Weekly journal-miner., 1911-01-18
(From Saturdays Daily.l


 the leader of Arizona Democracy, and for eighteen years the Delegate from this Territory in Congress, has sd- dressed a letter to President Taft, earnestly requesting a frank state ment of the views of the Chief Ex- eeutive, with respect to the Constitu- tion, copy of which he encloses in his communication to the White House, says the Globe Silver Belt. If the President replies to the Demo cratic leader that he sintends to- dis approve the Constitution if it comes before him as it stands it is under stood that MT. Smith will stump the Territry in a whiriwind campaign to make one last plea for Statehood.
 Not a Voluntary Act.
 This is no voluntary act upon the part of the ex-deiegate. Notice has been served upOa him indirectly, or rather upon his friends, by the "rule Or ruin' Democrats that he would not be permitted to speak under the auspices of the sO-called Statehood League" of which Mulford winsor IS a leading member, unless he would swallow the Constitution whole and e1tol it as the greatest instrument ever written, with one or two minor exceptions, including the Declaration of Independence.
 It is stated iu this connection that MT. Smith was willing to advise the ratification of the Constitution, even though he did not approve of it's at tack upon the courts and the under mining of the whole judicial system, provided there was a chance of State hood by so doing. But this was not satisfactory to the Statehood League The latter insisted that he would declare it the best Consti- tuition ever written and accept the entire State ticket with Geo. W. P. Hunt at its head and on down the Ene-
 Hears From His Friends. In the meantime the ex-delegate began hearing from his friends all over the Territory. They urged him to go to Washington and find out whether President Taft would reject the Constitution if it were submitted to him in its present form. From Gila county and from Graham and COchise counties, in fact, from all of the Mark Smith strongholds, he re- eeived many appeals to this same effect and at about the same time he began hearing from Congress, where he still has many friends. He was amazed to learn that the COnstitu- tional convention had received from Champ Clark, the next Democratic Speaker of the House, a telegram far more outspoken than was Senator Bailey's, in which the Missouri states man told the delegates in plain lang uage that they might as well go after the moon as to expect State hood under a Constitution that abol- ished the independence of judiciary and imposed upon the judges re- strietiOns that no self-respeeting jur- ast would accept.
 Why He Kept Silent.
 When he was called upon by Demo cratic leaders at Washington to of fer some explanation of the action of the delegates in deliberately SUD- pressing the telegram of the na- ;ational leader of the Democracy and ;a staunch friend of Statehood for tEhe last ten years, Mark Smith was at loss for an explanation because the secret, it is said, had been kept from him until that time Although he had been willing, it is said, to accept and endorse the can Sdidacy of George w. P. Hunt, for Governor, provided Statehood were achieved, it is declared that MT. Smiths friends all over the Terri tory expressed an Outburst of indig nation at the defiant declaration of the Gila statesman that he will sub init to no instructions from his peo- pie in this or any other county as to what should go in or be left out of the Constitution
 Forced to a Conclusion.
 At first Mir Smith and other Dem ocrats were disposed to accept the explanation offered in certain quar- ters that the interview, in which MT. Hunt declared that he would dis obey the mandate of the people should they turn down this Constitution and send him back to Phoenix to write another, was written for him by a