Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1890-10-06

Third, That the provisions regarding
taxation are framed to enable land grants
to escape taxation.
| was good deal surprised to hear this
statement deliberately made by such q
man. But it only shows to what unex'
pected lengths party politics will some
times drive people, and how the demon
of partisanship will occasionally enter into
a man who, in every other relation in life,
is just and fair and honorable, and drag
him temporarily down to the level OF
irresponsible demagogism, which idly
riots without thought or care for the
value of its words. Childers, the pol
itician, pat forward by his party 10 de-
molish this constitution, and desperate at
finding it impregnable against legitimate
argument, may have worked himself up
to the point of imagining, Willie in the
heat of debate, that there is something of
the kind hidden away in it. But Chill
ders the man, off the stump, knows that
it is the greatest humbug he ever uttered
And why? Because he knows some of
the men who were in that convention
very thoroughly, and though they may all
| be as black in their designs as he has
tried to paint them, he knows they are
not quite ready to commit political suicide,
which it would surely be to attempt to
foist such a scheme of boundless stupidi-
ty upon the people of this territory. AS
for the charge itself there is
But one Answer
to it and that is, read the constitution and
see for yourselves. If any man can point
out line or syllable or anything be-
tween the lines, which gives the least
color to this ridiculous insinuation, then
| am ready to write myself down an ass
of the first magnitude for having put my
name to such document, and to relin-
quish forever all claim to the confidence
OF my fellow-citizens who sent me there.
Fourth, That the judges of the supreme
court are to be appointed.
This he characterized as robbing the
people of their prerogative and comforting
it on one man. He omitted to explain
that these judges are not to be appointed
by the governor alone, but by the COM
bined action of the governor and the
senate, which Is composed of at least
twenty-four members elected by the
people and representing the whole
state. According to my notion
that is about as much an election by the
people as when the people of each political
party vote, not for the man they individ-
ually think is the best, but for the candi-
date who has been selected for them by
convention composed of a few delegates.
Which is the most likely to ensure a good
selection, the senate of the state or the
average political convention? But Mr..
Childers says it is un-Democratic, mon
strous and devised by Republicans to
cover up some dark plot. Yet this same
system OF selecting supreme judges pre-
walls in the states of Louisiana, Mississip-
pi, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, V1r-
ginia, New Jersey and Connecticut, whose
Democratic records are above suspicion.
1t also exists in Maine, Vermont, New
Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode
Island. Not only 30, but the judges of
the supreme, circuit and district courts of
the United States, composing the greatest
judicial system the world has ever seen,
are appointed in precisely the same way.
So that while there are many people who
honestly believe some other plan is better,
this one Is neither un-Democratlc, nor
monstrous, nor without precedent in
some of the most illustrious examples our
history has furnished.
Fifth. That the constitution requires
mines to be taxed upon the gross output.
Here, again, Mr.. Childers and his party
do not seem willing either to
Quote the Constitution Correctly
or to take the provision according to its
simple meaning. The language is: "Min-
ing claims before patent shall be taxed
only upon the gross output, in a manner
to be prescribed by law" Article XII, |
section 10. A plain, every day person,
not engaged in searching with a micros-
cope for fy-specks has no trouble
in understanding this. 1t does
not impose a tax at all, except such as
the legislature may prescribe, and it ex-
empts such claims from tax upon every
thing except the mineral actually taken
out. The improvements, the develop
ment, the ore in sight, the cash value of
the mine-all these are not taxed upon
unpatented claims. The object was to
foster and encourage this great industry,
and it was 80 accepted by the miners
themselves, who had most vigilant and
able representative in the convention as
chairman of the committee on mines
and mining.
Here ended the list of vices of this
vicious" constitution. For although the
crater did, at the close, say something
about vicious" apportiontment of men,
bers of the legislature, his statement is
condemned out of his own mouth. Only
few minutes before, while trying to
make telling point against the last Re-
publican legislature, he declared no less
than twice, that the constitutional con-
vention had made reasonably fair"
apportionment. If it is reasonably
fair" from Democratic standpoint, it
must be pretty good. The fact Is, the
Democrats get, by the constitution, one