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Show GRAND CANYON APPROPRIATION LOST. THE $52,000. appropriation for improvement of the State and Grand Canyon highway was vetoed with a big grist of other road appropriations; appro-priations; and while we regret sincerely this rebuff re-buff to the Grand Canyon road, we cannot reasonably reason-ably criticise the governor's action in this matter. When a legislature passes an appropriation bill carrying appropriations of nearly a million dollars more than the estimated revenue of the state, it is up to the governor to apply the knife somewhere, some-where, and possibly these road matters were of as little importance as any other items. At any rate, the chief blame rests with the legislature for saddling this -responsibility upon the governor's gover-nor's office;. We trust that the situation this year will serve as a wholesome lesson to future legislatures, legisla-tures, and that the appropriations will be kept 'within the estimated revenues of the state. The great trouble is that each senator and representative representa-tive goes to the legislature determined to get every dollar possible for his particular section, under some pretext or another, and in order to obtain support for their own pet measures, they have to "swap" votes with a number of other senators sen-ators or representatives and support all their pet appropriations. The consequence isthat in the aggregate these represent a greater expenditure than the revenues of the state can cover, yet none are willing to have their appropriations reduced, and it is left to the governor to exercise full discretionary dis-cretionary power, and the result this year is that the whole "batch"'.of special road appropriations was pruned from the appropriation bill. This, no doubt, to avoid a charge of showing partiality. |