Arizona republican., 1909-10-15

make a fundamental law called your constitution. which is to govern your legislature. your lawmalsing and exc cutive thereafter And that is a re
 sponsiblity which is very heavy and
 to which l invite your careful con- sideration.
 The trouble is that you are so
 anxious for statehood. so determined
 to have it. that. no matter what your constitution is. if it is presented to you you will vote for statehood and vote for the constitutional least that has been the experience of other directions. Therefore, 1t behooves you to see to it
 that the men who frame your consti
 tuition are charged with the responsi
 bility of making a good constitution. Now. then. we have had constitutions
 made by territories coming into the union which were voted and approved and which did not approve themselves to those men who looked forward and understood what a constitution ought to be. It ought to be simple; it ought to be general: it ought. to be coinpre- 1 hensive It ought not to include very ! limitation upon the legislature that ! each member of that constitutional convention would be wise to follow in i legislation. You should leave some 1 thing to your Legislature Don't make your constitution read like a statute. Be statesmen and make it read like fundamental law. Study the constitu tion of the United States and see what the greatest instrument of fundamen
 tai law was. and how simple. How it has been elastic and yielded to the de-
 mands of our increasing country, and yet it is today the wonder of the world. (Applause) Don't allow every fact ar every principle. however Sound. to be inserted in that constitution Trust something to your legislature. there fore. and do not bind them and you
 in such way that you will be strug gling for twenty-five years to get away from something made in haste and not with the sanest deliberation that you ought to exercise in making for your future something that ought to' last for fifty or a hundred years.
 (ApplauscD I am talking sense. I know. You win find in your constitu- tional convention gentlemen who have radical progressive Ideas. I am not contesting those radical progressive ideas: many of them have germs of truth and many are carried out in statutes. but do not fasten yourselves down by all the cranks and kind views of people who want to make laws for one hundred years without knowing the exact conditions in which those l. am not talking just for the sake of talking. I anticipate that. you are go- ing to make a constitution here hope that you are. and am going to do the best I can to help to give you the power to make it tApplause) But do not load yourselves and your future down with restrictions and limitations in your fundamental law like those which were in the Okla homa constitution. making that read like a long page of the statutes in stead of a fundamental instrument like some of the constitutions of the older states and the constitution of the United States. Our fathers builded even better than they knew. and we have not got in advance of them in the matter of laying down simple prin- ciples of constitutional law. We don't know more than our fathers did in that respect; for they have proven wnst they knew by the usefulness of tine corStitutfon of the United States
 tApplause)
 Now, my friends. as has been stated. we can stay with you but a short time. You give me more cour- age. you give me more inspiration. to look into your eyes and see that you are deliberate men and that you are intelligent men. and that you propose