factory or not? No one but the Governor. You may just as well let him remove in the first place. If you do not, you come back to the old cases of hearings which we have read of in the fables. We come back to the case of the wolf that stood upstream and asked the lamb down below what he was muddying the brook for. The lamb said "I am not muddying the brook, it runs from you to me." "Well, if it wasn't you, it was your father," the wolf said. Then there is the equally illustrative case of the old gentleman who said. "Hans, what are you thinking about?" Hans said, "I am not thinking about anything." "Yes you are, you are thinking about your tam old father, and I will lick you for that any way." The scandal of our removals under that sort of situation is that a man is not only removed but he is slandered. The game of talk which is indecent starts up, just as in the old Puritan days. When the Puritans discovered corn fields that the Indians had with infinite labor cleared up, grubbed out and planted with corn, there came a meeting and the meeting "Resolved, that the earth is the Lord's and the substance thereof. Further resolved, that the Lord's substance belongs to His people. Further resolved, that we are His people." Now that is the line of action. If the Governor gets an eye on an office which is worth something, which is a particular one he wants, he immediately starts an investigation and all sorts of questions are asked of this man. He is harassed by counsel, and he is chased up and down and the newspapers slander him and finally enough has been done to satisfy the Governor that the young man he has in mind should be appointed. Let us cut all of that out. Let us come direct between the two points, and if we are satisfied that the Governor should remove, let him remove. If not, let somebody else besides the Governor pass upon the sufficiency of the reasons that are alleged. Now the people have, I am satisfied, from conversation and from things I have heard outside of these halls, a great deal more respect for the brains of this Convention, than they have for some of its motives. They have an idea that for years there has been a sort of feeling in the dark for their throats. This Convention is about to put the right of the Governor supreme, about to put the chief officer and the places from the head right on down through into his hands. We have attempted to put in his hands the initiation of all expenditures, the control through the appointive officers of all taxation, the increase of salaries for all favorites, the complete authority as to whether any bridge will be built, or what-not, shall be made.

The Chairman-Will the gentleman please suspend. The Chair calls attention to the hour and desires to know the will of the committee.

Mr. Ostrander-Mr. Chairman, I have but a word or two further.

this question on the principle that is involved. But, first, I want to try to clear away some cobwebs. Mr. Chairman, some years ago, camping on the shores of a Canadian lake in the Far Rockies, early one morning my guide and I took a canoe to paddle to a stream, the entrance to which was very narrow, but where there were a great many deep holes in which the trout live. Just as we got to the entrance of this stream I saw a most bewildering sight. A gigantic cobweb, certainly 25 to 30 feet in circumference, attached to a tree on one side and a tree on the other, attracted my attention. The dews of the night before had gathered in little beads on this cobweb, it seemed a million of them, and the peeping sun had glinted every one of them so that there was this great expansion of cobweb with, it seemed, a million diamond gems. I was entranced by the sight. It looked beautiful. The guide paddling in the stern of the canoe just as we were about to enter the stream, checked the canoe, and I turned around to see what he was doing it for. He pointed forward, as I thought at the cobweb, but as he allowed the canoe to move along very slowly and penetrated the cobweb, there on a rock a little ways beyond I saw what he was pointing at a great big mountain lion.

Now I see some cobwebs across the entrance of the stream into which we are adventuring and I suspect there may be a mountain lion beyond. First, before describing the mountain lion, I want to see whether I can clear away some of the cobwebs. The first cobweb is this talk that Mr. Tanner gave us this afternoon about the platform. Now, so far as ancient platforms are concerned, they will not bind me here. By ancient platforms, I mean any that was not made in contemplation of this Assembly. Don't talk about 1912 or 1913. I am thinking about now, and 1912 or 1913 will not bind my conscience. I was elected after that and under different conditions. As to the platform that was adopted, by the assembly of gentlemen who gathered in Saratoga in 1914 and who forgot to ask me to be present with them, I have only to say that they came together without benefit of clergy. They were not an authorized body under our laws. They were brought together after conventions had been discarded, and I attach to their opinion the value that I attach to the opinion of so many excellent persons who were brought unauthorizedly together, to whom I did not have opportunity to present my views. Now I know they were strong men; I know they were able men, but I am certain that they made a mistake in advising this proposal.

Mr. Tanner-Are you not aware that that was the convention that named the 15 delegates-at-large to this Convention?

Mr. Quigg Oh yes; that is how you got here, and I got here from a popular proposal on the part of three counties. Now, Mr.

Chairman, in speaking of what that assembly of excellent persons, and I mean persons whose opinions should be respected, Mr. Tanner quoted in full this afternoon their remarks about the short ballot. He referred, fairly enough, to another paragraph of their opinion. I agreed with that other paragraph and I want to read in identical terms the words they said: "The delegates to the State Constitutional Convention should be at liberty to approach every constitutional question with an open mind and to vote thereon as their individual judgment and conscience may dictate to be for the best and permanent interests of the people of the State. This Convention disclaims either the right or the desire to embarrass the freedom of action which ought to belong to either delegate." Now that part of the opinion of these unauthorized gentlemen, I heartily approve and, feeling it my duty to the large number of voters who preferred to have me on the ticket than someone else, I must say here just what I think about this proposal. Now, there is another cobweb right in front of that and I blame the newspapers for it. I know that we live in an age of newspaper government largely, and are bound to. I recognize that the newspapers, with their tremendous circulations, can have tremendous influence upon public opinion, and I think they have got into the public mind the notion of what they have represented to be the short ballot. But what I say is that they have not represented it clearly and fairly. The people of this State are only now beginning to wake up to what this short ballot misnomer really means. They do not yet understand that it means that they are not to be allowed to vote for the officers that they have been accustomed to vote for. Their idea of it is that it is simply a more convenient form of voting, that it means a shorter piece of paper, a more convenient form of expressing their will. They are only now beginning to wake up to the fact that it means that their right to vote, their opportunity to vote for their officers, their chance to nominate them, is to be taken away from them. Only about now are they beginning to see that point, and the newspapers have kept it back from them. Now, Mr. Chairman, I know that is so, because as I go about in my own town since this subject has come up, man after man has asked me about it, and I have told him that it means that he is to vote in the State election only for the governor and the lieutenant-governor, and all other officers are to be appointed by the governor. That is not this bill; I am coming to that in a minute. But it is what Mr. Root said when he said that he was in favor of the short ballot, as the short ballot men understood it, and it is what the short ballot really means. Now, I have explained to them all that maybe some other officers will be included. The instant any voter I have talked with sees that it

means a limitation on his right to vote for the officers that he has been accustomed to vote for, he tells me that he is against it, and asks me to vote against it in this Convention. I say that it is not understood yet, and that if it becomes understood between now and the time when the people come to vote on this Constitution, there will be trouble for our Constitution. I do not say it will be defeated. Maybe there is not time for it, but it is a dangerous thing, and we have got to the point now where we ought to consider the dangerous things. Now, there is another cobweb ahead of that. There is pressure on this Convention to pass this bill. Not merely newspaper pressure. There is some of that, although, as I see the country newspapers, the Republican newspapers of the State, the clippings I am beginning to get from day to day, show they are raising questions about it; but there is a certain pressure. Now, added to that, comes another. I have seen Mr. Tanner quoted and the quotation has gone all over the State that he was going to bring to bear on this Convention all the power of his position as chairman of the Republican State Committee to pass this bill. Now he may not have said that. That makes no difference. He is Chairman of the Republican State Committee. He has done a magnificent work as Chairman of the Republican State Committee, a successful work, a work that gives us a great admiration for him. With the fervency of sincere friendship, I say, for myself - and I know for every other man in this Convention,- that I sincerely trust he will pick himself up out of what is probably a trivial trouble, but I know a tremendously annoying one, and come back to the Republican party to continue to be its chairman. He is chairman, he came here as chairman, and he was selected to be the chairman of the Committee on Governor and Other State Officers. It makes no difference whether he said it or not. Everybody knows that "the chairman of our State Committee" means. this bill, and that means something to the chairman of every county committee, to the chairman of the town committee. It means something to every election district captain throughout the State of New York. So the pressure is there, whether he said it or

not.

Mr. Tanner-Inasmuch as the delegate does not even state that he is referring to anything more than the persuasion of a rumor, I do not think that I will pay any attention to such a statement. The delegates of this Convention know perfectly wellMr. Quigg-I did not yield for a speech. If you have a question

The Chairman -The gentleman has yielded the floor.

Mr. Tanner The delegates of the Convention know whether