of coordinating the work of the various
committees to the greatest possible extent.
To further this effort at coordination and
to keep the Convention operating as
smoothly as possible, your officers plan to
have brief daily meetings among themselves
and, in addition, will meet regularly once
a week with the chairmen and vice-chair-
men of committees. There will also be meet-
ings of the professional staff at regular
intervals. Suggestions from any of you to
aid further in coordinating the work of the
Convention or of its committees will be
gratefully received.
The chairmen of the committees at our
meeting week before last agreed to present
the draft constitution recommended by the
Constitutional Convention Commission as
proposals to the Convention. Each article
or other appropriate subdivisions of the
draft constitution will be submitted as a
separate proposal. There are 16 such pro-
posals which are being introduced today by
the chairmen of the respective committees
at the request of the Constitutional Conven-
tion Commission.
On behalf of each chairman, I want to
point out that the introduction of a pro-
posal by him does not indicate that he per-
sonally either agrees or disagrees with the
provisions of the proposal. The introduction
by the chairman is merely a means of
placing the draft constitution recommended
by the Constitutional Convention Commis-
sion formally before the Convention.
Each delegate has heretofore received a
copy of the interim report of the Constitu-
tional Convention Commission. Each of you
should have received this morning a copy
of the final report of the Constitutional
Convention Commission, Chapters III and
IV of which are the same as the interim
report which you heretofore received. The
remaining four chapters and appendix will,
it is hoped, furnish much additional valu-
able information for the delegates. It is
intended that these reports shall be used by
you as working documents and whatever
number of copies you may desire will be
available for you so that you may mark
up your present copies in any way you
choose. The copy of the report which you
received this morning is paperbound, but
within the next week or two each delegate
will receive an additional copy of the report
bound in more durable cloth.
The program which I have outlined can-
not be achieved easily. I know of no meth-
od or procedure by which our goal can be
reached except by patient, persistent and
unremitting toil. There is no high speed, |
easily traveled freeway available to us but
only the winding, twisting, tortuous and
narrow road of concentrated effort, at times
rutted with despair, beset with curves
around which we cannot see too clearly and
requiring courage and boldness to travel,
but leading us ever onward and upward
until we reach the peak of completion when
we can see laid out in its entirety, as
though a panorama viewed from a moun-
taintop, a constitution which we can gladly
recommend to the people of the State of
Maryland, a constitution to which we will
all be honored to subscribe our names, and
a constitution which will not only be
adopted by the people of the State of Mary-
land, but proudly accepted by them as their
basic law for the present and the foresee-
able future. I pledge to you my complete
dedication to this purpose.
(Applause.)
The next item on the agenda is a report
of the Committee on Rules, Credentials and
Convention Budget. The Chair recognizes
Delegate Alfred L. Scanlan, Chairman of
that Committee.
DELEGATE SCANLAN: Mr. President,
we have filed with the Acting Secretary and
the Acting Chief Clerk the original of our
report. Due to difficulties with the repro-
duction facilities, quite beyond the control
of the Committee, I understand that copies
are not yet on the desks of the delegates.
I do not know what the pleasure of the
Chair would be, but I would suggest that
since under the rules, Rule 64 [68]* spe-
cifically, the Committee's recommendations
could not be considered by the Convention
until two session days had passed, that the
matter lay over until the appropriate spot
on the agenda on Thursday, at the Thurs-
day meeting of the Convention; that is, if
the report is distributed to the delegates
before today's session is ended, audit it is
not, then I suppose we must lay it over
until Friday, but I put this problem to the
Chair and would abide by whatever the
Convention would like to do. I do not think
the Convention would want me to attempt
to explain a report that it does not have
before it, and for that reason, I think we
ought to lay it over, either until Thursday,
if they get it today; and if the Delegates
do not get it until tomorrow, that the mat-
ter be laid over until Friday.
THE PRESIDENT: The Chair will re-
ceive the report. It will be placed on the
The number in brackets refers to the
final number assigned to the rule in Rules
of the Constitutional Convention of Maryland, |
