206 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

the Constitutional Convention. The woman delegate will contribute
a truly new point of view — well-educated, community service oriented
and yet cognizant of the multi-faceted and complex problems of the
home and family. There is virtually no area in life that cannot bene-
fit from additional insight, broadened experience and individual cre-
ativity. Therefore, I have no doubt that the deliberations leading to
the 1968 constitution of the State of Maryland will be enhanced by
the feminine influence.

But the first responsibility and the last cannot be abrograted to the
delegates of the Convention. The first responsibility is up to you
and — as the first generation of Maryland women afforded this oppor-
tunity to participate in the writing and ratifying of a constitution —
I urge you to study the slate of candidates well, send your district's
finest representatives and give your most earnest attention to their
deliberations.

A vigorous leadership breaking with convention and an aroused
citizenry calling themselves to convention is the tone and temper of
these days. In my inaugural address I called for a new and abundant
energy to revitalize Maryland affairs and in light of what we have ac-
complished and what we are preparing now to initiate, that call has
been answered.

Progress to date, on the surface, has seemed relatively smooth and
effortless but in fact it has put many to agonies of reappraisal in terms
of what is right, and what is good, and what is just. There have been
some compromises in some programs for the sake of passage but not
one compromise in any program at the loss of principle. We have not
played at politics, we have worked at it. And the pursuit of excellence
in the first hundred days of the journey has not brought you promises
of future bridges to distant horizons — but the realization that those
bridges, conceptual and concrete, have been or soon will be con-
structed right here in Maryland, before your very eyes. Thank you
and good night.