Judge Higgins, the Vice-President of this Association for the Middle District of Tennessee, is present, and I will ask him to take the chair during the consideration of the next report.

Judge Higgins:-I am very much obliged to you. (Takes Chair as presiding officer). Gentlemen of the Convention, the first matter on the program is the report of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments, by Judge James H. Malone, Chairman.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL

AMENDMENTS.

BY HON. JAMES H. MALONE, CHAIRMAN.

Twenty years ago, at the meeting of this Association at Chattanooga in the summer of 1893, I read a paper before the Association advocating a new Constitution for Tennessee. I was surprised when the Association took immediate action thereon, and appointed a Committee to further the purposes of the paper, and which had several thousand of the article read, circulated throughout the State.

This movement culminated in an act passed by the legislature in 1897, under which the people voted in August of 1897, but rejecting the plan for a convention.

There was a combination of many powerful influences and political forces arrayed against any change in the organic law; and probably never were the purposes and motives of those interested in a movement of that character, more grossly misrepresented in the press, on the stump and especially by means of pamphlets, and the like, which were circulated in every nook and corner of the State. Having devoted to this purely pro bono publico work, much time and far more money than my means justified, I mentally resolved to leave the further fate of the movement to others, who had more time and money. However, fortune ruled otherwise, for over my very earnest protest I was appointed Chairman of a Committee of 200, appointed by the City of Memphis, the purpose of the Committee being to secure a revision of the Constitution.

Shortly prior to this, on November 26, 1911, at the request of the City Club (of which I was not a member), I had by

special request read a paper before it, styled "Why Tennessee Needs a New Constitution." The Committee of 200 went actively to work and sent out all over the State a large amount of literature to forward the movement, including some twenty thousand (20,000) copies of the article "Why Tennessee Needs a New Constitution," which is made a part of this report as Appendix "A" hereto.

WORK OF COMMITTEE OF 200.

In the meantime I was appointed Chairman of the State Bar Association Committee on revision of the Constitution, and endeavored to secure a meeting of the other members of the Committee, so as to work in conjunction with the Committee of 200, but was unsuccessful, the members of the Committee living. in different parts of the State.

I had appointed Mr. C. C. Hanson, Chairman of a subcommittee of seven, and he did a vast amount of work, as also did Judge R. M. Barton. Mr. R. O. Johnston was Secretary, and H. D. Hughey assistant secretary of the same committee, while Henry Loeb was Chairman of the finance committee.

The work of the Committee has borne good fruit, culminating in the passage of the present legislation (1913) of the two bills, formulated by the Committee of 200, with only some very slight modifications. Those bills were printed by the Committee in pamphlet form and several thousand copies thereof circulated.

In order to lay these bills (now acts of 1913) before the lawyers of Tennessee, they are made a part of this report as Appendix "B", as they appeared in pamphlet form, preceded by a prefatory report by the sub-committee, which prepared the

same.

To State Senator Hubert F. Fisher is due very great credit for the passage of these bills, but unfortunately the bills were not passed before the hegira of a part of the legislature of Tennessee to the State of Kentucky, which leaves the validity of the acts in great doubt, and as Governor Hooper holds that the bills were not legally passed, he will not issue his proclamation, in all probability, calling for the election in August, 1913, as required by the first act.

BILLS DRAWN ON THE OHIO PLAN.

These bills were drawn up upon, what for a better term, I will call the Ohio plan, a very conservative State like Tennessee, and I think an explanation of that plan and how it originated, would be of interest.

Ohio came into the Union with her first constitution in 1902, and adopted a new constitution in 1851, containing a provision that every twenty years the people could, under an act for that purpose, vote for a convention to propose a new constitution. Nevertheless it took many years of labor in Ohio to change the constitution of 1851.

In 1874, a convention presided over by Morrison R. Wait, afterwards Chief Justice of the United States, convened, having a very able membership, and a Constitution was formulated, but when submitted to the people to be voted on as a whole, it was rejected on account, it is said, of some unsatisfactory provisions with respect to taxation.

For many years the people of Ohio were unable to get any relief for admitted defects in the organic law, but finally a convention was called, not to write an entirely new constitution, but to formulate amendments to the constitution, all of the amendments to be submitted to a popular vote at one and the same time, but each amendment to be voted on separately by each elector. The convention sat for several month in 1912, and was addressed by President Taft, former President Roosevelt, and the most notable men of the Union; and as a result of their labors they formulated 32 amendments, which were submitted to and voted on by the people, in September, 1912, with the result that of the 32 proposed amendments, eight (8) were rejected and 24 adopted and now constitute a part of the Ohio constitution.

One feature of the Act calling for the convention for which Mr. Judson Harmon was largely responsible, was a provision forbidding nominations of members to the convention by any political party. On the other hand it was provided that any Eligible Citizen, who was called upon by a given percentage of the legal voters of his County, should be recognized as a candidate. The idea was to make this convention as near non-partisan as possible, and in this they were highly successful.

SHOP WORN ARGUMENTS NO LONGER APPLY.

No unbiased man of thought and reflection will deny that Tennessee stands woefully in need of various amendments to her organic law.

It is difficult to see how any reasonable man can object to amending the constitution upon the Ohio plan.

The old shop worn arguments that the times are not propitious because of political unrest; that the prohibitionists will get control of the convention, or the whiskey people will get control, or the railroads will get control, or the populists will get control, or the Republicans will get control, or the Democrats, will get control-(all of which we have heard proclaimed for years, but usually by men who had some ulterior motive therefor)—will not apply now, because the convention will only propose amendments, while each lord of creation in Tennessee, eligible to vote, can write his fiat, favorable or unfavorable, upon each separate amendment, with no one to molest or make him afraid.

PRESTIGE OF TENNESSEE LOWERED.

I can not close this report without calling attention to a severe shock to the pride and prestige of Tennessee and Tennesseans which we suffered only a few days since, when financiers of the country turned down a proposed sale of Tennessee bonds, for the purpose of refunding your State debt, which would not have occurred, except for the clause in your constitution with respect to taxation, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, by a vote of three to two, in a recent decision.

The legislature enacted that the new State bonds should be exempt from State, County and City taxation, a principle of public policy with respect to taxation recognized as correct by all enlightened governments. But such principles weighed nothing with Tennessee organic law as interpreted.

as

When we reflect that the statute laws of Tennessee invites the widows and orphans of Tennessee to invest their usually small patrimonies in State bonds, as the safest and best investment, that these bonds are only bearing three (3) per cent interest at the present time, and it is proposed that hereafter they shall only

bear say four and a half (42) per cent interest, while State, County and City taxation usually exceeds three (3) per cent, and the bonds cannot be exempt from taxation by law, the utter folly of the situation is so apparent as to need no comment.

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH TENNESSEE?

We are over-fond of bragging about the untold millions of dollars in value of mineral wealth locked up in the bosom of Tennessee soil; and it is true that in mineral wealth as well as agricultural possibilities it has few rivals in the Union; and yet so poor was its showing in the last census report of the United States Government, that an article appeared in a leading New York daily headed "What is the matter with Tennessee?" which went the rounds of the press of the country, to our humiliation and chagrin.

Yes, the wealth is here but locked up, and it seems we have not the ingenuity or the aptitude to open this door of wealth and let it flow among the people to their enrichment and to answer the question-"What is the matter with Tennessee?"

And likewise the early history of Tennessee reads like a page torn from the book of romance. Its early settlers were the hardy men who under Sevier, the first Governor of Tennessee, crossed the mountains and met the columns of Lord Cornwallis on Kings Mountain, and with their squirrel rifles, achieved a victory, said to have been the turning point of the great war of independence. Upon Tennessee soil was instituted the first distinctly republican form of Government upon the continent of America. Jefferson said that the constitution framed by the pioneers of 1796, was the best that had appeared up to that time. As the State grew in years it grew in real greatness as well, and furnished to the Union three Presidents, while not one State upon its borders, seven in all, ever furnished a single President to guide the destinies of the nation, excepting always Virginia, the Mother of States and of Statesmen. And so there were men and lawyers in Tennessee in 1834, and in 1870, with ability and sufficient prowess to answer the wants of their day and time. There were giants in those days at the bar as well as among the laymen. Has the posterity of those men