THE ROLL CALL
Not "Conservative" Enough ON JUNE 20, 1910, the President approved the enabling act to admit Arizona and New Mexico into the union of states. The citizens of both these territories rejoiced. Their...
...It was not a democratic constitution...
...Smith, S. C. and Richardson...
...This was the question: Shall we as individual Senators dictate to the people of Arizona...
...We want these people to come in along CONSERVATIVE lines, and to stay there as a CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ORGANIZATION...
...Their dream of statehood was about to be realized, and they were to come into the Union as separate states, as they wished...
...It was the other that offended their aristocratic and plutocratic nostrils...
...Pomerene Williams Chilton Jones Reed Works Clapp La Follette Shively NOT VOTING—21 Brandegee Gere McCumber Smith, S. C. Burton Gronna McLean Sutherland Davis Kern Percy Tillman Du Pont Lea Perkins Frye Lodge Rayner Gallinger Lorimer Richardson PAIRED Brandegee and Burton...
...The people of the new state were to be made supreme in the government of the state...
...And what brand of fanatics were they who went to the polls and expressed their approval of it...
...Said Senator Crawford, in the course of a long speech deploring the present tendency to place complete power into the hands of the many instead of the few: "Much as I oppose the principle of putting the recall of judges into the constitution of Arizona or into any other state constitution—and if such a proposition were proposed in my state I would travel over it and pretest against it everywhere—this question comes up to me: If the people in Arizona wish to put into their organic law something that I believe they should not, and yet something which they can lawfully put there and which is a matter they must determine for themselves, why should I say they shall not do so...
...We don't all of us believe in this principle...
...In both territories the voters approved the work of their delegates...
...What Offended Taft...
...Whereupon they set out to form constitutions...
...I would not permit the child to come into the household and change the whole arrangement of it...
...We must make a lesson of them, quoth the Morganites...
...The referendum was bad enough, the initiative worse, but the recall of judges...
...it is not justice to deny you that right AT THE OUTSET...
...that is the ultimatum...
...We Want No Freaks" SAID HEYBURN, voicing the views of those who demanded the recall of judges be stricken out of the resolution: "I would not support the constitution of Arizona because it provides for the recall of officers other than in the manner recognized since the foundation of this government...
...then we have no moral right, although we have a constitutional power, to say that she shall not enter the Union until she conforms to our view in her policies and her systems of government...
...At what...
...Among other things, it provided for the initiative, the referendum and the recall, including the recall of judges...
...Briggs Dillingham Nixon Smoot Burnham Gamble O'Gorman Stephenson Clark, Wyo...
...No, not that one...
...Threat of Veto SO THE WORD was passed around that unless the Recall of Judges were stricken out of Arizona's constitution, President Taft would use his veto...
...What kind of anarchists were they who wrote that constitution...
...Here is the vote: YEAS—26 Bradley Curtis Nelson Smith, Mich...
...Guggenheim Oliver Warren Crane Heyburn Page Wetmore Crawford Kenyan Penrose Cullom Lippitt Root NAYS—43 Bacon Clarke, Ark...
...NEW MEXICO'S constitution was heralded far and wide as a reactionary instrument...
...Martin...
...Bankhead Cummins Myers Stone Borah Dixon Newlands Swansen Bourne Fletcher Overman Taylor Bristow Foster Owen Thornton Brown Hitchcock Paynter Townsend Bryan Johnson, Me...
...Whereupon President Taft made known his indignation...
...Why Nelson's Amendment Was Rejected YET THE Nelson amendment was rejected...
...McCumber and Percy...
...It said to Arizona, "You may make your new constitution as you see fit...
...and Lodge, McCumber, Perkins, Sutherland would have voted "YEA...
...They must not be allowed to do that if it can be prevented...
...That was all...
...If after another election upon this ONE proposition, the voters of that territory still held to the belief that their judges would serve the ends of justice better if they were subject to recall, then that settled the matter...
...Arizona's convention, duly elected by the people, met at Phoenix October 11, 1910...
...Of these, it was announced that Gronna, Kern, and Percy would have voted "nay...
...Accept the Nelson amendment or go without statehood...
...New Mexico's convention convened at Santa Fe, November 21, 1910...
...The joint resolution made it necessary for the people of Arizona, as a precedent to statehood, to take another vote on the recall of judges...
...Senator Nelson of Minnesota offered the amendment to accomplish this...
...Arizona's plan of putting the control of their government, not in the hands of the bosses, not in the hands of the "jack pot" politicians, not even in the hands of the judges, beyond the reach of public opinion, but into their own hands, —it was this that constituted the offense...
...By the interests which controlled in its making, it was designed as a bulwark of protection for the privileged few against the actien of the populace...
...Arizona's constitution, on the other hand, was received with acclaim by friends of popular government...
...Said Senator Cummins, "I am opposed to the recall for judges," but "my proposition is that if Arizona after her admission to the Union may lawfully establish a constitution which she presents to us for her admission to the Union...
...Not so, came the White House mandate...
...43 to 26...
...While the resolution, without the Nelson amendment finally passed the Senate 53 to 18—an overwhelming majority—it was nevertheless over the Nelson amendment that the most significant vote was taken...
...The machine-made, undemocratic, unrepublican, big-business-favoring constitution of New Mexico...
...The Senate refused to exercise its power so as to oppress a people striving for complete self-government...
...Shall we try to prevent them from doing a perfectly lawful thing, merely because we do not approve of it...
...Gronna and Perkins...
...We want no freaks in this household of states...
...Shall we, whether we do or do not believe the recall of judges a wise measure, attempt to force our views and policies and beliefs upon a territory that has already been deemed qualified for full statehood by Congress and the President...
...It was made for the purpose of vesting the supreme power in state government in the hands of the people...
...Rayner and Sutherland...
...So also did the System Senators and Congressmen...
...Gore and McLean...
...We cannot prevent you from changing your constitution—even to include the recall of judges—AFTER you become a state...
...Tillman and Lodge...
...Constitutions were formed and submitted to the voters...
...Poindexter Watsan Chamberlain Johnston, Ala...
...du Pont and Kern...
...I would not permit the child to come into the household with a demand that it should be governed by rules other than those that had been tried out and found sufficient...
...If these people are given another opportunity they may actually vote again in favor of the recall of judges...
...All that new stood between these territories and complete statehood was the ratification of their constitutions by Congress, and their approval by President Taft...
...Simmons Bailey Culberson Martine, N. J. Smith, Md...
...Gallinger and Davis...
...but we do believe it would be a moral wrong if we allowed our likes or dislikes to thwart your will...
...Over this amendment waged most of the debate...
Vol. 3 • August 1911 • No. 33
