Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1920-02-06
THE EXTRA SESSION.

Governor Larrazolo, in issuing q
call for a special session of the leg
islature, limited the subjects for
consideration to the smallest num-
Der possible. Let it be said here,
that combination of matters made
such call imperative. While the
woman suffrage amendment has
been placed at the front as the
greatest reason for the call. that
alone would not have induced the
is a most glaring inequality in the
income tax law, put through in the
closing hours of the session: but
that defect and woman suffrage
combined would not have sufficed.
The soldiers settlement law and
the federal law, which had not been
passed when our legislature adj
Journed, are in conflict, and some
sort of remedial legislation will be
proposed; also the state is not
prepared 10 meet the requirements
of the federal road law. Then there
comes the menace of Spanish influ-
en2a, ravaging other states and
rapidly increasing i'm this state with
no adequate means of meeting the
situation II it should assume graYer
proportions.
But all of these things combined
would have hardly induced Gov
erflor Larrazolo TO call the legisla-
ture in extra session, though they
presented, when taken together.
reasons enough for the state incur
ring the expense. But more seri-
Gus in its possible consequences is
the fact that New Mexico has no
national guard and the state hasn't
a dollar for public defense pur-
poses, should troubles arise beyond
the ability of local authorities and
the mounted police to cope with.
Such conditions have arisen in
almost every state of the union in
the past, and in the unsettled state
of the public mind, following the
war, such conditions might arise
in this state. II is not for the state
to take sides when quarrels be-
tween labor and capital arise and
assume the form of strikes, but for
1t to see that the law is observed,
violence prevented and that the in
terests of the public are protected.
State authorities haven't one dollar
for such emergency at this time.
The people of the state and of
the whole nation, for that matter,
are FESTIVE under the burdens of
taxation, and not one dollar should
be appropriated the expenditure
of which can be dispensed with
without real injury to the interests
of the state. The legislature should
not be in session a day longer than
is required to pass bills that should
be passed.
If the legislators meet and, begin
killing time. after the habit of
legislatures since they were first
called into existence. the public will
resent it.
There are other matters which
Should have attention. Every per-
son recognizes the necessity for
higher pay for the country school
teachers, many of whom are now
getting less than six hundred dol
lars a year. But revision at this
time of the school laws, by which
the pay of teachers is limited to
totally inadequate maximum and
with nearly no minimum, would re-
quire more time and more expense
on the part of the legislature than
the governor believed warranted.
He had to set his face against the
fact that he had promised, the
teachers that the matter would be
included in the call, and exclude it, |
just as Governor Campbell has
done in Arizona.