Arizona republican., 1901-03-07

abolish the board of LEGISLA- control, with the avowed TIVE LIM- object of reducing the ITATIONS. authority of the gov
 ernor, we pointed out So clearly that we thought it would be understood and remembered. that the legislature cannot abate by a jot or title the power of the governor.
 The legislature can invest the gov ernor with no other power than that he already enjoys and can detract none from that already conferred upon him by the organic act. which has just now been most foolishly as sailed. We may present the matter in still more direct way. The governor of Arizona derives no power whatever from the people of Arizona. through the legislature or in any other way. It is circumstance inseparable from a territorial form of government that the governor is not responsible to the people and dces not in any way repre- sent them. He is the representative. on the other hand, of the federal gov ernment, from which he derives all the power he exercises. That power is definite. or else, so more or less clearly implied in the organic act that 1t cannot be misc1nstrued.
 Nowhere In the act is there an im- plication that the legislature may place limitation on the governors functions. We do not mean to be un- derstood that the authority of the governor is absolute. For instance, his appointment of officers must be made under the laws of the territory" but these laws which may even create np- pointive offices. do not restrict the governors power. but only change the form of 1t. The volume always re- mains the same and always will 90 remain until the organic act has been changed.
 This statement Is made in the face of supreme court decision. based upon the silence of the act, that until the Sixteenth legislature the governor had no power to remove territorial off, cials. That decision was made by q democratic supreme court in the case of the hold. over officials. and until now has not been recognized as good law by any legislature. democratic or republican, 10 the extent of allowing the claims of the hold over officials for salaries. though it was admitted that they were earned. Relief bills covering. we believe. all these claims have been passed at this session and have been signed by the governor who took pains to say ia his accompanying message not that he had approved the validity of the claims. but that he as- stunned that the legislature had sats- fled Itself of the justice of them.
 We believe the law of 1891. giving the governor power to remove terri torial officials, was as useless as the bill passed in both houses of the leg islature yesterday is futile. The Six invest the governor with the power of removal, and the Twenty-flrst is equally without authority to restrict 1t.
 President Ives of the council, the author of this asinine legislation, Is said to be lawyer. We believe he Is a member of the bar of this county. and a Tember of the bar is assumed to have some knowledge of plain law and to have acquired some capacity for the making of legal deductions. It is difficult to believe that Mir. Ives would rest in the error of supposing that such law as he has proposed would stand test an instant. It Is almost equally difficult to believe that, notwithstanding the surprising weak ness and stiffness he has displayed within the last month, he would sacri- flee to his hatred of the admlnistra- ton. the respect of the democratic councilmen and assemblymcn whom he has coaxed and driven into a most ridiculous position. Mir. Ives must Know better. In his boyish anger he has engaged In making mouths at the governor and has singularly been able to persuade his wiser and more staid party associates to act in concert with him. We think the time will come when they will realize that an asinine policy is not the best to pursue, even if 1t has been recommended by an aspiring party leader We also think that Mir. Ives himself, as lawyer, will some time be ashamed of that part of the journal of the Twenty-hrst legislature created yesterday. and that he will be still more ashainsd of the se, n laws if Council Bill No. l07; intro dced by. Mir. Ives. in Relation to the Power of. the Governor. etc." should become one of them. We think that rome of the democrats of both houses will be ashamed of Ir, Ives and--we were d.