182 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

you who would write my epitaph prematurely, inscribe these words
if you please: that it is a finer thing by far to be remembered as the
Governor who served the best than as the Governor who served the
longest.

It is a popular thing to talk about saving money in government
and we know many in public life today who exploit this theme to the
fullest. But many of these self-proclaimed protectors of the budget
fail to recognize that spending is good when it buys progress and evil
only when wastefully dispensed. In Annapolis today there is a leader-
ship determined to invest in the war against pollution, crime, igno-
rance and frustration but just as equally determined to save money in
aggressively combating waste, duplication, inefficiency and bureauc-
racy. We have set up the Task Force on Modern Management to
examine the worth of every program, the importance of every job,
the reason for every dollar spent by government. And if this task force
performs in the manner of those in New York, Ohio and Washington
State, where millions upon millions of dollars have been saved, the
citizens of Maryland are going to get more for their money than ever
before!

While we in government propose to serve you better — you, my
friends — will prepare to write history — a new constitution for the
State of Maryland.

On June 13th, you are going to elect delegates to a Constitutional
Convention and on May 14th, 1968, you will be asked to vote your
approval of a new set of governing laws. You are going to decide
whether our State will give more powers to governors or less, elect
more officials to serve or less. You will decide whether Maryland is to
have a bicameral or unicameral legislature, a unified or loosely com-
posed statewide judiciary, a restricted State debt or a free one, and
to what extent regulatory powers and taxing authority should be
vested in local governments. If the matter of writing a new constitu-
tion appears to you, in describing some of its technical aspects, some-
what theoretical and removed from the practical realm of down-to-
earth working government, let me assure you that the very opposite
is the case. The Constitution is not only the supreme and most im-
portant law of our State, but sets the moral, philosophical and legal
basis for every protection you enjoy and every right and privilege
that your government provides.

Of the 142 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, four will be
chosen to represent Allegany County and one more will represent
Garrett County.