The Arizona sentinel., 1897-06-05
GOOD IN MARICOPA COUNTY
Reinstatement of Salaries Law Sus-
 tained.

ne InO6nlX hSpUOttCUU says. Judge Baker decided last week that the reinstatement of salaries law passed by the late legislature is valid and applicable in all counties whose indebtedness does not exceed the per cent limit fixed by the Harrison act. The decision was rendered i'll the case of ex District Attorney Millay against the board of supervisors of Maricopa county to compel the payment of $845.85, a part of his salary which had teen cut off by the premature operation of the classification law of the Eighteenth legislature. The case was argued last Thursday and submitted. The decision, which IS the first yet reached in fact no other suit under the law has been filed, Is directed fully at the objections raised against the law. The first was that the legislature was without authority to indulge iD law making oI curative character in- volved in tEis act. This objection had been practically disposed of in an earlier decision of Judge Baker in the case of the supervisors against Probate Judge Grouse, in which suit had been brought to compel the probate judge to turn into the county treasury money received as fees for marriage licenses. These fees had heen allowed probate judges before the enactment of the classification law. Manyprohate judges retained them afterward notwishstand- ing suits had been brought to compel them to pay into the treasury. While such a suit was pending against Judge Grouse the Nineteenth legislature passed law authorizing probate judges to retain such fees. Judge Baker held this law to be valid.
 In passing upon this question yester- day the court said that the classified ton law was intended at the time of its passage to become effective in 1897. There was plainly no purpose to alter the salaries of persons then holding lottice. In some way which had never been explained the clause describing the time when the law should go into effect had been dropped out between the lime when the bill was voted upon on it's final passage and the time of it's signature by the presiding officers of the assembly and the council and the governor. The law then went into effect at once and the highest court had decided that is was valid.
 All this had been set forth in the preamble of the reinstatement oi salaries bill which was remedial, in tended for the relief of persons who had been injuriously and unjustly af- fected by the former law. This kind of legislation, the court said, was com mon and allowable. It had been said by counsel for the defense in argument that the law was un-American. Judge Baker said he was not clear as to the meaning of the word, "un-American.' '' It had been used in so great variety of connections. He could only sup pose it to be applicable to whatever was in conflict with the constitution of the Unied States or in contraven- tion of the laws of the country. This legislation was neither.
 The strongest ground occupied by the defense if it could be maintained was that the indebtedness of the county already exceeded the4 per cent limitation of the Harrison act T that were SO the legislature certainly had no power to aid arothor cent to the volume of indette.!n e%S. The defense though, had included in ifs calculations school indebtedness oi more than $900O0. The court Ieci,l- ed that tl.at was not county CT Terri torial indebtedness within the con- temptation of the Harrison act. When this amount of more than $S0,O00 was deducted from the defense's compila- ton of the county's liabilities it left sum comfortably withia the 4 per cent limit.
 Whether the county will carry the case any further has not yet been de termined. Other claims in this county under the reinstatement of salaries i,w a1oouat to anout &f 300.