Officers to-day, because it was he who offered the resolution in that meeting that was unanimously approved by those nine hundred and seventy Republicans. He is executing a mandate. He is carrying out policy. He is fulfilling a pledge to the people. The time went on and the following winter, in the Assembly of 1914, a new resolution was introduced following the terms of this resolution of the mass meeting, following the terms of the Hughes-Wadsworth resolution of 1910, providing that all these state officers except the governor and lieutenant-governor should be appointed. That resolution passed the Assembly and every Republican in the Assembly voted for it. It never came to a vote in the Senate. Voting for that resolution were four members of the Assembly, who now sit in this convention-Mr. Bockes, Mr. Eisner, Mr. Hinman and Mr. Mathewson.

Time passed on and in the autumn of 1914 a Republican Convention met at Saratoga; an unofficial convention, we are told. Unofficial? Negligible! Here is the law under which it was called, Section 45 of the Election Law:

"Nothing contained in this chapter shall prevent a party from holding party conventions to be constituted in such manner and to have such powers in relation to formulating party platforms and policies and the transaction of business relating to party affairs as the rules and regulations of the party may provide, not inconsistent with the provisions of this chapter."

That convention was thus called more specifically and solemnly to frame a platform than any other convention that ever met in this state-for that was its sole business. That is what it was there for to define, to declare, to set before the people the faith and policies of the Republican party, and in that convention there was a report from the Committee on Rules, which embodied deliberation, full discussion and mature judgment such as no report that ever came to a political convention within my experience ever had. The great mass meeting of December 5, 1913, had directed the appointment of a Committee of Thirty to meet and consider and prepare for submission to the convention a statement of the views of the Republican party regarding the new constitution. That committee was appointed; it met two or three days before the convention in the City of Saratoga. It met in the office of my friend Mr. Brackett, and there day after day it discussed the

subject, reached and voted upon its conclusions and framed a report.

Let me say here, that Senator Brackett never agreed with the committee. He has been consistent and honest and open in the declaration of his views from first to last, but he was voted down in the Committee of Thirty. Their report favoring a short ballot, among other things, was presented to the convention. That report was referred to the Committee on Resolutions of the Convention, a committee of forty-two members. Among them were twelve members of this convention, and that Committee on Resolutions took up the report of the Committee of Thirty and discussed it all day and they voted upon it, and again Mr. Brackett's view was voted down, and the Committee on Resolutions reported to the convention the plank in favor of the short ballot that has been read to you.

MR. BRACKETT-Will the Senator permit an interruption? I know you have not intentionally made a misstatement, but you will recall that a report of the Committee of Thirty was not presented to the Committee on Platform until an hour before the convention, in the little room at the end of the piazza-before the convention met.

THE PRESIDENT-It is a fact, and that room was the scene of excited and hot controversy for a long period over the adoption of that report, which was in part adopted and in part rejected. MR. BRACKETT-If you will pardon a suggestion, you said for a long period. It was, I think, about an hour and a half.

MR. DEYO-Will the gentleman give way? I think that lasted until the following day.

MR. ROOT-It did.

Now, when it came to the convention, there was no doubt about the subject we were talking on. The temporary chairman of the convention had said to the convention: "The reflections which arise from considering the relations of the executive and the legislature lead inevitably to another field of reform in state government. That is the adoption of the short ballot. That is demanded both for the efficiency of our elective system, and the efficiency of government after election." And then, after stating the first, he proceeded: "The most obvious step toward simplifying the ballot in this state is to have the heads of executive departments appointed by the governor, etc. *** Still more important

would be the effect of such a change upon the efficiency of government. The most important thing in constituting government is to unite responsibility with power, so that a certain known person may be definitely responsible for what ought to be done; to be rewarded if he does it, punished if he does not do it, and that the person held responsible shall have the power to do the thing. Under our system we have divided executive power among many separately elected heads of departments, and we have thus obscured responsibility, because in the complicated affairs of our government it is hard for the best informed to know who is to be blamed or who is to be praised, who ought to be rewarded and who punished. At the same time that the governor is empowered to appoint the heads of executive departments and made responsible for their conduct, there ought to be a general reorganization of the executive branch of our government."

After that, Mr. Chairman, came the report of the Committee on Resolutions, and Mr. Brackett submitted a minority report, taking substantially the position which he has taken here. That minority report was read, and it was argued at length. Amendments were offered and discussed. Mr. Brackett, I repeat, was heard at length upon it in what he called the "great council of the party" the convention elected and organized to make a platform, and he was beaten; beaten fighting manfully for his opinions, but he was beaten. The Republican party went to the people at the coming election upon the declaration that it was in favor of applying the principle of the short ballot to the selection. of executive officers.

Now let me turn to the other side of the story. When the resolution for the short ballot, simon-pure, making all the state officers but the governor and lieutenant-governor appointive, was before the Assembly of 1914, Mr. A. E. Smith, the member of this convention whose attractive personality has so impressed itself upon every member, moved an amendment to limit the change to appointment of the secretary of state, state engineer and surveyor and state treasurer, leaving the comptroller and attorney-general elective. Upon that amendment the Democrats of the Assembly stood, voting with him. When the Democratic Convention met in that autumn they put themselves on Mr. Smith's platform, approved his action and that of the Democrats in the Assembly and declared in favor of exactly what he called

for in his amendment-the election of the comptroller and the attorney-general and the appointment of all the other officers.

So you have this movement, not coming up out of the dark, but begun by a great governor and advocated by a great speaker, both of whom have received the approval of their country, one by being elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States and the other to the Senate of the United States You have the movement progressing step by step until it has received the almost universal assent, the final and decisive action of the party to which that governor and that speaker belong, repeated over and over and over again, fully thought out and discussed; and you have the other party accepting the principle, agreeing to the application of it, with the exception of the comptroller and the attorney-general.

Now, we must vote according to our consciences. We are not bound-no legislative body is bound legally by a platform. But, Mr. Chairman, if there is faith in parties, if there is ever to be a party platform put out again, to which a man can subscribe or for which he can vote without a sense of futility, without a sense of being engaged in a confidence game; if all the declarations of principle by political parties are not to be regarded as false pretense, as humbug, as a parcel of lies, we must stand by the principles upon which we were all elected to this convention. There is one thing, and, in so far as I know, only one thing, that the vast majority of us have assured the people who elected us we would do in this convention, and that is that we would stand by the position of Hughes and Wadsworth. I, for one, am going to do it. If I form a correct judgment of the self-respecting men of this convention, it will be with a great company that I do it. But, Mr. Chairman, don't let us rest on that. Why was it that these conventions, one after another, four of them, declared to the people that they were for the principle of this bill? In the first place, our knowledge of human nature shows us that the thousands of experienced men in these conventions and meetings had come to the conclusion that that principle met with the opinion of the people of the state. It is all very well for Mr. Quigg to tell us what the men he met in Columbia County said, for Mr. Green to write letters to his friends in Binghamton, but nine hundred and seventy men in that mass meeting on the 5th of December told you what their observation was, that they would commend

their party to the people of this state by declaring this principle. A thousand and odd men in the Republican Conventions of 1912, 1913 and 1914 have given proof conclusive of what their observation of public opinion was. A thousand and odd men in the Democratic Convention of 1914 have given proof conclusive of what their observation of public opinion was. Conventions don't put planks in platforms to drive away votes.

Again I ask, why was it that they thought that these principles would commend their tickets to the people of the state? Why was it that the people of the state had given evidence to these thousands of experienced men in the politics of the state that those principles would be popular? Well, of course, you cannot escape the conclusion that it was because the people of the state found something wrong about the government of the state. My friend Mr. Brackett sees nothing wrong about it. He has been for fifteen years in the Senate; I suppose he could have stayed there as long as he wanted to. He is honored and respected and has his own way in Saratoga county. Why should he see anything wrong? My friend Mr. Green is comfortably settled in the Excise Department, and he sees nothing wrong. Mr. Chairman, there never was a reform in administration in this world which did not have to make its way against the strong feeling of good, honest men, concerned in existing methods of administration, and who saw nothing wrong. Never! It is no impeachment to a man's honesty, his integrity, that he thinks the methods that he is familiar with and in which he is engaged are all right. But you cannot make any improvement in this world without overriding the satisfaction that men have in the things as they are, and of which they are a contented and successful part. I say that the growth, extension, general acceptance of this principle shows that all these experienced politicians and citizens in all these conventions felt that the people of the state saw something wrong in our state government, and we are here charged with a duty, not of closing our eyes, but of opening them, and seeing, if we can, what it was that was wrong.

Now, anybody can see that all these 152 outlying agencies, big and little, lying around loose, accountable to nobody, spending all the money they could get, violate every principle of economy, of efficiency, of the proper transaction of business. Everyone can see that all around us are political organizations carrying on