Arizona republican., 1904-07-17
Ignorance and incompetence in Office.


 Notwithstanding all the mysteries of local publications, it yet remains to oe demonstrated that there has been ocrookedness in the office of the coun- ty recorder or in other offices at the court house. There is ncompetency and inefficiency, of course, in abund- ance. But it is difficult to make a sen sation out of that, for a sensation 10 be successful must contain the element oOf surprise. We should judge that the gentlemen composing the Investigating committee stand alone among all the citizens of Maricopa county in discov- ering at this late day that the people of this county are in the habit of en- trusting their most important affairs to meA whose business ability does not rise above the management of a pea nut stand. This fact was known to the average citizen long ago.
 Very properly the county recorder has been required to pay into the county treasury a sum representing the disputed fees, and has been requir- ed to give an additional bond. The courts may yet decide that the re- corder is entitled to the fees in ques- tion, but as between the disputants it has been plainly demonstrated that the county is the safer custodian. The county will not lose the money in fool speculations.
 One of the facts most prominently emphasized so far by this investigation is the imperative need of better ma terial in public office-especialIy in the territorial legislature. If senators and congressman take the trouble to study the copies of our biennial enactments which are filed at Washington at the close of each legislature, we do not wonder that many of them, jumping at conclusions. decide that we are not ready for statehood. It is the Ari- zona custom to send to the legislature about the poorest material that can be found. No citizen can remember when there were enough lawyers in any leg islature to make up the judiciary com mittee of a single house. More often than otherwise even the chairman of the judiciary committee is a layman, wholly ignorant of the proper phrase ology of a statute and with but a shad- owy knowledge of English. The chair men of the other committees arc more hopeless still. They can make no pre- tense of ability to frame a bill in words of undoubted meaning. The chairmen of the committees are gen. orally the victims of all the lobbyists and seheTnefs that haunt the legisla- tive halls Bills laid before them may be full of clumsy language and obscur- ities, or full of bugs" but they are helpless. They cannot protect them- selves or the territory. And as to the general membership of the committees it is better to regard the subject as a joke.
 To be sure, in each legislature there are few men of brains, but most of them are there on a special mission and are busily looking after gratis of their own.
 Thus it is that this law relating to the fees of the recorders office is so uncertain in meaning that not only the lawyers but the courts are divided as to what is intended. Instances of a similar character could be multiplied, almost by the number of pages in the revised statutes.
 The fault in the matter of the leg islative nominations lies with equal heaviness on both political parties. In Maricopa county. it is true. the repub- licans in recent years have been nom- mating excellent men for the leg islature, but only a few of them have been elected.
 The worst of it Is that under ter ritorial conditions there is little pros pect of improvement. The conventions will continue to nominate scrubs for thp haco,,ca