The Prescott daily news., 1909-04-21
A LETTER FROM
 HON. H. B. MCKENZIE
Affairs of the Legislature as Viewed by
 One of Its Prominent Members

l legislature as l did last about what we are doing and what we are not doing for the state. l am able to assign several reasons for this, but the lack of import ance of the matter fOrbids me from taking space to give reasons One that may mention hoWev- CT IS the fact that there have been so much insistency and petty politics played during the session that one becomes dis gusted and is little inclined to write or speak of the matter, ex- cept where he is compelled to | do so.
 It is customary to speak of var 1 lous questions and issues as be- | ing in politics. 1 never knew eX- actly what this meant, or to what extent politics could be worked into a question, other wise nOnpartisan, until 1 came to this session of the legisla ture. say deliberately that in my opinion there is(mOre politics and political prejudice among the members of the upper house if Lot the entire legislature, than there is i'll all the rest of the state combined. It enters in al- most all questions, often into mere local bills and frequently you see one member say tC anoth- CT that the first can not support the bill Of the second, because the second at some previous time refused to vote with the first on some bill. Thus the real merit of the issues is left entirely out of cOnsidera tion.
 Speaking of local bills, l had the pleasure a short time ago of introducing resolution propos- ing a constitutional amendment which would absolutely require the 30 days notice to be given of the intention of introducing a local bill. my object being of course not to entirely prohibit the local legislation but to let the communities from which such legislation comes be heard on 1t when it originates and to prevent the class of bills com monly known as vicious bills, in trOduced for the benefit of some particular individual and to the detriment Of others, or osap- pease some grudge or settle some private dispute. Such bills are usually rushed through hurriedly to prevent petitions a. gainst them from being presented or investigations from being made. If the 30 days notice were given this latter class of bills, (and there are many if it were really known) would not take up any time at ali because they would not be introduced. The re- solution failed of adoption, not withstanding we get out on the stump in the campaign and howl about the evil of local legislation and it costing the state thous- ands of dollars to pass these local bills many of which ought not to be the law or ought to be general instead of special. 1 am glad l introduced the resolu- tion and put the fellows on re- cord. The amount of daylight we burn doing nothing is absolutely astounding.
 l have just introduced a resoiu- tiOn to limit speeches to ten minutes for the remainder of the | { n1r fnil son why this failed is that the | fellows who want to defeat cer. tain legisla ton could not talk 1t to death, should such resolution be adopted. Ten minutes is long l item for a man to speak on sub feet unless he wants to talk a. bout everything else but the sub l feet It would not be a good re- solution for all the time, but now hen we are drawing near the close of the session and the peo- pie are hoping for the pledges of | the party to be made good, and when the people are demanding that the state capitol be com pleted, it is no time for long win dy speeches made Tor the pur- pose of delay only
 Whether or not the bill for the completion of the state house or a temperance bill of general na- ture will be passed are both very doubtful at this time. Ali kinds of trades are being made between the whiskey people and the weak kneed members on the other side. The question of the removal of