work in this project, and we expect that a convention will be called
to draft a new Constitution in 1967—the one-hundredth birthday of
the present constitutional document.

A third step in the modernization plan is the updating and reorgani-
zation of the executive arm of government whose responsibility it is
to carry out public policy and provide a vast range of services to the
people. There are at present 105 executive departments, commissions
and other special operations established by law. There are another
43 special commissions, making nearly 150 in all. Many of these have
come into being haphazardly over many decades. Some of the agencies
are overlapping, others are obsolete. The administrative machinery
of State government is badly in need of overhauling, and just a few
days ago I set up a commission of distinguished Maryland citizens to
study and propose a plan for the modernization of the administrative
organization.

When I leave the office of Governor next January, after occupying
it for eight years, I expect to leave to my successor a State government
in sound financial condition, with a triple-A credit rating. I intend
that he shall find government services and government programs ade-
quately financed and operating smoothly according to plan. I intend
that he shall find State institutions amply staffed, amply equipped and
performing in a satisfactory manner the functions they were established
to perform. These are some of the things that I shall leave as a legacy
to the people of Maryland, with the hope and the prayer that they will
be used for the enrichment of their lives through better government.

ADDRESS, CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
REFERENDUM WORKSHOP

BALTIMORE
July 19, 1966

Judge Gray, Attorney General Finan, Mr. Eney, members of the
Constitutional Convention Commission and of the Citizens Committee
on the Constitutional Convention Referedum, ladies and gentlemen:

It is exceedingly gratifying to me to see this display of interest in
a question of great importance to the people of Maryland—the calling
of a convention to revise our State Constitution. As all of you know
here, I am sure, this is a matter in which I have a great personal

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