Arizona republican., 1910-12-12
A Groundless Hope.

Even the most earnest supporters of the constitution are convinced, and admit, that if President Taft were to follow his own inclination he would not approve the constitution. They affect to believe. however, that he will somehow be diverted from his inclination and will approve the con stitution by duress. On this belief rests their only hope of statehood.
 The particular thing which they think will compel the president to approve the constitution is the result of the late elections, which they in terpret to be an expression of ap- proval of those isms which they think will be the most objectionable to the president Some of them go so far as to declare that if the president should persist in his objection, ne would thereby transform those isms into great national issues. He would hesitate a long time, they surmise. before he would provoke an indignant uprising in behalf of those principles which have been made a part of the constitution.
 As to the relation between the result of the election and these cherished re- forms provided for in our constitution there was not the slightest. It is true that there was a republican slump. It was more marked in New York and Ohio than anywhere else, and it also attained some proportions in Connecti- cut, Massachusetts and New Jersey. But in none of those states were the Arizona principles-the so-called Ore gon plan-at issue. The reforms pro- posed by the oregon plan would hays been as vigorously opposed by the victorious democrats as they would have been by the defeated republicans.
 There was one state. however, where the Oregon plan was an issue. The Kansas republicans were pledged to it, and the republican ticket came closer to defeat than it had for years. In Iowa, Wisconsin and the state of Washington, where there is strong sentiment among the republicans in favor of the Oregon plan. the repub- licans wre sorely pressed.
 In California, the result of whose election was a more sweeping victory than had been expected. and which IS regarded as an insurgent victory, the Oregon plan was not an issue. It was never urged by the candidate for governor and in an interview before the election the candidate for lieuten- ant governor, MT. Wallace. stated that the Lincoln Roosevelt wing was in surging'' against nothing but the Southern Pacific-not even against the Payne Aldrich law.
 The republican platform of Califor mia, contrary to what has frequently been stated, did not endorse the initi- ative, referendum and recall. but pledged a republican legislature to submit the question to the voters.
 Surely President Taft cannot find in the election results any direction from the people to revise his views regard ing such reforms" as our constitu- tion proposes.
 As to the creation of a national issue which shall sweep the country like wildfire. there is not as much material for such an issue as the sil- yer craze afforded The states in which the Oregon plan, or something akin to it, is entrenched. or sought after are not as numerous as those states controlled by the populists twenty years ago, when those reforms first began to be urged, and which they then declared were about to sweep the country like wildfire.