Pingree Goes Too Far

Gov. Pingree has many traits worthy of admiration. He is a big, warm hearted man, absolutely fearless in his words and actions and undoubtedly has the interests of the people at heart. Yet with all this, he is almost too much of a dictator and is evidently not thoroughly imbued with the spirit of American government. He wants to be the whole thing. He would be governor, legislator and supreme court, or if not all three he would at least be governor and dominate the action of the other two co-ordinate branches of the government. Now, the constitution of the United States and of all the states recognizes the independence of these three branches of government. But Pingree who perhaps thinks the ideas of the statesmen who formed our constitution old fogy notions, does not recognize this independence. Not content with the power to execute the laws of the state, to recommend new laws and to veto what appears to him to be unwise laws he would have the legislators act as puppets to do his will. He would even dictate who should go to the United States senate. He also has a notion that his party is not to be trusted to pick out a suitable candidate for supreme court judge. He would go farther he would force the supreme court judges to answer all questions he puts to them on the penalty of losing their salaries if they failed to do so. If this keeps on the dictator may force an uprising of a thinking people with a demand for a new magna charta from their great overlord. When McKinley was governor of Ohio he had not even the veto power on the legislature. And yet Ohio got along very well although sometimes cursed with legislators that the good people of Michigan would not tolerate. The idea that the supreme court should pass upon the constitutionality of all laws before the governor signs them would be a good one if the wisdom of these judges could be on tap at all times and their knowledge and acuteness equal to that of the entire bar of Michigan. The trouble arises in the fact that any man, however learned, may overlook defects which are very palpable when once pointed out. Unconstitutional laws pass the inspection of ten of members of the legislature on the judiciary committees who are possessed of much legal acumen and yet these same men when the constitutional defects are pointed out will admit that they are fatal defects. The court enables every individual to raise the question of the infringement of his constitutional rights. And it would seem best to a layman that the court should not have prejudged his case. The. old way may of ten be troublesome but our American system of government is a system of checks and balances. The executive, legislative and judicial branches are co-ordinate and independent. Each acts as a check on the other and over all is the constitution.