The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1910-06-18

gencles which 1t VIII be IN the power Oh N"hSi.'0
and the President to create to further delay the
pretended purpose of the act. The act itself
creates severe and complicated quallhcatlons Ior
citizenship necessary to the exercise OF the sur
TRACE in adopting a Constitution; and the ac-
.ceptance of the Constitution Is placed, not Win
Congress, where under the Constitution OF the
United States it belongs, but with the President
as a preliminary judge OF its proprlety. AT the
earliest moment possible, 1t Is not thought That
the two States can prepare to seek formal adj
mission until the Fall of 1912. BY that time the
general election viii have been held and the two
territories, ready for years for Statehood accord
ing to the standards of wealth and population
fixed by the admission of a number of the newer
Western States. will have been further denied
a right of admission as States, conceded to them
by both political parties and by the country at
large. The entire treatment of what should have
been approached in the broad spirit of a national
policy has been insincerc and narrowly partisan
in character. ES&
Particularly dangerous do we esteem the pro-
vision that sets up the President as a reviewing
authority of the Constitution to be declared as
a prerequisite of Statehood. The proper func-
ton of the Executive is to act within the limits of
constitutional law and not to declare what the law
is or shall be. Greatly as this old fashioned ter
ritory of the judicial has been Ninvaded by the
executive department, it is a much more advanc-
ed step when the Executive Is made by legislative
action a qtaStjudicial, quaSt-legislative guardian
of the fundamental law declared for the govern
ment Of States. No State constitution can, un-
der any circumstances, contravene the c~onstitu-
ton of the Nation. To set up the President as a
judge of State constitutions is, therefore. to en-
large the scope of his powers to include u State as
well as a Federal despotism.
Nor will the excuse OF Oklahoma experience
be sufficient to conceal the clear animus of this
provision, which exceeds anything which even
the constitution-hating Roosevelt ever dreamed
of. True as it is that the Oklahoma constitution
is the p~recipitate of all fad, vagarv and heavily
discounted theory of the future, it remains true
that it Is impotent to vary the established rela-
lions Of State and Government as defined IN the
fundamental law Of the Nation. 1t is the law
under which, within the limitations Of the Fed
eral instrument, the State must live and do bust
ness. To the extent that ii represents the will
of the people it makes for the ideal of democracy
in the government. To thwart that will by
Presidential veto, or to coerce it by the threat
of Presidential displeasure, is a proceeding sub
~versive of the fundamental principles underlying
the country itself, 1t is a most serious develop
ment of autocracy in an electoral officer that he
should be given the power. at the very inception
of the life of a new State, to interfere with the
exercise of the democratic expression of its people
as to how they will live and under what form Of
government they will exist.
The only hope apparent for a true measure of
justice for Arizona and New Mexico is bound
up in the hope Of a Democratic victory in 1912,
as a result of which the unusual power accorded
the President would find its only proper exer-
clse in giving effect to the declared wishes of the
people most directly concerned.