Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1914 — OOST OF A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION [ARTICLE]

OOST OF A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

TW« Could Be Paid Many Times Over by the Savings it Could Effect. The expense of the Undertaking is the objection most commonly made to the holding of a constitutional convention. Indeed, it is the only arguneat that has been seriously presented against the convention proportion. . The item of expense will honestly appeal to some timid souls. With Ute< main bulk of the opposition, however, It will be put forward as a connsesk for their more fundaflMPth! objections. The argument of

expansa, aavertheleaa, should MT answered. When the people of Indians decided in ISO that the old constitution of Ittt ou gut of date end thgt they needed % OWr constitution, they went •head sad held a convention, regardlees of obet. Yet the state was desperately poor then. The convention cost $85,683.05. The need of a convention is far greater now than then, and we are far better able to bear the expense. Surely it will cost more now, but it is a bigger job and of vitally more importance. The population of the state has more than trebled since then.

The Ohio convention of 191$ coet $570,000.00, according to the statement of Mr. Herbert 8. Bigelow, president of the convention. There is no reason why a convention in Indiana should cost more. This is a restively small sum considering that we are a state of more than 3,000,000 people — less than 10c a head. Segry legislative saftiOß fonts morg Utah this, and a noty^) artisan constitutional convention be worth more than a dozen legislative sessions in Its welfare results to the people. The cost of a convention at this time is the necessary and the inevitable cost of progress and growth. When our old corduroy and creek bottom roads passed out of date, we built modern highways and reckoned not the cost. We spent on roads and bridges in Indiana in the year 1911, $2,546,058,82. Our township road bonds outstanding Dec. 31, 1911, amounted to $23,441,352.37. The total disbursements of our state departments and state institutions alone for the year 1912 aggregated $10,995,008. The expenditures for county administration for 1911 were $10,642,488.84 and for towns and cities in the same year $15,060,962.76. Compared to these sums, what shall be said of the insignificant expense of $270,000.00 for a constitutional convention once In sixty-three years? A proper readjustment of our taxation system would effect a saving many times greater than this in a single year, and at the same time would place our enormous tax burden where it properly belongs. Against the tax situation alone, the expense argument is worth no consideration at all.

The improvement of our municipal government by an efficient modern system of home rule for cities would unquestionably result in a large annual reduction cost of administration. Experts have declared that the waste incident to our present political system of administration of city government amounts to from 10% to 50% per year. Using the lowest factor, a new constitution could he made the means of saving in a single year three times tlit? cost of the convention.

Incalculable saving to the people would he possible through a system of effective control of our public utilities, impossible under the present constitution. A single cent clipped oft from the monopoly made street car fare in our cities, for instance, would alone pay for several more constitutional conventions Reductions in gas and electric rates would provide the wherewithal for still more con ventions.

An effective workman’s compensation act. now so common in the other industrial states, would effect a large reduction in the cost of administering our courts, to say nothing of the vast sums it would divert from the pockets of the lawyers to the direct relief of the injured workers and their dependent families

But The more important public ben efits to come from a constitutional convention can not. and should not, be measured by dollars and cents standards. The progressive political and social legislation that would eventually results from it; the stimulus it would give to the study of public questions; the awakening of interest on the part of the people In the big problems of citizenship, are much the larger factors in this connection