The Saint Paul globe., 1897-10-24
MORE ENERGY DESIRED.

The conversations, for they can
scarcely be called more than that,
which have so far occupied the time of
the meetings of the ST. Paul charter
commission, would be improved, as it
seems to US, if the members in general
showed less resemblance to Young
Man-Afraid-O -His-Shadow. So far the
chief topics seem to have been alto
gether outside Of the scope of the COM
mission and the work that it was set
to do. We do not apprehend that it is
a. supreme court of the state Of Mime
sofa, nor do we find anything in the
law authorizing it, which requires it to
investigate the competency of the state
legislature to do certain things. It has
not been requested to pass upon the
eonstitutionaIity of the home rule act,
or anything within it. 1t is not laid
down in that act, or elsewhere, that
the commission should determine a lot
of technical legal questions, which can
not in any event be settled by any
other body than court of law. We do
not greatly sympathize with an atti-
tude Of men which is so desperately
fearful, lest, in accomplishing a reform,
it may deal with questions that shall
afterward be determined by judicial
inquiry to have been without its juris-
diction. The charter commissions of
other cities have not suffered from in
somnia by reason of such doubts, nor
have their services or their usefulness
to the public been limited by their
fears. 1t appears to US that the time
spent upon such considerations is val
liable time wasted.
1t is true that the acts and parts Of
acts under which the government of st.
Paul is conducted are so heterogeneous
and so loosely linked together that no
living man can say exactly how many
of them constitute the Bell charter
and how many, if any, of them are out
side of it. The existence of this uncer-
tainty is another link in the chain Of
proof which shows how badly we need
charter reform. Since nobody knows
SOAAoA0Se,
time that somebody found out. We are
in sympathy with the feeling of a. ma
jority Of the commission that it's ac-
ton should be conservative, amend
atory rather than revolutionary, leav-
ing in force the many excellent fea-
lures of the Bell charter that have al
ready proved their usefulness, and in
cooperating with these such others as
our experience has shown that we need.
We are entirely out of sympathy with
the idea that the commission should
follow the rule Of exclusion, and touch
no subject on which there is possible
question as to whether it has or has
not power to act.
The right rule, as it seems to US, for
these gentlemen to follow, as public
spirited and patriotic citizens, which
we believe all of them to be, is to go
over the various acts applying to our
local government in all its departments,
to see where defects exist and to seek
to remedy them. Incorporating i'm
provements thus matured in a new
charter it's work will be submitted to
the test of public approval and judi
sial review. If the commission
shall be found to have exceed
ed it's powers in any particular,
the courts will so declare, and
no harm will have been done. If it
raises at every step the bugbear Of
ultra wires, it binds itself hand and
foot, as far as public utility is con-
eerned. and threatens to disappoint pop
uIar hope and expectation. Where there
is any reasonable doubt, the rule to
observe, as it appears to us. is to see