Arizona republican., 1920-01-30
CHIEF JUSTICE SAYS SUFFRAGE
 |S NOT WAN TED
Cunningham Says Special Session Is Unwarranted Expenditure of Peoples Money

Insisting that there is no occasion for calling as special session of the legislature to ratify the Susan B. Anthony amendment as Arizona has Justice D. l.. Cunningham of the Ari- zOna supreme court yesterday eN- pressed some decided views in regard to the proposed special session, and suffrage for women.
 Justice Cunningham says he is free to express his views he is not a candidate for any office and does not care whose feelings may be hurt. and that he regards suffrage legislation as utterly unnecessary, excepting to the party which happens to be in power. A party in power, he says. must please as many as possible, but that as an unbiased individual he regards the in- terest of the taxpayer as the foremost consideration.
 Why should Arizona spend s1O.000 or so." he asked ito ratify the Susan F. Anthony amendment when Ari- zona's women have suffrage now
 In aswer to a reply that Arizona might have some obligations to the that ft did not owe the nation the price of a special session for a cause Arizona won for itself without help.
 Besides" Justice Cunningham con- tinued. there is no certainty that a special session will ratify the amend
 
 that the peace treaty would be ac cepted, but I was mistaken about that and l am not sure about the outcome of legislation any more. l don't mean to say that the legislature is apt to turn the amendment down, but do hold that the state contemplaes a. bill of S10.0O0 or so. purely on a chance as :o what the legislature will do.
 There is no excuse for calling a special session of the legislature for Anf 1Grr1sa rrf alone There is a. question, too. whether any Arizona legislation at this time would cause the women of the nation to have the franchise in time for the coming presidential primaries. l doubt If it would"
 The chief justice holds that the case might be different if the women really wanted to vote- It is his opinion that only small clique cares anything about the ballot. For the rest of na- tion's women he says, they have fads. and sometimes they take fad to vote.
 He does not consider that women as a class are equal to the ballot any way He says he has studied their work at the polls and found it utterly at variance with the best interests of government. In this connection he takes occasion to admit that some men are most incompetent voters and it his opinion that the United States al- ready has altogether too many en- franchised citizens.
 Concerning the unfntelligent attitude of the general public toward a party ticket, he points to the usual result Of the count in state elections.
 There Is usually a lively scrap over the governor. he said, and very often @here IS a scrap on for some other outstanding figure in an election. but the count usually is very close for the minor executive offices. indicating that the voters are not acquainted with all the candidates da ar ra ing the party ticket.
 Justice Cunningham holds that the enfranchisement of women will merely continue the practice of voting the party ticket in the case of candidates not known to the individual voter the relative capacities of a republican or democrat for the important responsi- bilities of d state superintendent of banks or other office of no inherent political significance counting for taught.
 Why increase this kind of voting?" concluded Justice Cunningham.