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THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Churchill
Murray?
DELEGATE E. C. MURRAY: I rose
to ask a question but the question has been
answered.
However, I would like to speak, if I
may, in favor of the motion.
THE CHAIRMAN: You may proceed.
DELEGATE E. C. MURRAY: The mo-
tion appears to be a sincere effort to com-
promise a situation that has bedeviled all
of us for two or three days. I have the
good fortune not to know what goes on, if
that which goes on outside is disadvan-
tageous or disgraceful. I rise solely upon
the basis of the piece of paper that is in
my hand, completely satisfactory, no, but
what compromise is?
I feel that those who differ with this
have gone a long, long way to reach a
compromise, and I favor it.
While I am on my feet, do I have another
minute, sir?
THE CHAIRMAN: You do.
DELEGATE E. C. MURRAY: I would
like to say this: The last speaker referred
to his race. I want to say that I am proud
of the attitude of the members of his race
whom I have met in this Convention, and
the positions they have taken. I think that
they are making tremendous and remark-
able progress in catching up with much
that they have been denied in the past.
Thank you.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in opposition?
Delegate Weidemeyer?
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: Mr.
President and members of the Convention:
I am sorry that I cannot share the optimism
that my fellow delegates from 6-C in Anne
Arundel share. Whenever a compromise is
made, somebody gets some benefit on both
sides, and this looks to me like one side is
getting all the benefit and the other side is
getting royally skinned.
As I see it, and as I suggested to the
good Chairman, we should change the name
of comptroller in this amendment to pay-
master, because if you look at this, what
duties does he have except to pay out
checks? What duty is there in there? Now,
if there is another amendment to put him
on the Board of Public Works, that does
not appease me either because the purpose
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in having a comptroller on the Board of
Public Works was to include on the Board
an elected official who had to collect the
taxes and deal with the public. He had to
listen to their gripes, and it was for that
reason that we held that when it came time
to expend money he probably would be a
little more conservative. This amendment
takes the heart out of everything. You talk
about compromise, but I do not call it a
compromise; I say it is a complete defeat.
To put an officer like this in the state
constitution is going against every precept
and concept that we had in formulating a
constitution. Just giving us the sap and
saying he is a constitutional officer, Mr.
President and members of the Convention,
does not please me. You are going against
everything that you stood for when you
said that you should not have anything in
the constitution that did not constitution-
ally belong there and have constitutional
dimensions. The governor and the legisla-
ture of this State can create this paymas-
ter that you create by this amendment and
you are not preserving the office of comp-
troller as an elected official except some-
body in name. We do not need an elective
paymaster for the State of Maryland. I
will have to go against this amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Adkins?
DELEGATE ADKINS: Mr. Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen of the Convention: I
have had occasion at another time during
the deliberations of this group to make
known my views regarding the questions
which have been under debate here for the
last couple of days. Those views were not
then lightly held, nor indeed are the views
which I now hold lightly held.
There comes a time, however, in the basic
debates on any major problem of this
magnitude when emotions are aroused,
when sides are chosen, when it becomes
necessary for reasonable men if progress is
to be made to attempt a sincere and delib-
erate reconciliation of those various, widely
held, strongly held, views.
I suggest to this Convention that that
time for us has come. We have all debated
these matters. We each know how we feel.
I suggest probably that none of our views
have basically been changed by anything
that has been said. What has been accom-
plished is the fact that this Convention
has been brought face to face with the
fact that it has not been able to agree. We
have not been able, as my Quaker friends
say, to arrive at a sense of the meeting.
It has, therefore, been necessary to reduce
these views on each side to the minimum on
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