Bisbee daily review., 1910-09-01
REPUBLICAN ATTITUDE IS uNWARRANTED


 planning to defeat statehood by pu ting into the constitution the pls of direct legislation as included what is known as the initiative an declaring that PresideI Taft will not approve of a constit, ton in which is included the initi tive and referendum. Until the r publican papers can show some d rect statement from the Presider that he will not approve such a col stitution their howls along this lin are worthy of no attention.
 When President Taft was in Ariz, na last fall he took occasion to spea of the importance of the constitutio of the new state. Here is what he reported to have said:
 At Phoenix, October IS, 1909:
 If I can restrain the desire of those most progressive, or most
 full of the idea of having limita-
 tions on goyernment-can re-
 strain them from making a con
 stitution other than a fundimen- tai law with simple rules of limi-
 tation, if I can halt and induce the people of this territory to de- liberate over that instrument, that is to follow them so long in the history of their state and in it's growth and development, I shall not have let this morning go without its profit"
 At Prescott on the same day:
 I've have had constitutions by territories coming into the Union which were voted and approved. and which did not approve them selves to those men who look for Ndlu sIlNuLk1t4Stduu "hdN a SO4A- stitution ought to be. It ought to be simple. It ought to be general. IL ought to be compre- hensive. It ought not to include every limitation upon the legis- lature that each member of that constitutional convention thinks would be wise to follow in legis- lation. You ought to leave something to your legislature. Don't make your constitution read like a statute. Be states men and make it read like fun- dfmental law. Study the const1- tuition of the United States and ee what the greatest instrument Of fundamental law was and is, and how simple; how it has been elastic and yielded to the de- mands of our increasing country, and yet today is the wonder of the world. Don't allow every fact or every principle, however sound. to be inserted in that con stitutiOn. trust something to your legislature thereafter and don't bind them and you in such a
 way that you will be struggling
 for twenty-five years to get away
 from something that was made
 in haste and not with the sense
 of deliberation that you ought
 to exercise in making a path
 that ought to last for fifty or a
 hundred years.
 Don't load yourselves down
 and your future down with re-
 stTictiJns and limitations in your
 fundamental law like those which
 are in the Oklahoma constitution,
 making that read like q long
 page Of statutes, instead of a fun
 damental instrument like some of
 the constitutions of the older
 states and the constitution of the
 United States"
 There is not a word here advisin against the principle of direct legi iation of the Oregon plan" or i itiative and referendum. The pres dent advises against loading our co stitution with statute provisions an suggested that only fundamental pr fsions be included.
 So far as this advice Is concerne it is Enobjectionable and in line wit it democratic conventions througho, the territory have declared in fave of a short, concise constitution whereas the Oklahoma constitutio of which the president complains, a document filling a 4J0iJage boo exclusive of the index. No one Arizona is asking for such a CO stitution for Arizona. The dem crats have endorsed the principle , direct legislation. Certainly the CO stitution is the proper place to sho how legislation of the future sta