Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-04-21

THuRsDAY EVENING, APRIL a, 1854.

Aanraster futelhgenrer.
THURSDAY EVENING. APRIL n. 1881.
Our Amusing Legislator.
It is very amusing to see how those
heather legislators at Harrisburg rage
against the attorney general who has re-
duced them to this miserable compensa
ton of a thousand dollars for an unlim-
tied length of legislative session, while
he appropriates to himself seven thou
sand dollars, years salary, for very
limited part of years service. 1t is a
sad case, no doubt; and perhaps the
legislators are not altogether inexcus-
able for suspecting that q construer of
the constitution who brings out results
SO pleasant to himself and unpleas-
ant to them, needs looking after :;
and accordingly they have set them
selves to do q great deal of inquiring
into the law and the constitution, but
not, SO far, with any very brilliant
success. The wretchcd law seems to
award the lean and fat respectively to
the attorney general and the legislators,
as he has declared; but the law-making
power makes of the attorney generals
victims worms not to be despised, and
he finds them turning upon him with a
sharp fire of aggressive laws. The
indignant lawmakers seem, however,
to have hurried along a little too fast,
as we find the Senate desiring to re-
call the statute that has been sent to the
governor for his signature, and which
subjects the state officers to the writ of
mandamus at the hands Of any court in
the state. The governor will not sign it,
and Senator Norris, who is the father of
the bantling, wants to get it back so as
to amend it by giving to the Dauphin
county court only the power of issuing
the writ. The excited lower house,
however, would not consent to erase the
crossing of a ct" or the dotting Of an
"i" in its bonnie bouche of Legislative
work, being determined that its enemies,
the officers of the state, should be
harried to the utmost by legal pro
cesses fired against them from every
nook and corner of the state.
There has been no such amusing con-
test between lawmakers and law-execu'
tors, in small way, in our experience
The constant squsbbles at Washington
between the executive and Congress
have lost their novelty and never
were very funny anyway. And al
Harrisburg we have been used to
look only to the Cameron antic:
and inspirations for a legislative enter
tainment. But here now is one separate
and apart, which does not appear to be
much of a political fight, but one stirred
up by love of money, wounded sensibili
ties, injured innocence, and whatever
other feelings may be natural to thu
the legislator, the state officer and thu
big school boy.
When rOgues fall out we are told thai
honest men get their dues. We would
not say that the legislators and the state
officers are guilty Of greater roguery thar
is implied in a too exalted idea of the
value of their services and a too grea
aptitude to help themselves to extrava
CANT compensation therefor; but of this
weakness they are doubtless guilty ant
SO when they fall out about it, the ole
prOverb comes legitimately in play
and gives promise of benefit to tho
people. One such good is the authority
given to the courts to command tht
state officers to obey the law. We arr
not particularly solicitous that it should
be amended SO as to give this authority
only to the DauphiE court. That court
is now very ably presided over, and w
have confidence in its integrity and in
telligence but the time may come whe1
we will not. We do not care that tn,
voters of Dauphin county alone
should be entrusted with the privi
lege of selecting judge who shall
be able to exercise control over the Off
VCAO VI VIC SCtSCCs WIN AlC pOWCAAu
in that county and may succeed in put
ting their tool in the judgeship. 1t is :
bad atmosphere, that around Harris
burg, for official purity, and if We car
elect unfit Judges in Lancaster, as We
can and do, Dauphin can do it as we'll.
Let the peoples servants come under the
process of the people'sjudges everywhere
Let US never again see governor wrap.
ping himself in his exemption from the
law, and refusing to tell a grand jury
whether a proclamation which called out
the military of the state to bloody
butchery of it's citizens was his act OF
a forgery. Let no man be above the law
in Pennsylvania.
Honest but Stupid.
Senator Burnside emphatically de-
clares that there has been no bargain be-