policies which a governor may have been
elected to put into effect. We can hold such
a chief executive responsible for his ac-
tions and those of his appointed subordi-
nates provided we give him power to
appoint the competent and to remove the
incompetent.
Our increasingly difficult problems of
crime and juvenile and adult delinquency
will not be solved by the constitution we
draft, but we can in the constitution pro-
vide the cornerstone which will form a
basis for the solution of those problems.
I firmly believe that crime and delinquency
can be controlled if we have widespread
respect for the law by citizens in every
social and economic strata.
We can have such widespread respect for
the law if we provide in the constitution
for a judicial system capable of adminis-
tering justice—justice as between the state
and the individual and justice as between
man and man—speedily, efficiently and with
finality; but, to do this, we must provide
at every level of the judicial system judges
who are trained in the law, judges who
are not only not mediocre or barely quali-
fied, or even highly qualified, but judges
at every level of the judicial system who
are the best available—the best of the best.
We must provide a system which will
create courts that are unmistakably courts
so that every person knows when he enters
the courtroom that he is in a court of law
of the State of Maryland, regardless of
whether it be the lowest court of our sys-
tem hearing a traffic case or the highest
court of our State hearing argument on an
intricate question of law. If we do this, we
will go a long way towards inculcating in
every citizen a deep and abiding respect
for the law.
We must also bring the government re-
sponsible for supplying the everyday needs
of the citizen—police protection, fire pro-
tection, schools, water, sewers, garbage col-
lection and similar needs, closer to the
people, and at the same time we must
recognize that the needs for these services
transcends local and artificial geographic
boundaries, and that local government en-
compasses much more than the municipal
and county governments with which we are
familiar. We can do this by providing in the
constitution the means by which other local
governments capable of solving these prob-
lems can be formed and established and be
granted the necessary powers.
We must also not forget the individual
and his rights and liberties. Many say that |
a declaration of rights in a state constitu-
tion is an anachronism, that the needed
protection of the individual is furnished by
the federal constitution and need not be
reaffirmed in a state constitution. From this
I dissent. It seems to me that it is essential
that the document which creates and defines
and provides the power of our state and
local governments should also define and
state with clarity and directness and empha-
sis those individual rights and liberties
which those governments cannot and shall
not transgress.
Now, how can we achieve these lofty
objectives? Certainly they cannot be real-
ized merely by their enunciation. The in-
spired speech, the neatly turned phrase,
the eloquence of an earlier Webster or
Clay or a modern-day Churchill, the pro-
fundity of a Burke, or even the inspired
genius of a Madison, a Hamilton, or a
Jefferson alone will not achieve these ob-
jectives or write a constitution for this
Convention. The task can be performed,
the desired result can be achieved only by
the unremitting, grinding, grueling, ex-
acting, time-consuming toil of each and
every one of the 142 delegates to this Con-
vention.
To aid in accomplishing this purpose, the
Convention has been divided into commit-
tees as provided by the Rules adopted on
July 11, 1967. I have to the best of my
ability made assignments to these com-
mittees with the single-minded purpose of
providing the best possible committee or-
ganization for the Convention. In doing so,
I do not doubt that I have irritated some
and disappointed other delegates. For this
I am sorry and I sincerely trust that any
of you disappointed in receiving the com-
mittee assignment which he sought will
nevertheless put his shoulder to the wheel
and give his all, and I am confident that
you will.
To assist the committees as much as
possible, we are in the process of providing
as capable a staff as we can recruit. Each
committee will have assigned to it a full-
time staff adviser—a person who has the
educational background and the practical
experience to enable him to assist the
chairman in planning and guiding the work
of the committee and to counsel with and
aid the committee in its hearings, in its
deliberations and in its drafting. There
will also be assigned to each committee a
full-time administrative assistant whose
duties will be to relieve the chairman and
the staff adviser of the purely administra-
tive functions such as scheduling hearings,
notifying persons of postponed hearings, |
