PROPOSED CONSTITUTION 783

Questions from the Press

Q. Judge Hammond, you have been around longer than any of us.
Do you remember any similar get-together?

Judge Hammond: I do not. It's the first time to my knowledge that
this has occurred.

Senator James: It's the first time we've ever had a nonpolitical issue.
Speaker Mandel: We ought to do it more often.

Q. Governor, even with only 20 principal departments under the
proposed new Constitution, would it not still be necessary to have
a multitude of bureaus or sections or some such arrangement within
each department?

Governor: Well, I am sure that there's a requirement that there
will have to be subdepartments and agencies to meet the transitional
and ever-emerging needs of government, but the important part about
the new Constitution is that it takes away from the Governor the
necessity of being in immediate personal contact with so many agencies
and also allows him to act decisively and quickly to reform the State
government to meet modern conditions.

Q. Is there anything in the present Constitution which would pre-
vent your putting in bills or proposing things to reorganize the govern-
ment?

Governor: No, there isn't. But the tremendous amount of work
that's been done by the Convention in not only looking at the needs
of the new Constitution, but assessing the impact on other existing
laws, is something that should not be lost in a piecemeal amendment.
I think that it would be a very serious loss to the people of Maryland
if we were to attempt to make these amendments one by one.

Q. Judge Hammond, how do you feel that the Constitution will im-
prove the judicial branch?

Judge Hammond: I think the most important improvement and the
most fundamental improvement would be in the so-called district
courts, which would replace the magistrates' courts and the people's
courts because that's where they are said to be courts of limited juris-
diction. But they are courts of unlimited importance because 80 per-
cent of the people have their experiences firsthand with courts of that
kind. Presently we have a hodgepodge. We have jurisdictions of $100
in one county and a salary of $1, 500; we have jurisdictions of up to
$3, 000 in another county and a salary of $19, 000. I think it was Dele-
gate Hargrove who said that when you cross an imaginary line you've
lost the knowledge of practicing law.