name our M.yor than allow it
to designate who shall control either our
Highway or Water Departments; and if the
city to the control of any set of men
who are despicable enough to be
pimps of the Legislature or rich
enough to buy it, every vestige Of local self
government in other portions of the Com
monwealth may gradually be swept away.
The evils to which unbridled and unchecked
commission government gives rise are fear
fully illustrated by the present position of
New York, where four or five men sport at
will with the welfare and treasure of great
city. Their leader, Tweed, wields sovereign
power through his influence over the Legisla-
ture; and after having secured the passage of
enactments that entrench him and his favor
ties in positions of the utmost Importance,
he is constantly endeavoring to fortify ani
extend the domain ruled arbitrarily by him
self and his fellow-usurpers. The foundation
of a similar system has been laid here, and
it will be the saddest day in
the history of Philadelphia when
progress is made towards the completion of
what cannot fail to be an edifce of
despotism. Year after year legislative inter
ference in purely municipal affairs has in
creased on good and sometimes on bad pre-
texts until now we are threatened with the
sway of series of legislative juntas. The
people of the whole State would not tolerate
for a moment the idea of permitting the
Legislature to decide in whom the executive
powers of the Commonwealth should be
vested, nor would the people of any interior
county permit the Legislature to appoint for
them such officials as County Commissioners,
and the instructive aversion to such
an arrogation of power is strengthened when
ever it is subjected to the tests of reason aud
experience. Happily for the State the Legis-
lature has been entrusted with the cleo
tion of but important State official, the State
Treasurer, and this power has been so cor
ruptly and unwisely exercised that the whole
Commonwealth cries out for its removal from
hands that are manifestly unfit to exercise
it. The Legislature has also been
entrusted with the task of electing
members of the United States Senate; and in
this matter, too, it has, time and again,
brought shame and reproach upon its indivi-
dual members and the State. The people, as
body, may make some bad mistakes, but
they are always animated by better and purer
motives than their legislators, and in nearly
every case they would elect better local Off
GERS than the Legislature would appoint We
protest, therefore, against the principle of
permitting the Legislature to designate by
name commissioners who are to be endowed
with executive powers, whether tn " are to
act for Philadelphia or for any other section
of the State. The Legislature has the right
to make laws, but no right to say who shall
execute them; and if it confined itself to its
Legitimate duty of moulding useful legisla
tion, it would go far to recover some of the
public respect which it is SO rapidly losing