The way in which state officers are elected.

is only upon charges properly made and sustained after hearing. While the Governor's exercise of this jurisdiction is not subject to review, he in his province, like the highest court of the State in its province, must not act capriciously or arbitrarily, but in accordance with the rules and principles governing his authority. The Governor is as much bound to support our constitutional system of local government so far as it provides for the local choice of officers, as he is to remove officers clearly proved to be guilty of serious neglect or misconduct. The Governor has no right to use his power of removal to assert his preferences or to attempt even temporarily to impose his will upon the community which has chosen its officer. The appeal to him is the necessary check to secure responsible government and must be justified by proof of such dereliction as may be sufficient to make removal of the elected officer consistent with our fundamental principles of local self-government.

173. The Method of Selecting State Officers *

Although recent tendencies in state constitutional development would seem to indicate that the American people had settled upon popular choice as the best method of selecting the more important state officials, the question cannot be said to have been decided satisfactorily. Popular election and appointment by the governor were discussed at length in the Kentucky constitutional convention of 1890.

MR. MCHENRY. I do not believe, after the experience we have had in Kentucky in regard to our late Treasurer, that the people care to elect a Treasurer again. I think the money is safer in the hands of an appointee of the Governor. The people of Kentucky elect a man; they never see him. Tate [a defaulting treasurer] lived in Frankfort here, and they never saw him in my county where we have five thousand voters. We voted for him nine consecutive times. The people took him upon trust, because he was nominated by the political party to which a majority of the people belonged. They believed him to be honest and elected

him because he was the nominee of their party; and yet the result was that he was a defaulter finally, and was a rascal, I presume, from the time he was first elected. I mean to say we are really not qualified to select a man for Treasurer of the State. The majority of the people do not know and cannot know of the qualifications of the man who is running for office. In my county there were not fifty men who knew Tate. He never put his foot in the county, and there were not fifty men in the county who had ever seen him. The remedy I propose is that we make the Governor of the State morally responsible for the money. I do not mean to make him legally responsible, but only morally. We have never made a mistake in electing a Governor of Kentucky. We have always elected men of high character and integrity, and if such a man is to be held morally responsible for the finances, he will see to it that the treasury is honestly managed. By this we give the Governor such power that he can turn this Treasurer out whenever he sees proper to do so. My amendment goes to that extent that he shall hold his office simply during the pleasure of the Governor, and if the Governor finds out, not absolutely or certainly, or to such an extent as would authorize an impeachment, but if the Governor understands that the Treasurer of the State is dealing in margins, or buying stocks or bonds, or investing in booms, then I take it for granted that the Governor, whose integrity and high character are involved, would change the State Treasurer.

I do not mean to say that the people elect dishonest men, but we are more apt to put a rascal in the Treasury Department, where he goes through a political convention log-rolling votes from one end of the State when he lives in another. Then, when by his shrewdness and astuteness he carries the convention, he is elected by the people. He will be elected, however dishonest he is, for the people do not know it. We have this sad experience in Kentucky and in other states, and I do say that if the gentlemen had debated this before their constituents when they were candidates for the position they now hold, I think they would have found that a majority of the people of Kentucky are in favor of the position

The voters scrutinize the minor

do not

state offices.

An argument for elective officers.

I assume, or something similar to it. The people want their money safe, and if anybody can suggest any better way than I have done, I will be perfectly willing to have that put in place of my amendment. This puts behind the Treasurer the high character of the Governor. We always elect good Governors. The political parties do not look at the character of the minor officers as they do at the character of the Governor. They do look at the integrity and high character of the Governor, and no man who has not a reputation from one end of the State to another can ever be nominated by any political party for Governor of the State. When we put our money under the surveillance of the Governor, he can say, "I have suspicion that this man is dealing in margins, or buying stocks or bonds, and the State is taking the risk of whether he wins or loses in his gambling, and I will turn him out. I do not want my character to go down with his." . . .

MR. HANKS. I believe the voters of this Commonwealth are competent to elect their Treasurer. I know full well that they are able to elect a Governor, and, by the way, as was said yesterday, we have universally elected a good one without one exception. If the people of Kentucky are capable of electing a good Governor, I think they are capable of electing a good Treasurer. As I have said, I was sincere in believing that the Delegate from Ohio was jesting about it. I cannot imagine his object, if he was sincere. I do not believe that the people of Kentucky will go back to the appointive system. They will not do it. They cannot do it. They ought not to do it. They ought to keep the power to elect all the officers of the Commonwealth in their own hands, and grasp it tight. Keep the right and power to elect and control by legislative enactments the actions of all the officers of the Commonwealth. We should adhere to that with great tenacity, because power will grow. The strength of men in power increases. Hold them as it were in the hollow of your hand, so that they can be controlled by the people of the Commonwealth, to whom the Government belongs.

MR. COX. When the right of the great masses of the people

is endangered, let us seek a remedy, and that remedy is found in the exercise of the elective franchise in conformity with statutory or organic law. I say here, taking the history of Kentucky as the evidence upon which we should base our judgment, sitting as a jury to decide this great case under the evidence given in the history of our State, we must unquestionably say that the appointing power has proved a failure, and that we must maintain our rights by securing to the people that sovereignty, that right, that power to which they are justly entitled. Now, I find a strong feeling in this Convention to give to the Governor of this Commonwealth vast and almost unlimited power, to make him a sort of autocrat here for four years. Some delegates are urging that he must appoint Judges of the Courts, that he should appoint all the State officers at this Capital. If that is right, why not take another step down? Let him appoint our County Court Judges, let him appoint our County Court and Circuit Court Clerks, let him appoint our magistrates; yes, let him become the mighty ruler in this great Commonwealth, clothed with that power which alone belongs to the people, and which every lover of liberty in America should cherish. Yes, give him one power, and soon he will step forward and ask for an increase of that power. I love our form of Government. I love it for its glory, its beauty and its grandeur. I love it for what it has accomplished; but while I love it, I loathe in the deepest recess of my heart any effort whatever that will go in the direction of taking from the people of Kentucky the right to choose their officers. I hold the taking of such a right from them is an innovation of the right which every man in this broad land should cherish. Let us, gentlemen of this Convention, maintain our rights. Let us stand up boldly and let no man rob us of a single right.

MR. BULLITT. This is simply a business question. I think all this gush about the rights of the people to control the matter has but little to do with it. It is a simple matter of business how we shall guard the money that has been gathered for the administration of the government of the State. The Committee thought that the

The danger the governin increasing

or's power.

Administraof business.

tion a matter

Powers of

in relation

best way to guard our money was to make the treasurer ineligible to succeed himself. According to the information I get from the newspapers, the Treasurers of the States of Mississippi, Maryland and some other states, as well as the treasurer of the State of Kentucky, had adopted the habit of using the State money for the purpose of securing their succeeding election. Now, all must admit that this is an evil. . . . Master Commissioners have made use of moneys to secure the election of the judge who would appoint them, and the treasurer might use the same method to secure the election of a Governor. Therefore, the safest and best business plan was to make him ineligible for a second election, or to succeed himself; and by making him ineligible to succeed himself we withdraw from him every inducement to make use of the State money to re-elect himself.

174. The Growth of Executive Influence *

Mr. Gamaliel Bradford, an eminent publicist and careful observer of American institutions, thus describes what he regards as one of the marked tendencies of American political evolution in recent years:

Even contemporaries are able to note the beginnings of silent the executive innovation. Of all of its bearings, they may be but dimly aware, to legislation. yet they can see that a real change is slowly taking place. One such lies upon the surface of English politics to-day, and is clearly discernible in our own. We mean the greatly heightened powers of the executive government, in what relates to legislation. In England, the initiative of private members of Parliament has almost entirely disappeared. All the important bills are now government measures, and the government is claiming and getting more and more of the time of the House of Commons. This is a profound change, and represents an entire dislocation of the literary theory of the British Constitution, a hundred and twenty years ago.

But a similar alteration of inherited practice is rapidly invading this country also. The Executive as Legislator is now a familiar