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NOTE: You may notice textual errors throughout this document, many of which have been left intact from the original text. Should you want to investigate the integrity of the original report, please refer to the original two printed volumes containing the official report of the proceedings and debates.

Roll call showed a quorum present.

Prayer was offered by delegate Farr, of Weber.

Journal of the forty-first day's session was read and approved.

The following petitions were presented asking that the question of woman suffrage be submitted as a separate article to a vote of the people:

File No. 294, signed by S. A. Kenner and 121 others, from Salt Lake.

File No. 295, signed by Thos. Durham and 52 others from Parowan, by Heybourne, of Iron.

File No. 296, signed by W. H. Hatch and 5 others, by Allen. of Piute.

File No. 297, signed by Reuben Parkes and 65 others, from Logan, by Roberts, of Davis.

Ordered filed.

The following petitions were presented asking that an equal suffrage clause be placed in the Constitution:
{994}
File No. 298, signed by Martin Woolf and 168 others, from Millville, by Hart, of Cache.

File No. 299, signed by W. C. Christensen and 61 others from Salem, by Engberg, of Utah, by request.

File No. 300, signed by W. H. Gardner and 202 others, from Salem, by Engberg, of Utah, by request.

File No. 301, signed by Laura J. Taylor and 66 others, from Fremont, by Robison, of Wayne.

File No. 302, signed by Francis H. Smyth and 543 others, from Fountain Green, by Jolley of Sanpete.

File No. 303, signed by Elizabeth Yates and 148 others, from Scipio, by Thompson, of Millard.

File No. 304, signed by Jacob S. Boreman and 260 others from Ogden, by Chidester, of Garfield.

File No. 305, containing 727 names from Salt Lake County; 196 names from Emery County; 655

names from Salt Lake City; 535 names from Utah County; 32 names from Washington County; 33 names from Pleasant View, by Chidester, of Garfield.

Ordered filed.

Mr. Squires, of Salt Lake, presented file No. 306, signed by B. B. Quinn and 12 others, from Bingham, opposed to woman's suffrage in any form.

Ordered filed.

Mr. Miller, of Sevier, presented file No. 307, signed by A. C. Todd and 56 others, from Utah County, and file No. 308, signed by Clarissa A. Hoyt and 103 others, from Kane County, favoring the submission of the question of prohibition as a separate article to a vote of the people.
Referred to committee on schedule, future amendments and miscellaneous.

Special orders.

The PRESIDENT. This brings us to the question of the reconsideration of the vote on the proposed thirty-sixth section.

Mr. SNOW. Mr. President, I move you the t it be the sense of this Convention that Mr. Varian now close the debate.

The motion was agreed to.

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. President, were it not that this question has been much misrepresented and is, I apprehend, much misunderstood or apparently so, I would not undertake to consume the time of this Convention further in this discussion. It will be remembered, however, that while through the medium of the public press as well as by speakers upon this floor the proposition which I affirm here has been attacked, we have heard comparatively little in support of the proposition. It was hurried through two or three days ago, because it was sought to complicate it with other matters, which could but serve to cloud and prejudice the consideration of this question. In accordance with fairness and justice, however, an opportunity for full and fair discussion has been given, attended by the right to recall the action of the Convention in adopting the section under discussion, if the majority of the members shall be so advised, and in the beginning, before I shall forget it, I desire to call the attention of every member on this floor, who is favorable to this section and to its incorporation in the organic law, to the fact that there is no necessity for such a one to vote for a reconsideration, which, if the majority of the Convention shall determine, would only result in the prolonging of the debate the possible, opening up of the question to other amendments and the taking of another vote. Fairness and justice have been complied with when the opportunity .is afforded the members of the Convention to express their views and to vote aye or no upon the reconsideration. If there shall be a majority of this Convention voting to reconsider this vote we may take it, I apprehend, that it means that this section is to be stricken out of the instrument and that there will be no necessity to further prolong the matter. In other words we may settle it now by this {995} vote which shall be taken, when I shall have

concluded.

There has been, I regret to say, injected into the consideration of the subject a question assumed to be of a partisan character. I deprecate the fact that my friends on the other side seem to find it necessary to take up a supposed challenge by my party associates and to treat the question from that standpoint, as a partisan one. On Saturday my distinguished and eloquent friend from Davis County directed the attention of the Convention to the announcement made in one of the papers of the city, which he declared to be a republican organ and assumed that its announcements and declarations were all sufficient to declare and affirm articles of republican party creed. I deny both propositions. I deny that this section in any degree, directly or indirectly, is antagonistic to any line or principle of republican party faith. I deny the right of any paper or any party caucus on this floor to determine what is and what is not a tenet of my party faith. I would remind my friend that he was too hasty in assuming, because of that declaration which he read here Saturday, that the republican party was behind that declaration. He was mistaken when he assumed that the paper was a party organ, because it has and does disclaim that whenever occasion shall serve.

My party principles are the result of some thirty years' reflection and study. They are not taken from the declarations of caucuses nor of interested newspapers; they go further and deeper. They begin with the great principles which were announced decades and decades ago. I undertake to say that there is no principle in this section involving this question of bounties at all, but if there were, I would say to my friends who are insistent about republican doctrine and are so fearful that perchance in this Constitutional Convention the republican party shall make a mistake concerning its principles, that the bounty principle never was a fundamental cardinal doctrine of republican faith. It is but an incident to the great underlying doctrine of protection. The system of bounties did not begin with the republican party. That was commenced and engrafted upon the statute books of the United States, in the very second law passed by the first Congress in 1789, and it was continued through the years for forty or fifty years by special act and by general law. In those days it was deemed not a question of party creed, but a question of American protection
and development. But, sir, if my friends may deem that at this date it has become so engrafted in the republican faith that it is no longer an incident, but of the very substance, I want to call their attention to the fact that they are overturning the declaration of the party in its national council which may be and should be higher than the declaration of any newspaper writer. In 1880 the republican party in national convention assembled made this declaration: “No further grants of the public domain should be made to any railway or other corporation. Further subsidies to private persons or corporations must cease “ And on that platform Mr. Garfield was elected to the presidential office. To my knowledge it has never been changed or modified. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean to say that that prohibits the exercise of a wise legislative discretion in the distribution of public moneys for the encouragement and protection of the people's productions. I mean to say that it serves to mark the distinction between all that which has clouded the discussion of this question and the sound argument which is in support of a very different and distinct proposition. They are dealing now with subsidies, pure and simple. We are dealing with a question of loaning the credit of the State or any of its subdivisions for the advantage and the building up of enterprises, {996} not public in their character. Now, the question underlying this matter, sir, has agitated and disturbed the people of the American commonwealths for the last thirty years. Amidst suffering, disaster, and peril, they have come up

out of the heresy of former times, independent of party affiliations, and with a unanimity that is marked to a degree, they are incorporating the prohibition in their organic law. Every state that has been admitted into this Union since 1876, commencing with Colorado, has engrafted upon its organic law just this provision. Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Washington and California, all of them in almost the very language, have placed irrevocably on their organic statutes this prohibition that we seek to engraft here.

It was suggested, sir, during this discussion, possibly in the best of taste, possibly not, that I stand here emphasizing and affirming my honest convictions on a great public question, was not representing my people, that I was possibly a delegate at large, and the inference no doubt that I was not representing the people of this community. I want to say to you, gentlemen, that I know that I am a little closer down to the rank and file of this community than some others that I wot of. I am not mistaking the clamor and call of interest boomers and speculators for the voice of the people. It is not the voice of the business men as a whole, of the property owners and taxpayers as a whole, of the great rank and file of the community, who live and maintain their little homes and pursue their small avocations and businesses, that you hear here. If I might be permitted to advise, I would suggest we get our ears a little lower down, a little closer to the ground, if we shall desire to understand and appreciate what the people really want. It is said here, “Why are you afraid to trust the people? This is a country of majority rule, and when the
majority, after consideration, shall have announced its decision, it is the duty of all good citizens to bow in submission.” Quite true. It is a general rule, and like all such, it has its exceptions. One exception is_a very pronounced and marked exception_that no majority, however powerful and strong in wealth or numbers, may deprive or despoil a fellow citizen in the minority of his property. The application of this principle has not been made in many instances during the session of this Convention. There have been many, or at least a number of propositions, which some of us thought might well have been left to the decision of the people, expressly to consider the questions which, in the opinion of the majority on this floor, have not been permitted to prevail, but the truth is that the people distrust themselves, What is the object of a constitution? It is not alone to declare what everybody knows to be self-evident facts concerning the rights to liberty, life, and property: It is also to include prohibition against future mistakes and wrongs that may be made and committed by the people. They distrust the temptations of the future. They distrust the power of the majority, because that power sometimes is but typical of tyranny. Professor Brice, in speaking of this tyranny of the majority, in his work on American commonwealths, says: “A majority is tyrannical when it decides without hearing, and when it enforces men to contribute money to objects which they disapprove, and which the common interest does not require.”

It has been said here, “people have a right to do what they will with their own.” I deny it, in its application to the government of the people. It is an utter misapplication of a principle which may properly be applied to the relations of the citizen in private life and in matters which concern only himself in his business, and in that sense in the relations {997} he occupies towards his fellows.
But in its application to a governmental question, I deny it. It is no doctrine of republican faith. It is no doctrine of democratic faith. It is no doctrine of any creed or party, except that of the tyrant. Why is it, my friends, that with a unanimity that has as yet been unbroken, during the past thirty

years, the people of every state have put with emphasis in their organic law this prohibition, against this exercise by the majority in the future, of this alleged right to dispose of the public credit and the public funds? It is because of the wisdom born of the bitter, the blighting experience of the past. I need not go back to the history of the Pacific railroads. I quite agree that that illustration is not particularly applicable nor illustrative of the matter in hand. The Pacific railroads were builded because of a great public necessity, probably they would have been build& by the moneys of the government altogether, if the treasury of the United States had not at the time been bankrupt. It was in great part for the time wholly a war measure and I do not cite or illustrate my position by any such argument as that. But there are states to which we may turn our attention. There are commonwealths, the history of which is calculated to make us hesitate long, ponder well and deeply over the gravity of the situation. Kansas lost herself, her people lost themselves in the wild vortex of speculation. They were precipitated into a frenzied financial debauch, and her people were persuaded to vote the revenues and resources of the state for future years in countless thousands of dollars in the aid of great public enterprises and undertakings. And to-day the history of that state has been that they are disappointed in their hopes, failing in their aspirations day by day, and week by week and year by year the people of that tax burdened state have been going down into poverty, if not into want, and by hundreds the farmers of that rich state have been abandoning their farms, taking their wagons and their teams, their families and their little ones, with such household effects as they might have been enabled to save from the tax gatherer and the sheriff, and they have departed from the soil of Kansas forever, leaving behind them this miserable record of misappropriation and misrule. There is one county in Kansas to-day where for years the county commissioners have been, as soon as they were elected, taken to the county jail under the mandate of the Federal court, because they could not_they did not dare, defiance of the sentiment of their neighbors and of their county to make a tax levy for the payment of a bonded indebtedness or the interest thereon, which the people were convinced had been incurred in wickedness and fraud, and so they go and their places are taken up by others, honest, brave citizens of the county, content to serve the people by refusing to do what technically the law requires they should do, but which the public sentiment of their people forbids them to do, and so they serve them within the walls of the county jail, until their terms have expired, when new men, just as patriotic, just as self-sacrificing, step forward and by election, take their places.

I am informed by my friend from Juab County that the county of Douglas, which includes the city of Lawrence, has a bonded indebtedness of a million and eight hundred thousand dollars. Over in Missouri, hi some localities a similar state of affairs exists. In 1889, the county commissioners of Sedalia, I think it is, were sentenced for contempt to imprisonment by the judgment of the circuit court of the United States for similar reasons. I was reading that decision in the Federal Reporter on yesterday. My attention had been refreshed and redirected to the subject by a dispatch that appeared in one of the {998} papers during the week, indicating that this has been still going on and but the other day their successors were again committed because of their refusal in the premises. Does not this indicate that it is necessary to protect the people against this? How is it that these bonds are floated? How is it that the people are pursuaded to lend their funds to accomplish such a purpose as that? Let me tell you. In the first place, if it is a railroad enterprise_and permit me to say that a substantial, thorough, great railroad enterprise, with substance and skill and power behind it, never depends upon the granting of aid by counties

and municipalities in the way of bonds. Second, if it is projecting a line through an unexplored and new territory, first, before anybody knows anything about it, it puts its experts, its engineers, in the field, puts its accountants and actuaries at work, undertakes to gather the wisdom of all the surrounding country. They want to know the sources of supply. They want to know the population and the possibility of population, they want to know the productive abilities of the country. They want to know what exists between the proposed terminal points, and it has become practically an exact science, if anything of that kind can become exact, and it is determined not by the question as to whether they can secure a few million of bonds from this county, or two hundred thousand from the other county, but whether, as a business proposition, it will pay_pay its fixed charges, pay its operating expenses, pay interest on its bonded or other indebtedness, and pay a dividend on its common and preferred stock. If any of the elements are wanting, capital stays its hand.

But with the railway promoter and speculator, with the boomer, and the highflyer, the man who has no capital but his energy and skill, and his wit and his brain, the projection is a very different proposition. He goes into the market and he ascertains that between two localities_as for instance, between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, the people at either terminal point are of the opinion that a railroad would be a great public benefit, would be an enterprise that would redound to the private and public advantage of the citizens and the cities in which they reside. He does not stop to realize that in this era of competition that has all been carefully considered for years, that the great substantial railroad corporations with money behind them have looked into that carefully from a business standpoint, figured it down exactly. They have not lost sight of any outlying territory that might be made advantageous to their roads or their system. He does not look at that. He does not care. He goes before a legislature of Utah or California, and he gets an interested and zealous lobby behind him_men perhaps who are loaded down with real estate or are hanging on by their eyelids from year to year, hoping almost against hope that the good old boom days will come again and they will be enabled to sell to somebody else something for three or four times its worth, and thus get out; men who also are interested in the hurry and skurry, the temporary advantage that always occurs while the building of any great undertaking is going on; all perfectly honest it may be, yet all interested people, not the people who expect or who may, I should say, be expected to live here and their children after them, not the solid substantial people who are rooted to the soil, and who help to make up the state. These gather about the lobby of the legislature. The matter is boomed and presented in glowing colors to the people and the people are excited. There is a pleasant and plausible side. Everybody is of the opinion what a great and glorious thing it will be if we can only induce this railroad enterprise to launch. Why, it will increase the value of my {999} property, sir, to such an extent that I can make all improvements or I can sell it and do this, that and the other with the money. I can get out of debt. They figure it down, just how much it is going to pay. Any man can sit down in a private office, particularly if he does not know anything about railroading, and the less he knows about it the more glowing his figures will be. He can just figure out how much a mile it is going to pay and within what period of time, how much population is going to come in the intervening country, how many mines are to be developed, and how much each of those mines is going to produce a week, how much freight the road is going to get from it, how much that ore is going to carry per ton, how it can all be figured out and portrayed up to the people, and it goes with a hurrah. So the legislature authorizes the city or the county to lend its aid on a vote of the people to issue bonds to this

undertaking. And it may be before a single rail is laid, before a tie is carved from the virgin wood and laid upon the ground, hundreds of thousands of dollars may have been voted by the people.

In times of excitement, many people are not always right. They are right in the long run, but they are not always right every minute and every day at every election. My friend will agree with me there. He doubtless thinks they were not right last fall in the United States, as I think they were not right four years ago upon a similar occasion. What then? The bonds are on the market, they are put in the money markets of the world, they have passed into innocent hands, they have got to be paid, whether the railroad goes or not. And if the railroad shall go, what then? Railroad enterprises, like other business enterprises_perhaps more so_are subject to disaster, more sensitive, perhaps, than any enterprise that now occurs to me; sensitive to the changes of the business world, changes in the money market; they go down sooner than other enterprises, and if in the cases I suggest, the railroad is not able to pay its fixed charges, by and by it is not able to pay its operating expenses, pretty soon it goes into the hands of a receiver, and the receiver's certificates take precedence of all other claims against it, and the people and those who come after them, and their property, are called upon as an honest people to pay in accordance with the very letter of the contract that they have entered into. Why, sir, over one hundred and sixty railroads in these United States to-day have gone into the hands of receivers, within the last year and a half; over one-fourth of the mileage representing more than thirty thousand miles, over one-fourth of the capitalization, representing more than two billions five hundred millions, are insolvent, and are being operated to-day at a loss, through the medium of the courts; and behind many of them in many states are the bonds and the contracts of the impoverished people whose farms and whose properties are burdened for all time with this tax-eating, debt devouring lien. As a make-weight, it was suggested by some one here in the argument that in this Territory or State there will be needed reservoirs or canals. What of it? This prohibition that we seek to engraft here in this Constitution is not designed to prevent the State, if the irrigation of the country, if the procuring and conservation of the waters of the mountains, in reservoirs and receptacles for future use, and canals for distribution, shall be determined to be a public purpose, there is nothing here to prevent the State with its finances and its power from taking charge of such enterprises, but it is to the private corporations, it is to the private individual that I would direct this prohibition. As against him, I would prohibit the State from loaning its aid and its {1000} credit. Now, as was suggested to me by an esteemed friend privately, would this prohibition interfere with a city like Salt Lake, for instance, disposing of its property? It was suggested, supposing a railroad were coming in here from the California coast and it sought terminal facilities, and the city of Salt Lake had a piece of ground, appropriate and fitting for the purpose, and the will of the people, through the city council, was to get a bonus and give it to the corporation, “why,” he says, “would not this interfere with it?” I said, “No, it would not.” There are other rules of law that would determine that question about which I and not now concerned.

I simply say, however, to my friends, that this prohibition would not reach a case like that. That bridge can be crossed by the good people of Salt Lake City and by its common council under the direction of its courts, when it shall be necessary to pass it. Now, what is the object of a state government? Is it simply an accumulation of property? Is it simply that men may get rich_some men? Or is it the building up, the improving, the widening, the enlarging of the race of men who stand beneath it and support it? Are you willing to reach down into the future and pilfer from the

pockets of prosperity, the thrift and industry of that generation? Are you willing to lay a lien upon the property of those who are to come after you? I say you have no right to do it. If you may give the moneys that shall be wrested from the people through taxation, which are in hand and not needed for the present necessities of the government, I say you cannot go down into the future and lay the property of the succeeding generations subject to such a burden as this section seeks to prohibit. It is better, Mr. President, that the people make haste slowly. It is better that they grow not with a too rapid growth. There are evils attendant upon this sort of financial mislegislation that cannot be calculated. You may have a city of lofty palaces and piles, grand and great public buildings, but it may be so burdened with taxes and debt that all but the taxeater flies from its precincts, and I want to warn my friends from Salt Lake County on this floor to-day that they must not overlook the situation of this county and this city particularly. Look down through the valley there and see the numberless little homes that week by week, month by month, have been located outside of the city limits. They represent a small army of mechanics and working men and clerks. Men who have small incomes and who are unable to own their homes within this city to-day. It has now reached a point that a man must be wealthy indeed who can afford to own a home in Salt Lake City of any sort of value. The tax levy is to the very topmost notch. I do not mean the rate of tax, because that is not the test by which this matter should be tested. It is the valuation of the property. The assessed valuations of this city are now so high that men cannot afford to pay them, and if you want to see the signs of the times and if you have wisdom to profit by them, look at your daily papers. Look how the columns are filled with sales under mortgages and trust deeds. Look at the list of tax delinquents, each year, hear the complaint from all cities and from every quarter, all showing the utter impossibility of carrying these burdens much longer. Why, but the other day on Main Street, in a locality that you all will recognize, right next to that Wasatch building, right in the business center, property was sold under a mortgage for sixty-nine thousand dollars and another money loaner that had a mortgage of twenty thousand dollars on it let it go and lost his money because he could not afford to take the risk, and the man who bought it, well known in financial circles here, told me that he would sell it any day for less {1001} than the assessed valuation put upon the property year by year by the assessor.

Mr. JAMES. Mr. Varian, where do you attribute the original cause of this trouble_in national legislation or local legislation?

Mr. VARIAN. I attribute it principally to local legislation. I attribute it to the recklessness of expenditures, and the utter recklessness of going into debt and the disregard of debt. Why, sir, people seem to have an idea, to hear them talk, that this going into debt by a community amounts to nothing. They seem to treat the subject as if it was one to be disposed of by the simple going into debt, without any regard for the final culmination of the transaction which involves the payment of the debt. I believe (although I do not remember figures very well) that the indebtedness of this city is something like that, three and a half million dollars. Fifty thousand people with an assessed valuation of about forty-four millions or forty-six perhaps, with a State with all its consequent and attendant burdens of taxation, coming now in the near future, what is this people to do? Are we going to leave it open to the lobbyist and the speculator to disturb and misdirect the honest intent and will of the people, upon what occasion shall serve and in moments of mental collapse, as it were_darkness_let the people be led into this devious and

uncertain way? Let us deal with this question, Mr. President and gentlemen of the Convention, from the standpoint of the State. We are not on the ground looking up from the standpoint of the person or the individual. We are on the higher plane looking down. It is from the standpoint of the sovereign that I would dispose of this question. I would not be diverted by the wants or desires of this locality or that, of this citizen or you, in my endeavor to so construct this organic law that it shall perpetuate forever the liberties and the freedom of this people. It is a solemn duty, sir, that we have, to guard the public revenue and the public property from spoliation. We may not farm it out through future generations to be disposed of for other than the necessary purposes of the government. You have it in your power to put into this organic law a statement which shall be in accord with the prevailing public and financial interests everywhere, that no public body, neither State nor county, city nor township, nor district, shall ever burden the people's property, shall ever encumber the people's revenues, with an indebtedness designed to aid other than public institutions. In that golden age of liberty and law when Pericles had made Greece immortal he appealed to the genius of Phidias to crown the acropolis with a symbol of the power and glory of the Greeks. A colossal statue of Minerva, the protecting goddess of armies, arts, and industry, was erected as typical of the power and greatness of Athens, as a symbol of law and liberty which challenged the admiration and awe of the people and inspired the Athenian youth with patriotism. Let us here, oh delegates, erect in this citadel of our liberties a symbolic statue of protection and power, protection against wrong, power to do right, much more enduring than hewn granite and chiseled marble, which shall serve to inspire our people with a regard for the true principles of government for all coming time. [Applause.]

Mr. GOODWIN. May I ask the gentleman a question?

Mr. VARIAN. If I can answer it, I will.

Mr. GOODWIN. I wanted to ask if the gentleman ever heard of any man in Kansas abandoning his home because of high taxes, or if the truth is not that the homes abandoned are those on the arid belt in the western part of the state where by actual trial it has been found there is not moisture enough in {1002} the soil for a farmer to raise food enough for his family and his stock?

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. President, I think that that has been one of a combination of circumstances, but as I understand it, the other principle or proposition was also involved that Kansas was a debt-ridden state.

Mr. GOODWIN. I would like to ask another question. If the assessed valuation of Kansas to-day is not as much more for instance, than Arkansas, as all the improvements ever paid for by the state of Kansas amount to?

Mr. VARIAN. I think so, Mr. President.

Mr. GOODWIN. Let me ask one more question.

Mr. VARIAN. I want to state the answer. It is because of this debt that burdens on Kansas and

the counties like here in Salt Lake City, the assessed valuations are raised and kept up and they are not at all indicative of the prosperity of its people.

Mr. GOODWIN. One more question, if I can have the privilege. Is it not true that the Union Pacific and Rio Grande have made surveys of all the routes between here and Los Angeles, that they have sought by every means possible to obtain money to build those roads, and that they have been forestalled by the Southern Pacific Railroad in just such arguments as we have heard here to-day?

Mr. VARIAN. No, I do not think that that is true, in its full sense.

Mr. GOODWIN. That is true.

Mr. VARIAN. I am informed by the railroad-_

Mr. JAMES. Mr. President, I wanted to ask Mr. Varian a question. You made the statement a little while ago that we were in debt about three and a half millions in this city. I think it is approximately correct_three millions three hundred thousand I think is about the indebtedness. Now, I want to ask you, Mr. Varian, had this amendment that you have proposed here been on the statute books as a law at the time that indebtedness was created, would it have saved any part of that indebtedness having been created?

Mr. VARIAN. Oh, no; this indebtedness is for supposed public purposes, as I understand it.

Mr. JAMES. That is what I supposed.

Mr. VARIAN. Except the copper plant.

The roll was then called on the motion to reconsider with the following result:

AYES_42.
Adams
Allen
Anderson
Bowdle
Brandley
Button
Cannon
Chidester
Christiansen
Clark
Crane
Driver
Eichnor
Emery

NOES_53.
Barnes
Boyer
Buys
Call
Coray
Corfman
Creer
Cunningham
Engberg
Evans, Weber
Evans, Utah
Farr
Francis
Hammond
Mackintosh

ABSENT_11.
Cushing        
Eldredge        
Gibbs            
Kerr            
Lewis            

Mr. DRIVER. Mr. President, I have been absent during the whole of the time of this discussion and I could not vote on the thing intelligently and for that reason I would like to be excused from voting either way.

Mr. JAMES. I object.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I wish to state that I voted no before and I am converted and I vote no now.

Mr. EVANS ( Weber). Mr. President, I was informed over the telephone that Mr. Lewis was paired with Mr. Bowdle, and he voted aye. I would like to ask the gentleman if that is true?

Mr. BOWDLE. Mr. President, I am not paired with Mr. Lewis. Mr. Strevell heard the agreement, that if it came to a vote that day I was paired with Mr. Lewis, but I emphatically made the stipulation that if it did not come to a vote that day I would not be bound by it.

Mr. EVANS (Weber). Mr. Lewis is sick.

The PRESIDENT. Gentlemen, the motion is lost. There are 53 noes to 42 ayes. [Applause.]

Mr. L. LARSEN. Mr. President, I wish to offer an amendment:

Provided, that it shall not be construed so as to prohibit the Legislature from granting bounties or giving aid to private or corporate enterprises.

Mr. L. LARSEN. Now, Mr. President, if it is true, as has been claimed, that it does not allude to bounties, why I would like to have it so stipulated in that article so that there will be no misunderstanding that our Legislature shall not have the power to put interpretations of the word; it says-_

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. President, I desire to suggest a point of order. This section has now twice, by vote of this Convention, been adopted as it stands. The time to have amended it was while it was pending for consideration. If the gentleman desires to incorporate the principle embodied in that amendment in this Constitution, I presume he can frame a separate section and offer that, but he cannot, I submit, now amend this section which stands by the judgment of the Convention in the language in which it was passed.

Mr. KIMBALL (Weber). Mr. President, before you decide that motion, I would like to ask the president of this Convention if that whole bill is not before this house at the present time. It is subject to amendment in any section of it from section 1 to section 36. It is subject to amendment until the final vote is taken.

Mr. VARIAN. I call the gentleman to order, but if he desires to be heard I want to be heard. I am not making the point that this article cannot be amended, but I say that it is a common rule of parliamentary law, and it is so laid down in the books, that when a matter is under consideration to go into an article you must amend it as you desire and the time to amend it was when it was before the house. Now, I admit that he may submit a separate section, not to amend this section. I {1004} do not desire to go into that entire discussion again about this section.

Mr. HOWARD. Mr. President, I wish to offer an amendment to section 8, to strike out the first four lines of section 8, down to the word “Legislature” and including the word “Legislature,” and insert the following:

No person shall, while holding any office under the United States government, hold any office under the State government of Utah, and no person holding any public office of trust under authority of the State of Utah shall be a member of the Legislature.

Mr. BUTTON. Mr. President, I arise to a point of order. This very same amendment was offered the other day in the Convention and voted down.

The PRESIDENT. I think the point of order is well taken.

The secretary will call the roll on the passage of the legislative article.

Mr. L. LARSEN. Is the roll call on the whole article?

The PRESIDENT, Yes, sir.

Mr. L. LARSEN. Then, I would propose this as a separate section, to add it to the article.

Mr. KIMBALL (Weber). Mr. President, I suggest that the secretary having started to call the roll no motions are proper now.

The PRESIDENT. That is correct. The point of order is well taken.

The roll was then called with the following result:

AYES_72.

NOES_22.
Allen
Bowdle
Brandley
Button
Chidester
Clark
Crane
Goodwin
Green
Haynes
Hill
James
Jolley
Larsen, L.
Lund Morris
Peterson, Grand

ABSENT_12.
Cushing
Eldredge
Gibbs
Kerr
Lewis
Low, Cache
Maughan
Miller
Nebeker
Shurtliff
Spencer
Thatcher.

Mr. BOWDLE. Mr. President, I vote aye on all of the sections but this last one.

Mr. BRANDLEY. Mr. President, I will {1005} vote aye on all of the sections except the last one.

Mr. EVANS (Weber). I arise to a point of order. Gentlemen cannot divide their votes in that way. The gentlemen must either vote aye or no.

The PRESIDENT. They cannot divide their vote in the matter as I understand it. They can make their explanation.

Mr. CANNON. Mr. President, I believe the Convention has allowed heretofore an explanation of each man's vote.

The PRESIDENT. That is correct.

Mr. CANNON. At the same time, Mr. President, I believe it is a waste of time. The fact that those men who did not like the section voted against it placed them on record. So far as I am concerned, when I come to the article, I can vote for the article, because my vote is against this section on record anyway.

Mr. BUTTON. Mr. President, I am against the next to the last section more than I am to the last one. I will vote on all but those two sections.

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. President, I submit that the gentlemen ought to be able to understand this. They have either got to vote aye or no or not vote at all, with the privilege of making an

explanation of their vote when the roll is called. We could not keep a record in any other way.

Mr. BUTTON. If I have got to vote aye or no, or not vote at all, I vote no.

Mr. ADAMS. Mr. President, I vote aye on this, because I am in favor of that section of Mr. Varian's, although I voted for the reconsideration.

Mr. EICHNOR. Mr. President, I vote aye and I favor the general principle of Mr. Varian's amendment, but I do discountenance the manner in which it was accomplished.

Mr. JAMES. Mr. President, this legislative act as it stands at the present time has interfered with the committee on incorporations and usurped their rights, taken away from them that that was farmed out to them, and that that they had performed, and I vote no.

Mr. LAMBERT. Mr. President, I vote aye, but want my protest against the last two sections.

Mr. L. LARSEN. Mr. President, I am not in favor of the last section, and I must be compelled to vote no.

Mr. SQUIRES. Mr. President, I am like my friend Mr. Eichnor. I always bow to the will of the majority. I vote aye.

Mr. STREVELL. Mr. President, I would like to say that I voted in favor of the reconsideration and against this section of Mr. Varian's because I believed it went too far, but I will vote aye on the article.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. President, I vote aye, but I am opposed to the last section.

Mr. MAESER. Please vote me aye.

Mr. SQUIRES. Mr. President, I object, the absentees have been once called.

The PRESIDENT. The objection is well taken.

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. President, I think he may vote any time before it is announced.

Mr. EVANS (Utah). I ask for unanimous consent that Mr. Maeser be recorded on this vote.

Mr. EICHNOR. I object, with all due respect to Mr. Maeser. When they use the whip lash here I am going to use it myself.

Mr. VARIAN. I would like to ask what whip lash?

Mr. IVINS. Mr. President, I insist that any member has the right to have his vote recorded before the result is announced.

Mr. IVINS. It does not need unanimous consent. The result has not been announced.

The PRESIDENT. The gentleman's vote can be recorded.
{1006 - EXECUTIVE}
Mr. SQUIRES. Mr. President, there is a rule here that provides that the roll of absentees shall only be called once.

Mr. IVINS. Mr. President, I arise to a point of order. The gentleman is discussing a question that has been decided upon.

The PRESIDENT. The article is passed by 70 to 23 without recording Mr. Maeser, and with recording him 71 to 23.

The Convention then took a recess until 2 o'clock p. m.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

Mr. Anderson moved to amend standing rule 11 by adding the following words after the word “Convention,” in the fourth line:

“And no member shall speak longer than fifteen minutes on any question.”

Mr. Anderson moved to amend standing rule 20, by striking out, after the word “time,” in the seventh line, the following, “but any member may yield his time or any part thereof to another.”

Mr. BOWDLE. Mr. President, I arise to a point of order. We are not on that order of business, as I understand it.

The PRESIDENT. Motions and resolutions are in order.

Mr. IVINS. Mr. President, under the rule this goes to the committee on rules without any debate.

The PRESIDENT. The point is well taken.

Mr. KIMBALL (Weber). Mr. President, I move we now resolve ourselves into committee of the whole.

The motion was agreed to and the Convention then resolved itself into committee of the whole with Mr. Evans, of Weber, in the chair.

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, the committee of the whole is now considering section 12 of the

article on executive. There are two amendments pending to section 12.

Mr. EICHNOR. Mr. Chairman, the substitute offered by Mr. Low, of Cache, was not introduced. My substitute is the only substitute at present before the committee.

The substitute offered by Mr. Eichnor was read.

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. Chairman, I trust that substitute will not prevail. I do not know whether all of the members now present were present when it was discussed the other day, but I simply call attention to the fact that the section as presented by the committee is quite complete and covers the whole ground of the new jurisdiction granted to this new tribunal in the government. It is hardly worth while to go over the ground again, as we went over it the other day.

Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. Chairman, I hope that this amendment will prevail. I think that it is a good one. I do not think that the supreme judges should be allowed to act as a board of pardons, as I think the very fact of their passing upon a case would tend to bias their minds, and I do not think that they should act as a board of pardons. Therefore I support the amendment of Mr. Eichnor.

Mr. EICHNOR. Mr. Chairman, I do not desire to speak very long on this substitute that I proposed. My friend Mr. Varian says he hopes it won't prevail. I hope it will. And for the reason as stated the other day_quite a number may not have been present. It was also stated by Mr. Anderson of Beaver that the judges of the supreme court should not sit on the pardoning board. A number of cases are appealed from the lower courts to the supreme court and they either affirm the decision or reverse it. If they reverse it, there is generally very little occasion for a pardon. Sometimes there may be a conviction in the lower court, and when they affirm that decision when the matter is brought before them, they would say, “Well, we have passed on this.”
You may say that they will only pass on questions of law. At the same time {1007} it is human nature for a man not to reverse himself. This gives the governor full power to pardon in cases of misdemeanor. They need not go to a pardoning board. I think it is a very unwise provision in a constitution or in any statute that requires a man that is convicted of a misdemeanor to go before a pardoning board. The maximum punishment for a misdemeanor in this Territory is imprisonment 180 days, or a fine of $180. That is the maximum penalty that can be inflicted for committing a misdemeanor. In that case the governor ought not to be hampered with a pardoning board. When a man is convicted of a felony, it is just and proper that a pardoning board should pass upon it. I have for the pardoning board the secretary of state, the attorney general, and the state auditor. That idea is not original with me. It is adopted in a number of states. Montana has it. In that case the governor pardons the offender on the recommendation of the board of pardons, and why the supreme court or the justices of the supreme court should constitute the pardoning power I fail to see. Only two states, Nevada and Florida, or possibly one of the Dakotas, have that board. Quite a number of the states place the power absolutely in the governor. The great state of New York has that pardoning board. Some states have pardoning boards, but as a general rule they are made up of the state officers or private citizens, and this idea that every man on the pardoning board must be a lawyer is an incorrect one. I believe that a pardoning board should not weigh every little technicality but should view the case as a whole and see whether the man is

entitled to a pardon or not, and if they think in their judgment that he is entitled to a pardon, after the case has been passed upon by the courts, why pardon him.

Mr. HAMMOND. Have you provided for the salaries of this pardoning board?

Mr. EICHNOR. They get no salaries. They get their salaries as State officers. They can meet once a month or less.

Mr. IVINS. Mr. Chairman, if there is to be a board of pardons at all, it seems to me that section 12, as reported from the committee on executive, is better adapted to the necessities of the case than will be the amendment offered by the gentleman from Salt Lake. It is a well known fact that under existing conditions the pardoning power is vested in the governor. It is also a recognized fact that a pardon is rarely granted by the governor until after he shall have consulted with the district judge, or the supreme court judge, if the case had been tried in a supreme court, before which the case was tried, and has the approval of those officers, and the very reason which is urged by the gentleman from Salt Lake why the justices of the supreme court should not be members of this board of pardons, is the very reason which in my mind makes it necessary that they should be. They are men well versed in law. They are men expected to be familiar to a great extent with these cases that have passed through the courts, and who will be better able to judge in regard to the propriety of granting a pardon to a criminal than those men who would be thoroughly acquainted with all the facts. I hope the section will remain just as it is, and that the amendment will not be adopted.

Mr. EICHNOR. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Mr. Ivins a question. If section 12 is adopted as it stands, would it not be a virtual abolishment of the pardoning power in this State?

Mr. IVINS. It would be a virtual abolishment of the right of the governor to pardon without the sanction of a board, and that is just what we are figuring for. We do not propose to vest the entire power in the governor of the State. He must have the approval of a board of pardons, which would {1008 - LEGISLATIVE} scrutinize what he has done. That is what we want.

Mr. KIMBALL( Weber). Mr. Chairman, I am in favor of the proposition to vest the pardoning power in a board rather than in the governor, I have had some little experience in that thing myself, and I know that it is easier to get around one man than it is to get around a dozen men. I have been through that mill myself, and I think for that reason we ought to support this propositlon to vest it in the pardoning board.

Mr. THURMAN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to offer a substitute for both of these. (Reads.)

Until otherwise provided by law the governor shall have power to remit fines and forfeitures, commute punishments, and grant pardons for all offenses against the State.

may be disposed of. It seems to me that this is entirely too experimental for this body to undertake to legislate upon. For that reason, I favor leaving it to the Legislature.

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. Chairman, taking the propositions in their order, I will suggest, in speaking to the substitute offered by my friend from Utah County, that there is no reason why we should not leave it to the Legislature if we do not desire to change the system. If we desire to change the system, if the experience of other states and if the experience of this Territory within the last ten years has not been sufficient to convince the people of this Convention that the system should be changed, why I grant the gentleman his premises and conclusions. But it is for the very reason that the committee conceived that the system ought to be changed, that they present a scheme here for incorporation in the Constitution, a scheme that has worked well, worked since 1864 in one state without complaint, worked since 1884 in another state without complaint. If you are going to leave it to the Legislature, remember that you leave it also to the governor, who has a potential voice in determining what the Legislature shall do. If, in accordance with the ordinary instincts of men, the enjoyment of power leads to the desire to not only hold what he has got, but to acquire more, practically you are leaving it also to the governor. And if he should disagree with the Legislature about a so-called invasion of his prerogatives and vetoes it, it will take two- thirds of the members of either house to carry it over his head and enact it into a law. If you put it into the Constitution, as I think it very properly belongs, it is creating a new jurisdiction_a new tribunal. In that sense it stands on a par_on the same plane, rather, with the judicial tribunal. You are creating a tribunal and defining its jurisdiction, so that all may understand it. You remove it entirely from the domain of legislation so far as that is concerned. For that reason, we of the committee, believing in a change of the system, object to the substitute offered by my friend from Utah.

In answer to the suggestions made concerning the substitute offered by the gentleman from Salt Lake, I have this to say, that the section as it stands does provide for the consideration of offenders found guilty of misdemeanors. In the first place, he is mistaken as to the maximum penalties imposed by statute for misdemeanors. As the statutes now exist, penalties of imprisonment of twelve months and ten months are found upon the statute books. The imposition of fines to the amount of a thousand dollars are found there. But laying that aside, in the body of this {1009 - EXECUTIVE} section is included a proposition authorizing the governor to grant reprieves until the next session of the board. It is carefully guarded. No man need suffer because of the failure of the law to provide for the bringing of his case before this tribunal. As to the other point of objection, that the judges to whom we are to intrust all that is valuable and sacred in life, on whose integrity and learning and capacity to see and discern the right on the wrong, we shall rely for our liberties and our fortunes_to say that they are to be presumed guilty of such bias and contemptible prejudice, having once passed upon the cold record of the case of the offender as it comes before them, on appeal, that they shall be unable to decide justly and intelligently, is to say something that I do not admit for a moment.

It has not worked so in practice, and indeed the same argument would apply in a case where the justices of the supreme court grant a new trial. It is sent back and tried over again. It comes up upon the second appeal, possibly the third appeal, when they are to treat it and take it as a new and independent proceeding. You might just as well say that they are disqualified, because on a

former hearing they had passed upon the case as presented to them. Again the case is not presented in the same way, nor upon the same facts. After the offender is convicted by a jury, after the trial judge passes upon his motion for a new trial, judges of the supreme court are called upon only to review the errors of law, if there be any. Your system as contemplated by your judiciary article, according to the system prevailing generally, prohibits them from passing upon the questions of fact. It is simply that they look into the record to ascertain the errors of law, if there be any, and they affirm or reverse the judgment as the case may warrant. Now, if there is, as I said on a former occasion, a time when this matter ought to be settled, it is this time. It ought to be and is in the nature of things for the good and protection of society conclusively presumed that the crime was committed. That the man charged committed it. That the punishment under the law meted out to him by the trial judge is sufficient and ought to be carried out. Now, the board of pardons is not designed as a court of appeal to review all this.

It is not designed to examine into other matters either arising after the trial or so intimately connected with the act of the offender and of such a nature that they could not be and were not brought out and made to bear before the jury upon the question of his guilt or innocence. Taking them all into consideration, weighing them all on one side, with the offense, its magnitude, its relation to society, and the interests of the people on the other, to determine whether or not it is a case for the exercise of executive clemency, and it is right and meet that it should be done before a tribunal openly and in the daylight, before a tribunal with a responsibility of law resting upon it, by the application made upon evidence taken upon a hearing had on either side, where the State itself may be represented by its law officers. That is the idea underlying this and it ought to be so. It ought not to be that a criminal is convicted, if he can gather around him friends, if he has the influence that position or money may bring, that he can go to work and insidiously and quietly build up the application to the governor, which may be entertained privately, where only one side is heard, so that the exercise of executive clemency is sprung upon an unsuspecting people as one of the surprises of history and nobody knows about it. It is the design of this provision, in accordance with the provision in the states of Nevada and Florida, in accordance with the provisions of sixteen or seventeen {1010} other states, not exactly in detail like this, but as to a pardoning board, that there should be a tribunal which shall be held responsible to the people and that the public may have the opportunity of reviewing its action by seeing what moved it, what evidence was before it, what arguments deduced, not leaving it to the secrecy and privacy of the street or the secluded executive chamber. After all is said, we come back to the proposition, if you want to change the system; if you do not want to change the system, I agree with my friend, Mr. Thurman, just leave it with the governor and let it alone.

Mr. EICHNOR. Mr. Chairman, I just wish to make an explanation. When I stated that the maximum penalty for misdemeanors in this Territory was 180 days imprisonment, I had reference to justices' courts. In district courts it is as Mr. Varian states it.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, I favor the amendment of Mr. Thurman to this section. It seems to me we are taking altogether too much ground in this question of pardoning, and while the governor may exercise some jurisdiction in connection with this matter, the Legislature can wisely and prudently consider it, and it seems to me that we are covering so much ground_taking up this matter in this section that it would be the wisest thing we could do to strike it out and

bring the substitute of Mr. Thurman in, because the Legislature, after a proper review of all this matter in all its bearings, can fix it up, and if there is any future change necessary, it can be readily brought about.

Mr. CREER. Mr. Chairman, I also agree with the last speaker. I am in favor of leaving this matter with the Legislature. I believe, however, there ought probably to be some change made and if we were going to deviate I think that all that would be necessary would be down to line 10 of this section. It seems to me that the remainder of the section is altogether such matter as would properly belong to the Legislature, because they are simply regulations carrying out the principle that is introduced in the fore part of the section. I am not in favor, however, of continuing this pardoning power in the line of the judiciary. It seems to me there ought to be some point by which there should be an angle following the line of those who have had a trial of the cause_when it comes upon the question of pardoning power, it seems to me there ought to be others than those that have sat as courts and prosecuting attorneys. Hence, I am in favor now, and shall vote for the gentleman's substitute from Utah County, Mr. Thurman.

Mr. JAMES. Mr. Chairman, I have got very decided convictions upon this matter. They come to me from an experience of a long period in Utah Territory, where we have seen a good deal of pardoning and the granting of pardons, and I am in favor of the amendment. I have seen pardons granted in this Territory that I regretted and all good citizens did regret. I remember some ten or twelve years ago, a pardon was granted in this Territory to a man that was in for ten or twenty years and it was not ninety days until he had committed the same crime over again in the southern part of the Territory by murdering the second man. Now, I tell you that the life of that man was a serious thing and when taken through a lack of over zealousness and generosity towards an unfortunate creature to let this man out of jail. It generally comes from sympathetic motives and those sympathetic motives do not return the life of a murdered citizen, and I am strongly in favor of some pardoning board and I hope that this Convention will insert it in the Constitution. I am not lawyer enough to say how it should go in there or what is the best form for it, but I say it ought to go in there in some shape.

Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. Chairman, I {1011} will support the substitute of Mr. Thurman. I am strongly in favor of a board of pardons, but I have serious objections to the supreme judges acting as a board. I think that they are very likely to get so deep in the groove of technicalities that they would be prejudiced and I do not think they would make a fair and impartial board.

Mr. PRESTON. Mr. Chairman, I think if the gentlemen will study the question carefully, they would rather leave it just the way it is than to make any substitute of any kind.

Mr. SQUIRES. Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to take up the time of the committee to argue this question, except simply to state that my own experience as warden of the penitentiary
such that I am not in favor of the amendment of the gentleman from Utah County, which would still leave the matter in the hands of the governor with a Legislature that might possibly continue that system. During my short experience as warden there were a large number of pardons, and that of the very worst criminal class that we had in the penitentiary, men that never should have been turned loose, men who were, within thirty days after their pardon, again arrested for worse

crimes than those committed while they were there. And I am well satisfied that if these several cases that I refer to had come before a board of pardons where the responsibility could have been divided among a number of gentlemen, that the pardons never would have been granted. I also look upon the question in another light. I want to relieve if possible the executive of the State from the annoyance which these pardoning matters must of necessity be to the governor. He is pursued and harassed on all sides by the friends of those who are desiring to receive pardons, and every sort of influence is brought to bear upon him, and I do not wonder sometimes that he does get a little off of his base and pardon men in order to get rid of the annoyance of their friends. I believe that some provision should go into this Constitution, making it in the line of this section 12. I am not persistent to have section 12 as it stands go into the Constitution, but I am opposed to leaving this matter to a future Legislature, which may in its turn leave it in the hands of the governor. I do not believe that a board of pardons could ever be corrupted by the use of money, I do not insinuate that any of our executives have been so influenced, but I think that it is safer_safer for society, and better for the people at large that this matter should be left in the hands of a board of pardons. Therefore, I am opposed to the substitute offered by the gentleman from Utah.

Mr. THURMAN. Mr. Chairman, I desire to add a few words to what I stated in the beginning. I am in favor too I believe in principle in a board of pardons, and if we were a Legislature here assembled to make laws and had the power to create a board, I would be in favor of deliberately going to work and framing the best board that we could. I would have this consolation, however, in that case, that if we made a mistake some future Legislature could rectify it. Now, my friend from Salt Lake, who just occupied the floor before me, says that the governor is harassed and annoyed by men applying for pardons. I say if there has got to be such proceedings as that, let us let the governor alone be harassed and not have the supreme court and the attorney general the same as the governor. One man is enough to be harassed on this kind of a business.

Mr. SQUIRES. May I interrupt the gentleman just a moment? Under section 12. it is provided that a hearing should be had in each case, that would not necessitate the harassing of anybody. The case would be heard in an open session of the board and settled.

Mr. THURMAN. I do not know {1012} whether it would be very harassing or not. It would depend on how long winded those fellows would be that wanted to make speeches before the board. If they were as long winded as some of us in this Convention, there would be a good deal of harassing about it, I take it, before it was finally disposed of, but I wish to impress this, Mr. Chairman, upon the members of this Convention, I am not opposed to a board of pardons. It may be a good thing, but I would like to know of the gentleman from Salt Lake, who is the chairman of the committee making this report, how many state constitutions provide for boards of this kind, if you have examined it?

Mr. VARIAN. I was looking for the list. My recollection is that about seventeen, not of this particular kind, but if I remember, in some states it is the council_that is, the senate, in others, it is a certain number of persons selected from the senate. There are only two or possibly three states where the provision is like this, taking in the justices of the supreme court.

Mr. VARIAN. I would like to ask the gentleman, before he sits down, does he understand that this is a new proposition?

Mr. THURMAN. No; I have not examined the question.

Mr. VARIAN. Does he not understand that in the last twenty-five years this general subject has been discussed more than any other concerning the administration of penal laws, and in one way or other has received the approbation of modern penalogical thought on the subject, and that it is embodied for that reason in most of the new constitutions?

Mr. THURMAN. I understand that that has been investigated and discussed to a great extent, but I will ask the question if it is not also a matter that has been dealt with largely by the legislature?

Mr. VARIAN. I will answer the gentleman by stating that in one form or other it is in all new constitutions_that is practically all.

Mr. THURMAN. I am not objecting to the board, as I say, but as to what shall constitute the board, I am not {1013} now satisfied that that is the best, and for that reason I shall favor the substitute.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. Chairman, I agree with my friend from Utah County. I am in favor of a board of pardons, but let us leave it to the Legislature and to the governor. I think we can safely do that.

Mr. CREER. In what constitutions that you have consulted_have they as much detail as you have proposed in this section, with reference to the board of pardons?

Mr. CREER. I will vote for that.

Mr. SQUIRES: Would it be in order now to move to strike out any portion of this section?

The CHAIRMAN. No.

The question being taken on the substitute offered by Mr. Thurman, the committee divided and by a vote of 20 ayes (noes not counted) the substitute was rejected.

Mr. SQUIRES. I call the attention of the chair to the fact that if we properly modify this other section by a motion to strike out we may better understand whether we want to vote for Mr. Eichnor's amendment or not.

Mr. VARIAN. With your permission I will now offer a substitute to get the sense of the house.

Mr. IVINS. I arise to a point of order. My point of order is that no substitute or other amendment is in order until after Mr. Eichnor's substitute has been voted on, and then the section will still be open to any amendment that may be desired.

The CHAIRMAN. The chair would so hold.

The question being taken on the substitute offered by Mr. Eichnor, the substitute was rejected.

Mr. VARIAN. I now offer my amendment to test the sense of the house upon the boiling down of this article:

Strike out section 12 and insert:

The governor, justices of the supreme court, and attorney general, or a major part of them, of whom the governor shall be one, may, upon such conditions and with such limitations and restrictions as they may think proper, remit fines and forfeitures, commute punishments, and grant pardons after convictions, in all cases except treason and impeachment, subject to such regulations as may be provided by law, relative to the manner of applying for pardons.

Mr. VARIAN. No; I understand that that is a matter to be left to the Legislature. Impeachments, of course, cannot be pardoned. No pardon can reach impeachment. A treason is to be tried, as I understand it, by_-

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, tried, but how about the pardon?

Mr. ROBERTS. There is no provision in this substitute, as I remember the reading of it, to deal with pardons touching those two things, and I was wondering if it was intended to make those crimes unpardonable.

Mr. VARIAN. I will say that the usual rule is that the Legislature deals with treason, and I say in the section as reported from the committee that that is accounted for; I am in favor, really, of the section as it comes from the committee, but I introduced this substitute, which is a literal copy from one of the state constitutions, in order to test the sense of the Convention as to whether they want to boil down this section.

Mr. THURMAN. Will the gentleman permit a suggestion in relation to his amendment?

Mr. VARIAN. Why, of course.
{1014}
Mr. THURMAN. Retain down to the word “pardons,” in line 11, strike out all after that down to the word proviso, in line 30, and retain the balance of the section; that provides for impeachment and treason, all in one section.

Mr. VARIAN. With the permission of the Convention, if the gentleman desires to make that motion, I will temporarily withdraw this substitute, and we can test the sense of the Convention upon the motion of the gentleman from Utah.

The amendment proposed by Mr. Thurman was then read.

Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. Chairman, I move that the substitute be amended by striking out justices of the supreme court and inserting secretary of state.

Mr. VARIAN. I call attention to the fact that in the event of death or disability of the governor, we have already adopted a system which provides that the secretary of state should act. In such an event, that would simply have on that board of pardons two men and they might get to be a tie.

Mr. EICHNOR. I suggest that when the secretary of state is acting as governor, some one is acting as secretary of state.

The amendment of Mr. Anderson was rejected.

The CHAIRMAN. The question now recurs upon the amendment .offered by Mr. Varian of Salt Lake.

Mr. VARIAN. Mine was withdrawn.

The CHAIRMAN. The question then recurs upon the amendment offered by the gentleman from

Utah, Mr. Thurman.

Mr. CORAY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to suggest that if the section passes as proposed to be amended by the gentleman from Utah, it provides for cases of treason, but not impeachment.

Mr. VAN HORNE. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me, the gentleman has forgotten that in cases of impeachment, the punishment can only go to the extent of a man being deprived of his office.

Mr. IVINS. Mr. Chairman. I arise to a point of order. The amendment to the amendment offered by Mr. Anderson has already been voted on.

The CHAIRMAN. The point of order is well taken. The question is now on the amendment of Mr. Thurman.

The question being taken on the amendment offered by Mr. Thurman, the committee divided, and by a vote of 30 ayes (noes not counted) the amendment was rejected.

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. Chairman, I do not offer any amendment. I stand by the original section.

The CHAIRMAN. The question now recurs upon the section as it stands. Mr. VARIAN. Next section.

Mr. EICHNOR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike out section 12.

The motion was rejected.

Sections 13 and 14 were read.

Mr. CREER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike out section 14. I would like to make a few remarks. While I appreciate, Mr. Chairman, the object of the committee in introducing the principle of making those State officers ex-officio boards of certain institutions, I am convinced in my own mind that this would subserve the best interests of the public institution for which it is intended, for the reason that it is peculiar perhaps, I may say to any other public institution, and that in the fact that it is the guardian of the insane people of the Territory and the responsibility that rests upon the shoulders of those who have the immediate charge of that institution is certainly very grave, because they have not the patients_those for whom they are designed to care for have no judgment of their own and circumstances are such that accidents and casualties and disturbances arise from time to time that it would not be just, let alone to be wise, to leave that responsibility upon the officer who is the only officer that has the oversight of this institution in the absence of the managing board. It has been considered wise by the Legislature for a number of {1015} years past to make a provision in the managing board of that institution, an executive committee, who should reside in the county in which the institution is situated. For my own observation, I know it would be very advantageous too. That good results have followed that plan of having an executive committee reside in the county, for this reason, that in case of anything occurring unusual and which is liable to do at any time, the superintendent has the opportunity of

consulting immediately then with some person and getting the benefit of their advice and judgment in this matter. Besides that, as a matter of economy, to have some one that they might consult with with regard to the running of the institution is believed to be for its best interests.

As the law is now, the law requires three of the managing board to reside in the county. They receive no mileage, they receive a compensation of four dollars a day, and usually they do not put in more than probably two or three extra days, and sometimes not that. The other members of the board_the board is constituted of seven members, they also receive four dollars a day and their mileage. Now, it seems to me, as a matter of economy, it would not avail anything, because the mileage of those three State officers would have to be considered, and in fact, the idea of placing the management of that institution under a board of control that reside in another county_or I take it for granted that Salt Lake County will be the residence of those gentlemen_which is the governor and the state treasurer and the state auditor, I think would be unjust, and would not be the proper thing to do, and it seems to me that this would be a dangerous step to take, and I believe that it ought to be left to the Legislature. Let them use their judgment, and if necessary cut down the number of the board. That may be done or any change they may see fit, even the change as proposed now, but to place this in the fundamental law and say that it shall be under the immediate control of those State officers, I am opposed to it, and I am satisfied from my little experience with that institution and from observation, it would not be the best thing to do. Of course, it may be said that they would appoint their agents. Now, there could be no other agents, perhaps, excepting the assistant medical superintendent, and he probably would have to receive a salary maybe of fifteen-hundred or two thousand dollars a year. The entire expense, as I understand it, of the control of that institution, excepting the superintendent, does not amount to more than about six hundred dollars a year_each director does not get more than about one dollar or probably a dollar and a quarter a week. That would be about the average compensation now, and it is merely a bagatelle as to the idea of abolishing that idea. It seems to me, further, that an institution of that kind ought to be in touch with the people themselves, and not have to depend upon those State officers as an ex officio function to perform. I am satisfied thoroughly in my own mind that it would be a dangerous step to take, to abolish the present system, and to adopt the idea of making those ex officio officers, and there could be no other object than simply the fact of them being State officers, and probably not having sufficient to occupy their entire time. There is nothing to indicate that they would be peculiarly adapted by being state officers. Any intelligent man certainly would be capable of performing the duties, just as well; therefore, I hope the committee will strike this section out as being entirely unnecessary.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. Chairman, I hope the motion will prevail to strike out sections 13, 14, 15. They are legislation pure and simple. If they work well, all right. If they do not work {1016} right we cannot get rid of them until the Constitution is amended or until we have a new Constitution. I say it is making it too cumbersome and it is a radical departure from the system already adopted, and therefore, I am opposed to it, and on the third reading I do not intend to vote for the article at all, or any part of it if it stays in.

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. Chairman, by comparison of this with succeeding sections, the Convention will see that of course there is a radical departure from the present system. The present system as I understand it, is to constitute boards of these several territorial institutions, composed of private

citizens_six, seven, and eight, I believe most of the boards are.

Mr. CREER. It is seven now.

Mr. VARIAN. Now, it is usual, as my friend, Mr. Creer, suggests, to have at least one man on the board who is a resident of the place of location of the institution.

Mr. CREER. Three under present law.

Mr. ROBERTS. Of the county?

Mr. VARIAN. A number, however, came from other places, they are private citizens. They leave their business on Friday night, perhaps, if they are going to Logan, go to Logan, make a cursory examination of matters and things, and come back and resume their private business on Monday morning, or it may be to Provo, or it may be to Ogden, wherever the institution is located. Now, I do not believe, and I think that was the sentiment inspiring the committee, that the State can get service it ought to have under those circumstances. In the first place, the division of responsibility is too great. We had better have three men than seven. In the second place, you cannot be expected to get the service and the time needed from men who are simply officials for a day or two days at most in two months or three months, as the case may be, whose time is fully occupied with private business. Impose those duties on State officials who are responsible to the people_not necessarily elected from the capital. They are elected from other portions of the State. They reside here because the purpose and functions of government necessitate their continued presence here. They have their duties to perform, it is true, but I undertake now to say that I believe you will find when the State government goes into operation that fully one-half the time of the State officers will be unemployed. You will not give them employment in the purely functionary duties of the State government alone.

The treasurer and the auditor and the secretary of state will be for months between the sessions of the Legislature practically without continued employment and will have to be at their office every day. They will come down at 10 o'clock in the morning and they will look about, perhaps make some entries in the books, pay some warrants, if there is any money to pay, and draw some perhaps, after the sessions of the State board of examiners, and go away at three or four o'clock, during a large portion of the year. Now, this is not a new system. It prevails in many of the surrounding states. It is adopted in Idaho, Montana and other states. I do not just now recall which, and it was with that view that the committee decided to present for the consideration of the Convention this new system of arranging these several duties to be performed by the State officers who are not to get any increased salary therefor. The arrangement is that what they receive yearly for their service shall be in compensation for all the services imposed upon them by law. This is all there is to it, and if it is objectionable in the case of the state asylum, it is objectionable in the case of the reform school and the state prison, and it should be modified and changed in accordance with the views expressed if the Convention does not desire it.
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Mr. CREER. Mr. Chairman, it would not be objectionable to the state prison, upon the same ground that I have indicated, because the state prison would be here at the capital.

Mr. CREER. Mr. Chairman, I have one more reason before it is voted upon and that is this, that it certainly must appeal to the judgment of every member upon this committee that it would be well to leave it somewhat distributive_ this board_they ought to at least come from more populous counties or cities of the Territory, Salt Lake County has quite a number of patients and Weber County; by having some one residing in the county, then they could communicate more readily; to have them absolutely atone place, it certainly must appeal to the judgment, that it would not be for the best interests of the institution.

The question being taken on the motion of Mr. Creer, the committee divided and by a vote of 29 ayes to 39 noes, the motion was rejected.

Sections 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 were read.

Mr. KIESEL. Mr. Chairman, I move that the salary of the governor be one thousand dollars per annum.

Mr. THURMAN. I do not see the gentleman from Millard. I am going to ask him what his opinion was as to whether that would be sufficient or not. [Laughter.]

Mr. KEARNS. I move to pass it until the gentleman from Millard be present.

Mr. JAMES. Mr. Chairman, I move that the motion be amended and that we pass this section until the report comes from the committee on salaries.

The CHAIRMAN. It seems to the chair that that would not be germane.

Mr. BUTTON. Mr. Chairman, I move that it be made three thousand dollars.

Mr. BOWDLE. Mr. Chairman, I move that we lay the motion on the table.

Mr. BUTTON. It is out of order.

Mr. KIESEL. Mr. Chairman, with the consent of my second, I will withdraw my motion.

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. Chairman, I ask the committee of the whole on behalf of our committee to pass this matter until we can get some idea through the report of the committee on salaries or otherwise, as to what the necessities of the case are and what our financial resources are going to be.

Mr. THURMAN. Mr. Chairman, I suggest that we either fill out these blanks or move to strike out the place for the blanks. The committee on executive have introduced here a certain part of a section, which is incomplete, and just why we should now pass something in a crude condition, without trying {1018} to perfect it, I cannot understand. This morning, the gentleman from Salt Lake, Mr. James, wanted to make a suggestion, because the committee on corporations were doing something, or were going to offer something, and he voted against a measure this morning, because the committee on corporations was going to do something. At that time we thought that Mr. James was entirely unreasonable, and we voted him down. Now, we meet the very same proposition here. I think we ought to settle this question, and if, when the committee on salaries bring in their report they have something better to offer than we have, we will adopt that.

Mr. EVANS (Utah). Mr. Chairman, I move you to insert twenty-five hundred after the word governor, in line 17 of section 20.

Mr. CREER. Mr. Chairman, I want to draw the attention of the Convention to this fact, that on the question of salaries, I find that the state treasurer_there is a blank there in the section under consideration_

Mr. JAMES. Mr. Chairman, I arise to a point of order. Mr. Varian made a motion that we pass these salaries and it was seconded.

The CHAIRMAN. The chair holds that a motion to pass is equivalent to a motion to postpone, and the motion to postpone would not be in order in committee of the whole. The only question now before the house is upon the amendment of Mr. Evans, of Utah, that twenty-five hundred dollars be inserted in line 17, after the mark “$.”

Mr. JOLLEY. Mr. Chairman, I want to second that motion.

Mr. KEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I hope at this time that that will not prevail, for this reason: the committee on salaries have not had any chance to get together until the judiciary and other committees reported, and until they find out about how many officers are going to come under the salary list, they could not do it. The committee will have a chance to fix the whole of the salaries at one time.

Mr. THURMAN. Does your committee intend to fix the salaries of all these officers?

Mr. THURMAN. Then, I say if that committee does that, it has no place here. If the executive committee has the right to do it, then your committee has not.

Mr. RICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike out all the section after line 1.3, and leave it to the committee on salaries.

Mr. VARIAN. Does the gentleman want to strike out all after line 24, in relation to the collection of official fees, etc.?

Mr. RICKS. I think that properly belongs to the salary committee.

Mr. HART. Mr. Chairman, I move an amendment to that, to include the whole section, that we recommend that the Convention refer the section to the committee on salaries.

Mr. VAN HORNE. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that there is something in this section that this committee should consider at this time, and that is the question of whether we are going to have a fee system for officers in this Territory. It comes, it seems to me, legitimately in this section. That part of it, it seems to me has nothing to do with the committee on salaries, and for that reason should not be referred to them. The objections I have to the striking out of this section are for the latter part of it, beginning on line 29; lines 24, 25, 26, 27, AL and 2% are covered by section 4 of the minority report on legislative, providing that there should be no extra allowance or fees paid to officers, and that of course, is clearly surplusage.

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, I am opposed to the several amendments. I do not know how many of them there {1019} are now before the house looking to the taking of this matter out of the hands of the committee. It seems to me that we are just as Yell prepared this afternoon to fix the salaries of these officers, as we will be at any time during the session of this Convention, and there is no reason why we should not immediately fill these blanks with the amount of salary that we think this Territory can afford to pay for the services these officers will be required to give the State. For the life of me, I cannot see that any information we may receive from a committee will materially affect our judgments or aid them in coming to a right conclusion upon these subjects. This committee, at this time, could within possibly ten or fifteen minutes settle this whole matter right now, and for that reason I shall vote against all these amendments and in favor of immediately considering the salaries of these officers.

Mr. CREER. “Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman will observe that we are not prepared to vote upon the salaries of all these officers. Now, I find by reference to section 16, that this article provides the duties of the secretary; 17 the duties of the auditor; 18, the duties of the attorney general; and 19, the duties of the superintendent of public schools, but nowhere does that provide for anything for the treasurer to do, only to be a member of the board of asylum.

Mr. VARIAN. Section 17.

Mr. HART. I understand the gentleman who made a motion to refer a part of this section is willing to withdraw his motion by consent of the house. If so, I am willing to withdraw my amendment to that, that the whole thing be referred. I, for one, am ready to pass upon the question now, but if any part of the section is going to be referred, I am in favor of referring the whole thing.

Mr. RICKS. With the consent of my second, I will withdraw my motion.

Mr. HART. By consent of the house, I will withdraw mine. Mr. Chairman, I propose to amend to two thousand dollars, instead of twenty-five hundred, in line 17.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, when it comes to the subject of salaries it necessarily brings me upon my feet. I can-not stand it to sit down any longer. When the motion was to pay the governor one thousand dollars, I felt to second that. I do not know what the object of the gentlemen is to put the salary at two thousand and twenty-five hundred and three thousand, unless they want to swamp this Territory. And it is pretty near swamped now_this State. I am satisfied that we have got to practice economy, or we will go where the rest of the states are gone. I do not want to go there. I want this State of Utah to be an example to all other states. I take pride in hearing the people of other states refer to Utah as being an exemplary State, because the way it has always looked to me, as though they were all going to be swamped in my opinion, the way they are going on to-day_and I think that Utah should set an example for we are here right in the mountains. We hold the key of the whole continent and we ought to set an example and rules of the states and make the salaries of these officers so that we can meet them. We all understand now the condition of the Territory. We are in debt over a million dollars_something near that, in some counties, and many to-day cannot pay their debts. From five hundred to a thousand men have been sold out for taxes and they cannot pay, and if we start out on this basis, the taxes will be doubled right away after this thing should be adopted, and I cannot afford to pay it. I have lived here too long and I have come here to stay, and if we put the salaries so that we cannot afford to pay them, and get {1020} honorable men in to fill for these salaries, these are my feelings about it, and I hope that this body of men won't be careless in fixing salaries. We can find plenty of men that are perfectly competent to fill those offices without high salaries. That is about the way I feel about it, and I want them to take the matter into consideration. We do not want to be swamped with a debt we cannot get out of. I renew the motion to make the salary of the governor one thousand dollars.

The CHAIRMAN. The chair hears no second.

Mr. CREER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to refer to our constitution lexicon, Mr. Eichnor, and find out what the salaries are in the adjoining states_the adjoining states.

Mr. HILL. Mr. Chairman, as our lexicon, I will answer the question. Thirteen states in the confines of the United States, their salaries do not exceed three thousand dollars. The salary in Maine is fifteen hundred dollars, Michigan, two thousand dollars, Delaware, two thousand

dollars. Heretofore our governor of Utah has received thirty-five hundred dollars and it appears to me under the existing conditions of this Territory that we should divide the proposition between Mr. Hart and Mr. Farr and make the salary for the governor of this Territory fifteen hundred dollars.

Mr. CORAY. I would like to ask what the salary of the governor of Washington and Idaho is?

Mr. HILL. The salary of Idaho is three thousand dollars.

Mr. BUTTON. What is Wyoming?

Mr. HILL. Wyoming is twenty-five hundred dollars.

Mr. MALONEY. What is Oregon?

Mr. EVANS (Utah). Washington is our example.

Mr. HILL. Washington is four thousand dollars, Oregon is fifteen hundred, Montana is five thousand dollars.

Mr, BOYER. Anything in the treasury?

Mr. HART. Mr. Chairman, I think the amount that I have named here, two thousand dollars, is about the right amount to allow our executive. I am not in favor of exorbitant salaries. I am in favor strictly of economy. I am not in favor of putting the salary so low that only a rich man can afford to occupy the place. I am not in favor of putting the salary so low that a poor man, if elected to the place, that the emoluments and the fees would not be sufficient to enable him to respectably discharge the duties of the office. There are a great many expenses attendant upon the office of State executive. The governor is visited by a great many people passing to and fro through the country. I think that would be peculiarly the case here in Utah. He would be at a large expense every year in entertaining alone people passing from the west to the east and across the continent. I think that two thousand dollars is about the amount that we should fix for the governor.

Mr. CREER. Mr. Chairman, I have computed and it comes as near being twenty-five hundred dollars as any other figure that is, computing it from ten thousand dollars down to one. There are two states at one thousand dollars each.

Mr. HILL. Mr. Chairman, in reply to what Mr. Hart has said, it appears to me that the balance of this section provides that the actual and necessary expenses for the traveling of these officers are provided for in the latter part of this section. Also in reference to none but the rich being able to maintain the office at fifteen hundred dollars, I very much question whether any but the rich would accept of the position at the figure he has named of two thousand dollars, as there is not sufficient in it for a poor man to accept that even at that figure.

Mr. BARNES. Mr. Chairman, I am greatly in favor of economy in our movements here in fixing of salaries and whatever else may come before us. I have endeavored to pursue that principle in all of my business relations in life. At the same time, I do not think that we can afford to descend too low to what might be termed penuriousness. In looking at the duties that we have imposed upon the governor, if the measures which we have passed upon this afternoon become engrafted in the Constitution, and taking into consideration things referred to by Mr. Hart, that there are necessarily expenses devolving upon the office which I think should be met. I am aware that there is a great deal of honor necessarily attached to the office of governor_a great amount of honor attached to it, but in looking at it all around, I favor the proposition of Mr. Hart, that two thousand dollars per year for the salary of governor.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I recollect in traveling through the Territory of hearing a good many express themselves that they were certainly opposed to having a State, because it would increase the burdens of the State, to pay the expenses of running the State so much to what it is now, to run it, as a Territory, as there were so many that were cramped, they could hardly subsist and pay their taxes, and certainly when the government pays the biggest part of the running expenses_then come to have additional loads put on the people, who feel themselves short to pay their taxes, they felt as though they would be compelled to vote against the Constitution inaugurating the State, because they could not pay the expenses.

Now, that is something that we. should consider, if we are going to add to the running of the State so much expenses, whether the people would sustain it or would vote for it. I am satisfied it would be a great benefit and it might be a question_it might begot up by these persons who are opposed to statehood, to go through the Territory and make computations against it becoming a State, because of the hard times, and that they will be called upon to run the government, hence this is one reason why I am in for cutting down the salaries so that the people can live. I think they will not feel to vote the thing down, when it comes to be submitted to them, so I say, keep the salaries down.

Mr. SQUIRES. Mr. Chairman, I want to call the attention of the Convention, and especially Mr. Hart, to the fact that the compensation as now provided will only be during the pleasure of the Legislature. The first Legislature may change it. These figures are put in here for the first term. It might not last more than one term at the figures named.

The CHAIRMAN. The question will first be upon filling in the blank on motion of Mr, Evans, of Utah.

Mr. FRANCIS. Mr. Chairman, I move that the salary of secretary of state be twenty-five hundred dollars.

Mr. STOVER. Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment, that it be placed at two thousand dollars.
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Mr. CANNON. Mr. Chairman, I am in favor of the motion of Mr. Francis, that the salary be twenty-five hundred dollars, for the reason that a great deal of work is required of the secretary of state, and I believe that the fees that he will receive, and which, by this article, are to go to the State, will more than pay the compensation. I favor leaving him at twenty-five hundred dollars.

Mr. CORAY. I would like to ask Mr. Cannon a question. What is the work of the secretary of state what constitutes his labor? [Laughter.]

Mr. CANNON. They are so numerous it would take all afternoon to enumerate them.

Mr. CORAY. Is it not mostly in the line of bookkeeping?

Mr. CANNON. I call the gentleman's attention to the fact that in the absence of the governor the secretary of state becomes the acting governor, I think, and he has a great deal of work to do in connection with the various departments, and in addition to that, articles of incorporation are filed with and he issues commissions to notaries public and other officers.

Mr. FRANCIS. Mr. Chairman, I just
wish to say that I understand that at times the secretary will have to perform the duties of the governor, and as has been already stated, his labors are greater almost than any other officer.

Mr. IVINS. When the secretary of state performs the functions that devolve upon the governor, he receives the same compensation that the governor does, under section 11. He receives his emoluments.

Mr. SNOW. Mr. Chairman, I am in favor of the amendment. I think twenty-five hundred dollars ought to be the maximum salary for our officers, no matter where they are or which one it is. I do not think when we have started a list at twenty-five hundred dollars that we need necessarily follow it out all down the line. There should be a discrimination made. I think two thousand dollars is sufficient salary for the secretary of state. I do not think the servant is greater than the masters. We ought to take into consideration the masses of the people, how they earn their money and how hard it is for them to get money to pay their taxes. Every dollar of these salaries will have to be raised by direct taxation, and it will be a burdensome thing for the people to bear. I am opposed to high salaries all around, and I say that I will not vote for any salary higher than twenty-five hundred dollars, and I think the governor is the only one that is entitled to that compensation. I am in favor of two thousand dollars for the secretary of state.

Mr. SNOW. I believe, sir, that it is about six or eight thousand dollars. I think it has been an outrage upon the people of this Territory, who have had to pay the fees in. I think it is time we made a reform.

Mr. CANNON. I would like to ask the gentleman if in his opinion a man who does twice the work, should receive one-fifth less salary?

Mr. SNOW. I think the work is all of a different character. I think the work of a secretary of state is more of a clerical character than the functions of the governor. I do not doubt but what he has a great deal of work to do, and I think two thousand dollars is sufficient compensation.

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, I just merely want to acid this in line with what Mr. Snow has said on the subject_to call attention to the fact that the secretary of state, even if his labors should be equal to that of the governor, would not have the demands of hospitality upon him that the governor is likely to have. And for that reason, I should favor that the sum of two thousand dollars instead of twenty-five hundred dollars be fixed. When you {1023} take into account the fact that the governor will have to expend not only all the salary he gets, but possibly several thousand dollars more per annum, in the way of keeping up a hospitable governmental establishment, I think that there should be at least that much distinction between his salary and that of the secretary of state, and for that reason, I shall support the two thousand dollar limit.

Mr. CREER. Is it not a fact that he will have to employ an assistant?

Mr. ROBERTS. Who?

Mr. CREER. The secretary of state.

Mr. ROBERTS. I am sure, I cannot say.

Mr. CREER. It is almost sure he will have to employ an assistant.

The motion of Mr. Francis was rejected.

The motion of Mr. Stover was agreed to.

The CHAIRMAN. What will be the amount for state auditor?

Mr. VARIAN. I move that it be two thousand dollars.

Mr. RICKS. I move that it be fifteen hundred dollars.

Mr. ELDREDGE. I move to amend by making it eighteen hundred dollars.
                

Mr. IVINS. Mr. Chairman, the last Legislature appropriated four thousand dollars as salary for the auditor of public accounts, and seven hundred and fifty dollars for rent, and four hundred dollars for incidental expenses, this would be for two years. It would be at the rate of two thousand dollars a year with his rent and incidental expenses provided for.

Mr. HAMMOND. Mr. Chairman, I am in favor of this amendment of fifteen hundred dollars for the auditor. San Juan people may be poor, which I do not admit, but they are not mean. They are willing to pay a fair price and salaries for their public officers. Now, it is a fact that a good overseer or foreman of our cattle companies down there gets from eighteen hundred to two thousand dollars a year, and I am in favor of this amendment.

Mr. EVANS (Utah). Mr. Chairman, it seems like we have begun in this matter by cutting down. It seems to be the spirit of this Convention that our salaries should be fixed at a nominal sum and not be extravagant. We begun with the governor by cutting down one thousand dollars, with the secretary of state by reducing his from what it has been heretofore very materially, and I think that we ought to continue in that line and I think that fifteen hundred dollars is sufficient for that office, and I should cast my vote for that.

Mr. HILL. Mr. Chairman, it appears to me, notwithstanding my position on the question of governor, that if we place the salary of the auditor at eighteen hundred dollars we are doing him an injustice, that, as has been stated here this afternoon, and gentlemen making the statement are correct_have been paying almost three times as much, in fact more than three times as much as the amount mentioned here, two thousand dollars, and I trust that this motion will prevail. A man who occupies the position of auditor, I consider, occupies a more responsible position than the governor of the Territory. Therefore, I trust that the members of this Convention will vote to give that gentleman two thousand dollars.

The motion of Mr. Varian was rejected.

The motion of Mr. Eldredge was rejected.

The motion of Mr. Ricks was agreed to.

Mr. RICKS. I move that the salary of the state treasurer be fixed at one thousand dollars.

Mr. HART. Mr. Chairman, move to amend by fixing the sum at two thousand dollars.
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Mr. BOWDLE. Mr. Chairman, I move we fix it at fifteen hundred dollars.

Mr. EVANS (Utah). I move to amend by making it one thousand dollars.

The CHAIRMAN. There has been one motion for a thousand dollars.

Mr. THURMAN. That is plenty.

Mr. SQUIRES. And then the superintendent of public instruction will serve like a country school teacher_serve for nothing and board around.

Mr. KIESEL. Mr. Chairman, I would like to know about how much bonds will be required of the treasurer?

Mr. SQUIRES. A half million.

Mr. KIESEL. Well, would not that cut a figure?

Mr. THURMAN. You had better reduce the bond rather than to increase the salary.

Mr. KIESEL. What will be the duty of the treasurer? Is he liable to have a great deal of money in his hands?

Mr. EVANS (Utah). Put it in the bank and issue his warrants.

Mr. RICKS. Mr. Chairman, I believe one thousand dollars is sufficient. I believe that any banker in this city would be glad to accept that position at one thousand dollars, in order to get to handle the money.

Mr. MORITZ. Mr. Chairman, I think we will have over a thousand in this city that would be glad to have the position for six hundred dollars a year.

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. Chairman, now, the suggestion made by the gentleman, Mr. Ricks, seems to me ought to be considered a little more. Do you intend that you are going to embark upon this enterprise of a State government with the system of permitting your public funds to be utilized by private individuals and bankers? That is the rock upon which the people of Colorado split, and they have returned now to the true principle of defining the duties of the custodian of your public moneys and requiring him to keep the money so that when called for, it can be had, paying him a reasonable compensation for that duty. I, for one, object to this system of farming out the public revenue, depositing it with private banners, who are to use the money for their own private purposes and the State is to take the risk, when it needs the money, of finding it. Business reverses may overtake them. It is against the true principle and system of government, and we ought not to legislate in that view. We ought not to fix salaries in that view.

Mr. STREVELL. I would like to ask for information, if there is not in some of the articles that we have had before us a clause which prohibits the treasurer from profiting from the State funds?

I have been looking for it. I have not been able to find it in the records that I have, but I think there is some such clause as that

Mr. CANNON. I have the clause if the gentleman would like it read. It is from the article on revenue, taxation, and public debt, section 9. Of course, that has not been adopted, but I do not think that anybody will object to it.

Mr. STREVELL. That is what I had in mind, but I was unable to locate it, and I was wondering if Mr. Ricks, in making his motion, had in mind or knew of that provision. It seems to me if that provision be adopted by this Convention that one thousand dollars is not sufficient salary to pay.

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, I shall vote for the sum of two thousand dollars for that officer. I am in favor of economy, and I am also in favor of safety in handling the money of the people, and I cannot believe that you can get good men to fill such a position as that, and give the required bond, {1025} who would be willing to work for one thousand dollars a year, nor for fifteen hundred dollars a year, and I do not believe that the line of true economy lies in getting inferior men in those positions. We require for these officers men of character, men of standing, and I would be in favor of paying them what I would consider a reasonable compensation for their services, taking into account their responsibilities and the character of men that the State needs to serve them in those offices. And for that reason, in a mad streak of economy, or supposed economy, I am not willing for one to consent to the cutting down of these prices in these officers of the State.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, I am in favor of the one thousand dollars, for this reason, that I suppose that two months in the year would be all the time that would be required at the hands of the treasurer. Many a good man in business, looking after his own business, could just as well attend to that matter and pocket the square two thousand dollars without any particular labor. Therefore, I am in favor of the lowest sum on this proposition.

Mr. EVANS (Utah). Mr. Chairman, I find by reference to the compensation now being paid that it is exactly one thousand dollars. As has been remarked by the gentleman who preceded me, perhaps two months in the year will be about all the time that he will be very busy. It appears to me that the way we are starting in, the salaries that we are fixing, that it will not take him long to consume all this Territory will be able to pay in paying out his warrants. I am in favor of voting for the provision in the revenue and taxation article that that money should be kept separate, and I believe that a thousand dollars will warrant and secure just such a man as will be able to do that_a man of stability, that will not take or consume anywhere near his whole time_perhaps one- fourth of the time, and that will pay for the responsibility that is attached to it, and I do not think there is any special chance to take. It is what we have been paying and I think it is plenty and I shall vote for it.

Mr. BOWDLE. I would like to ask the gentleman who just took his seat one question. Would not the duties and labors of the treasurer of a state be greater than that of a territory?

Mr. EVANS (Utah). Perhaps so, but we are cutting down. That is the point. It is on that basis that

I am willing to vote for it at all, because he will do more work. Consequently we are reducing his salary.

Mr. BOWDLE. If that is the principle I have not anything to say.

Mr. HART. Mr. Chairman, in proposing the sum of two thousand dollars for the treasurer I have in mind the large bond he will be required to give, if he has to go among his friends and solicit them to become his bondsmen. It is a matter that is worth something; or if he chooses another method and gets a bond from a surety company it would cost him a large part of the one thousand dollars to get his bond for the year. I do not know just what it might cost him if he should adopt that method, but I imagine it would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of four or five hundred dollars. It is certain that the treasurer will be able to make out of that office just about what he wants, even though we have a penalty. Like Mr. Varian of Salt Lake, I am not in favor of farming out public moneys, such as would be suggested by the remarks of Mr. Ricks. I think that you should give him such a salary as will compensate him for the bond that he has to give for the great responsibility attaching to the office, and prevent a possibility of his farming out the moneys even though you have to have a penalty. If he is not getting sufficient out of the office, he will make it up in some way, and if he was interested {1026} in that kind of work there will always be just such cases when there is a proposition to draw money out of the treasury, will be to his interest to hold it back, and there is a great chance for quibble on whether a sum of money should be paid out or not. He always has it within his power to hold back on some technicality or another instead of paying money out. I am, therefore, in favor of the main proposition.

Mr. THURMAN. Mr. Chairman, I trust the amount we put in the bank will not exceed two thousand dollars. If that is all that the treasurer under the territorial law has been getting, it is all that we may hope the people of the State are going to be willing to vote for him to have. If there is any one thing that