Arizona republican., 1912-06-12
Passage of Bill Relating to Elections Under Which Voters Are to Be Per mitted to Interpret the Meaning of Constitution
MOTIVE SEEMS TO BE TO HOLD FAST TO JOBS
House Got Down to Knit ting, Became Too Busy to Talk and Turned Out Vast Amount of Work for Summer Day

Anybody who thinks a Chinese puzzle is a difficult proposition should ishture, and he will find that all he has ever previously heard of compli- cated situations are mere nursery rid les compared with the state of affairs in that august body. It was thought these conditions were bad enough be- fore: but all that has previously hap pened was as transparent as mountain atmosphere by comparison. For of the legislature has not succeeded in tying itself into a double bow-knot on the election question it has come so close to it that it would take an expert to tell the difference.
 But perhaps it is rather unjust to lay all this at the door of th4 legis- lature. It belongs really to a part of the senate-to that part which yester- day seemed to have been hypnotized by the Yavapai and Cochise leadership It would hardly be believed. but it is a fact, that after passing the house election bill the day before, the senate yesterday. by the vote of ! to |, placed itself on record, in the committee of the whole, as favoring the nondeScript bill which assumes to provide for an cleo ton next February. but whose object. il is generally admitted. is to destroy all chance for any election at all.
 Here is the funny thing about the hiII r. 6oesn't say +l'o~e shall or shall not be q general election. It says there shall be a referendum election to de termine whether there shall be a gener- al election. Apparently, then, the Va vapai senators. who drafted the meas ure. have decided that Governor Hunt didn't know what he was talking about when he declared on three separate Oc- casions that the faith of the democratic party was pledged to the passage of an election act: and they profess to want to put the matter up to the people through the medium of a so-caiied ref erendum vote.
 And the meat in the cOcOanut lies in this little fact: If one can by any stretch of the imagination see this measure enacted into law; if he can further see the people in November voting to hold an election in February, as the bill provides-if he can see all this he can also see something else
 He can see the senators from Yava- pal and the others who voted for this monstrosity having a chance to serve another term in the legislature next winter before their successors shall have been chosen.
 That, it is more or less openly stat ed is the object of the bill. That is to say. it is it's secondary object. The real object. it is said, is to slave off the possibility of any election, and to make safe the seats of the Yavapai senators for the present For circumstances have been such it is declared, to make these seats far from secure. And it IS said further the Yavapai gentlemen, as well others, are able to see through q political knot hole; and what they have discerned on the other side has not been encouraging. So, the pro- posed legislation. according to the gos- sip is in reality of a purely personal character. and designed to save the political bacon of the men by whom It was fathered.
 But # is a funny thing when one stops to think of it. Here is con- stitutiona1 question; and it is serious tv proposed to submit that question to popular decision. Also. the very sen ators who on Monday voted for the house bill providing for an election, on Tuesday voted to disregard their votes of the day before. Also, they voted to give the governor. whose political friends they profess to have been, a mans sized drubbing. Just what the governor thinks of it would be worth Knowing.
 Incred llty was general when it was understood that these eleven men, ev- cry one of whom had voted for the house bill the previous day, had voted to repudiate their action yesterday.
 It is a little difficult to see, however, that the Cunniff- Wood specter can ever get anywhere. It is hardly to be supposed that it will be passed by the house. The house has done some rath- CT queer things occasionally. but 1t has never taken ahy action of the kind, a proceeding of that character would in- volve To vote for the Yavapai mems measure the house would have to "lie down. and meekly accept the dictation of body toward which it has not the warmest feelings at best. Also, Il would have to admit tacitly that it did not know what it was doing when it put through it's own measure.
 There was a rather queer sort of scene in the senate yesterday afternoon when Senator Wood, of Yavapai
 
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