Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-11
THE eovERNoR's STRANGE POSITION

Governor Beavers proposal as a substi-
tute for calling the Legislature together to
deal with the Johnstown problem is meeting
with anything but fattering reception.
His objections to convening the Legislature
are singularly untenable. At first the Gov
ernor was reported as saying that the floods
rendered transportation of the members to
the State capital impossible for an early
date, which is simply puerile and absurd.
The next argument made by him against an
extra session was that to appropriate money
for the Johnstown sufferers would be uncon-
stitutional. This is equally irrelevant. As
a matter of truth and fact, the State is not
being asked to make a charitable appro-
priation for Johnstown or any other point
to the extent of a single penny. On the
contrary, what is wanted is that the State
shall appropriate money for its Board of
Health to discharge the duty rightfully
falling upon it of cleaning the bed of its
streams, removing the debris which threat
ems pestilence, and doing other proper State
work which is now being done out of the
funds specifically contributed by the gener-
Gus public to clothe, house, feed and fnan-
cially aid the unfortunate survivors of the
dread calamity.
In place of the State keeping the Johns
town sufferers, it is the money of the Johns
town sufferers which is now doing State
work. Nobody pretends that an appropria-
ton for the Board of Health would be un-
constitutional.
To attempt to fathom the motives which
lead Governor Beaver to reject the propo-
sal for an extra session is waste of time. The
public are not so much interested now in
the peculiar mental turn which leads the
Governor to view the matter differently from
nearly everyone else, as in the fact that if
he does not act, serious and forever regretta-
bic complications are likely to arise.
The Governors only alternative proposition,
to which he pins his faith, has the misfor.
tune of being about the only really uncon-
stitutional, and possibly impracticable, one
offered. He would have the State Treasurer
advance s., 600, 900 as a relief on the bonds
of 200 volunteer citizens The people of the
State who want to see the utmost promptly
done for the sufferers would not criticise
even this, if it were not offered as something
so much easier and more constitutional than
the extra session. But as matter of fact it
has the fault that the loan would not be
authorized by the Constitution; that if the
bonds were to be several, in place of joint,
that is to say only for 5000 each, the State
Treasurer might consider the possibilities of
some of the signers becoming insolvent
before the Legislature could be got together
two years hence to make the loan gift;
while if the bond is joint one it makes
each signer liable for the whole amount of
s, ,OOO, 900. \
The public have acted nobly in their con-
tributions for the relief of Johnstown. 1t is
plain to everyone that there is a feeling of
deep irritation and annoyance at Governor
Beavers refusal to take the simple course
of getting the Legislature together, and Sc
curing at once a direct appropriation. If
he can get his bond-loan scheme through at
once, the people, even now, while not likely
to see wherein it is at all better or as de-
sirable as direct appropriation, will, still
on account of the sufferers, bid him God
speed. But il, as we fear, he is to daily
with the matter, then, indeed, he viii have
a responsibility upon him the full extent
he apparently has yet to realize.
Act, Governor, act!