Arizona republican., 1910-11-01

| laws of the territory should remain
 in force until statehood was complete unless modified by the enabling act
 At any rate. said Judge Wells what ! 1t was proposed to do was not a safe 1 thing.
 A Financial Contingency | MT. Parsons of Cochise brought out applause from his colleagues and the l galleries by an impassioned defense of the right of the convention to pro- ceed and he said that the only risk ke saw ahead was a T6ss'ble ruling 1 by the secretary of the territory that
 .nr expense attaching to a direct pr:- ary c::Ct!on was not aI:lorizrd hy ths erapEnB act ant tlItt ter ,f ore he would not approve 1t. In that / case, said MT. Parsons, the first leg islature would undoubtedly meet it.. He believed even that patriotic Ari- zonians would go down into their pockets to meet it.
 Judge Baker replying to Judge Wells said that he believed that the gentleman from Yavapai had fallen into the common error of confound- ing a primary with an election. It was not the purpose of the report he said to interfere with the election laws as they stood previous to 1909 State Nominations
 In the course of the arguments in behalf of the report, members said while the enabling act provided for the nomination of county officers 1t had made no provision for putting candidates for state officers in nomi- nation. To that reply was made that congress had evidently intended that they should be nominated by state convention in the manner that can didates for delegates to congress had been nominated in the past.
 MT. Cunniff agreed with the view of Judge Baker and he believed that the enabling act was silent as to the method by which candidates should be placed before the people In all other enabling acts constitutional conven- tions had been empowered to provide for state elections. By accident or design that power had not been ex- pressly conferred upon the Arizona convention. It was the duty of the convention to do what the gentle men in Washington had not done
 MT. Ingraham found in the express sion, "the convention shall provide for an election" a sufficient warrant for acting favorably on this report
 A Word of Warning
 MT. Franklin was inclined to the view of Judge Wells. A difficult question as to law and also as to policy had been presented and said he T doubt very much whether it is wise for us to transcend the power ex- pressly conferred upon us by the en- abling act" MT. Franklin added how ever that he would vote with the majority of his colleagues.
 MT Cooper took much the same grounds as MT. Franklin. It was doubtful step which had been propos- ed and an unsafe one. It was moro over, unnecessary since this was the first and not the last opportunity Arizona would have to secure a direct primary system involving an advisory-I vote for senator's.
 Messrs. Cobb and Lynch briefly addressed the convention, expressing doubt as to the power granted by the enabling act but taking the ground that the act had left the convention in doubt as to the course to pursue There seemed to them nothing to do but to proceed with a plan for holding the election.
 Again Judge Wells asserted that the act was plain.
 'Is it plain as to the nomination of candidates for the state offices?" ask ed Mir. Ingraham.
 Where the Peril Lies
 To this Judge Wells replied that congress would not raise any ques- tion as to the validity of any pro- ceedings affecting only the state, so 1 that if the election should be held ac- cording to the terms of the act, pre- ceded by the necessary primary for l the nomination of state officers. But | if there was any departure from the l terms of the act the validity of the | whole election as well as the acts | of the officers and the legislature | would be subject to question.
 The debate was cut short by the | moving of the previous question and the report was adopted by a vote of | fl to 8, Messrs. Langdon and Curtis voting with the democrats.
 There was throughout the debate | no opposition to the principle of the | direct primary or the advisory vote for United States senators. On the al of ha rap,,hliaanc fou-