Gloucester County Democrat., 1912-04-18

The charges which the Republican
members of the New Jersey Legisla-
ture publicly made against the Gov
ernor of New Jersey reveal blind
partisanship and utter contempt for
courtesy which is unheard of in the
political history of New Jersey. That
a body of Legislators, supposedly gem
tlemen, should publicly express them
selves against man whom the people
elected to the highest Office in the
gift of the State, or against any man
in high position, is almost unbeliey-
able.
Such action ony goes to show of
what stuff the legislature of 1912 is
largely made up. 1t is, anything to
put Wilson in hole" with them, but
dt has never been so BADLY expressed
as when the official criticism was
made of the Governors vetoes. Be-
fore the session of 1912 had begun,
the Republican members met in cau-
Gus and resolved to adjourn for few
days and then reassemble, in order
that any vetoes that the Governor
might make scould be acted upon. 1t
was practically an avowed intention
to disregard any vetoes which the
Governor might make, and disregard
ing him altogether, pass them over
his head, and by so doing, discredit
him.
And then again. That the Governor
should have kept the Legislature in
formed as to what course they should
pursue throughout the session is
ridiculous in view of the fact that the
Governors message covered the points
he had in mind which the legislature
of 1912 should consider. That he
should keep prodding them, would be
folly, for the tenor of the majority
party throughout was that they would
resent any interference of the Cover
nor, and the Governor wisely held
aloof, after submitting his message.
Not an important bill was acted
upon finally by the legislature until
the last three days of the session,
when the majority of them had been
before the legislature since January.
1t was but another attempt to pass
all the important bills in the closing
hours of the session and give the
Governor no time to consider them,
and that the legislature did their best
is shown by the fact that $50 bills
were dumped on the Governors desk
at the close of the session, for him to
act upon before they should recon
vene.
And then comes the treacherous
charge upon the receipt of the Execu-
tive's vetoed bills: that he had neg
lected his duty by absences from the
State, etc. The trainers of the charg
es were too blind to see that Cover
nor Wilson had already made up his
mind as to which bills he should APP
prove and which he should veto. The
three months the bills had been hang
ing fire in the legislature was ample
time for him to have studied them
thoroughly and decide which ones he
considered wise and which were vi
cious or not to the present or future
welfare of the State That he should
have required much time to judge of
their merits or demerits after their
passage is not to be conceived, for
they had all been studied from be-
ginning to end, and in all their pecu-
liar phases before they were thrown
upon his desk. 1t required only a
reading of the bill to know whether
was not the consideration of any new
problems which required tremendous
thought, because they had already
been worked out in the Governors
mind.
And now comes the charge that he
neglected the State by absences there
from. But two days of the legislative
session was the Governor absent from
the State, and those days were but
routine days with the Legislature
when his presence could have been
of no great help to the legislature.
Are the members of a legislature to
pass sentence upon whether Cover
nor does his duty or not? Has the
time come when men may say with
truth that because one takes jour
ney to foreign land his thoughts
and hopes are not with his native
country and that his interests are
cast to things abroad ? Have we
reached the bigoted level where we
believe our geographical position de-
termines where our thoughts and in
terests are, or are we still intelligent
men, recognizing that no man may
Judge of our sincerity Of purpose ex-
cept by what we do? Because Gov
ernor Wilson disapproved of certain
bills submitted to him, and said so
is it to be inferred that he did not
know. what he was doing or that he
was neglecting the State? Rather is
it to be believed that the Executive
of New Jersey was jealous of the
interests, the prosperity and happi-
ness of New Jersey and that hs
sought to preserve them by vetoeing
the excessive salary bill, the bills
seeking to cut the teeth from tht
Geran Election Law, and others which
received the veto for various reasons
That the session of 1912 has beer
barren of results cannot be disputed
Not one bill of Importance has beer
enacted into law, but instead, commits
sions have been appointed to investi
gate and important legislation side
stepped The taxing reform promises