vention will be dedicated to the liberties of the people of the New State. May I indulge the hope that in that temple will be placed a sacred shrine upon which, written o'er in letters of living light, will be placed a parchment scroll, the Magna Charta of the State of Oklahoma.

In the dissolution of the barriers which hitherto have severed and held our Territories in twain, may the elements of their light so commingle in an atmosphere of love that the vigils of the stars shall behold the halo of the dawn.

In the writing of "The Schedule" by which the bodily form of these our Territories is transfigured into statehood shall be transferred the full meed and unbounded measure of my affections.

Oklahoma has been kind to me. I was a stranger and she took me in. I was an hungered, and, of the corn of plenty, she gave me food. I was athirst and, of the wine of gladness, she gave me drink. Her years have been a measure of earth's jeweled glories and time's golden joys. Sweet tempered air, grandeur and softness of cloud, the almost terrifying bluff of threatened storms; showers shedding perfume from treasure fields of harvest; the glad young flowers swelling to the breaking point in the after visitation of the sun; youth past the age of frivolity, such is the physical nature of Oklahoma.

When the records of this convention shall have been entered on the Journal of History's judgment roll, may the fond heart of this the fairest of the sisterhood of states beat in conscious approval of your patriotic devotion and labors of love.

Then may it be yours to say unto her: "Spouse of my choice, my betrothed one, My Oklahoma, I love Thee. In this union are we joined in indissoluble wedlock forever. This temple shall be our habitation forever. This altar shall be the hearth-stone of our dwelling place. By this charter have we sealed the covenant of our troth. In suasive gentleness of your tender mood you shall draw me from my grasp on self into love that shall deepen with each passing year. When this mortal frame shall falter and lie down to its last repose, may I yet sense the kiss of thy breath. May my head be pillowed on thy bosom when the curtains of these mortal eyes shall be drawn forever."

Upon motion of W. J. Caudill, Delegate-elect from the 50th district, Hon. J. F. King, Delegate-elect from the 16th district, was elected President pro-tempore, and Delegates D. S. Rose, R. L. Williams, and P. B. Hopkins were appointed a committee to escort Mr. King to the chair; King on taking the chair addressed the Convention as follows:

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Ladies and Gentlemen: I would be something less than a man, I would be false to

every manly instinct, did I not feel and express to you my sincere and profound thanks for the kindness and the honor you have done me in electing me your temporary presiding officer. So long as I shall live I shall bear you and your act in treasured and affectionate remembrance. The importance of your labors and the very limited time assigned for their performance would render an extended speech unpardonable, and yet I will ask your indulgence for but a little while. We are told that a constitution usually consists of three parts, viz: First, the Bill of Rights; Second, the Frame of Government; and Third, the Schedule. The object of the Bill of Rights is to protect the individual in the enjoyment of his life, his liberty and his property. They usually declare that all men are possessed of certain equal and inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, That all political power rests with the people, that government is founded on their authority and instituted for their equal protection and benefit. That they have a right to assemble in a peaceable manner to consult for their common good, to instruct their representatives and to petition the government or any department thereof for a redress of grievances. That they have the right to bear arms, that they have a right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. That in all cases of arrest the prisoner is entitled to the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus, to inquire into the cause of his imprisonment and to furnish bail in bailable offenses. That in all prosecutions the accused shall be allowed to appear and defend by counsel or in person. To demand the nature and cause of the accusa

tion against him. To meet the witnesses face to face. To require the attendance of witnesses in his behalf, and to a speedy public trial, by an impartial jury of the county where the offense is alleged to have been committed, and similar provisions along that line.

The frame of government usually provides, and under our frame of government must necessarily provide, that the government shall consist of three separate, co-equal and co-ordinate departments---the legal or law making department, the judicial department, or the department which interprets and applies the law of a given state of facts, and the executive department or the department which enforces the law, etc.

The schedule provides for the transition from the old to the new government, and that suits pending shall be tried under the old law. That the old officers shall continue to act until the admission of the New State; that the laws not affected by the New Constitution shall continue in force, etc. The Old Constitutions were divided substantially into these three parts and until our day they were all that was necessary to the needs of the people.

As long as there were no large aggregations of organized capital, as long as Uncle Sam had one hundred and sixty acres of good land

for every man who would take it and could put one man on an equal footing with another, these provisions were sufficient. For seven hundred years the struggle of the English people, and for part of that time of the American people, was against the executive, the King, to limit his power and to enlarge the power of the Legislative department to keep the King from taking their lives, their liberty and in the form of taxes their property. The people were at first content to wring from King John the Magna Charta, and while it contains the germ of all there is in the petition of right and the Bill of Rights, nevertheless it was stated in such general terms and such broad language that the King and his Counselors early found ways of evading it, and it was only after centuries of experience and much amendment that the law was so framed that neither the ingenuity of counsel nor the corruption of officials would find a loophole to wantonly take the life or the liberty of the citizen. But it remained for the men who framed the Constitution of the United States and the Constitutions of the Original States, to so state and enact the law of personal liberty, that little if any improvement in that regard has since been made or probably can ever be made.

More than a hundred years of experience in popular government in the United States, has demonstrated that the great problem confronting the American people in Constitution making is not so much to control or limit the executive as to control and properly limit the Legislative Department. By this latter department has the American people been despoiled. And while the Constitution of the different states contain the germ and principles of good government, and while it is true of law as it is of farming that out of the old fields cometh the new corn, nevertheless these principles have been stated in such general terms and with so little provision for their application to the affairs of the people that little assistance can be derived from them in the way of administrative government.

Our fathers established the principles on which government should be founded, it is the labor of this generation to establish the principles on which it should be administered. To leave this labor to the next generation may be too late. What doth it profit a people to declare in their constitution that all men are created equal, that they are entitled to the same opportunities and the same fair measure of right and then permit predatory wealth, the smug men of finance and the corruptors of legislatures to rob them of their hardearned means? These glittering generalities, these beautiful statements of general principles should be given a definite and specific application to the affairs of the people to the end that government of the people, for the people and by the people, should become a . reality instead of a mere theory. Constitutions as well as men should

practice what they preach. I am therefore in favor of incorporating into the Constitution of Oklahoma a fourth department which I think cannot be better designated than the administrative department, so that the Constitution shall not only confer these great rights but shall secure and protect the people in their actual enjoyment. Do not understand me as criticising or attempting to criticise the work of the men who drafted the Constitution of the United States or of the States of the Union. It is beyond criticism. The Constitutions which they framed, were perfectly suited to the times in which they were made and effectuated every purpose of good government. But time impairs Constitutions as it does all things, and if they be not amended and repaired to meet changed conditions, new questions and the ever-altering situations of an enterprising and progressive people, there is an end to good government.

These changes in the people and in their affairs make amendment and change in Constitutions and in laws a never-ending, ever-continving and ever-pressing necessity. As the ocean makes itself pure by constant agitation, so the state must keep itself efficient by constant progress.

The questions which are now up for solution before the people of the States of this Union have come upon the State since the other states have framed their Constitutions and it is now the duty of Oklahonia not only to solve them for herself but to solve them for her sister states, for you may be sure the people of the other states will listen with an interested anxiety for the answer Oklahoma will make to them. While, broadly speaking, a Constitution is to a state what a set of moral and business maxims is to a business man, and while we are told by some able judges that nothing should be put into a constitution but what time and experience has demonstrated to be true, yet we should remember that a business man who never learns anything and who never improves has but a short time to remain in business. And that state which fails to meet and correctly solve the question ever pressing upon its people must speedily degenerate into a mere despotism. The great Judges of 1790 had but little regard for the Constitution of the United States, and the man who would improve any trade or profession must look for but little encouragement from its gray haired devotees, however eminent or learned they may be. And while it is no doubt correct that nothing should be put into the Constitution except that which is known truth and not experiment, it is nevertheless true that there are self-evident truths in this day as there were in 1776, and that there are many things demonstrated by experience, to be true that have passed from the domain of experiment, of politics and political discussion to the realm of unquestioned and unquestionable truth and yet have not found their way into any Con

stitution. Such an objection would not only have made the Constitution of the United States as well as the Constitution of all the States impossible, but it would render government of the people a thing of the past.

As a Constitution not only organizes government itself, it should embody the settled policies on which that government should be conducted. And as fast as great questions of Governmental policy emerge settled from the political arena, the field and the forum, they should be embodied in the Constitution that they may become a permanent guide to the official and an inspiration and protection to the people. So that in a government enterprising and progressive like ours each generation in the future as in the past should crystalize in the Con- . stitution its wisdom and experience, carefully remembering that the State like a child must have room to grow, and that its principles as well as frame of government must not be so rigid or inelastic as to prevent healthy development. Also remembering that it is with Constitutions as with trees that while one branch is developing another is dying and provision must be made for the removal of the diseased and dead wood.

The first Constitution of the Original States contained many provisions as to religious and property qualifications, provisions of intense interest and of particular force at the time of the formation of these Constitutions, yet by amendments and revision these provisions have largely passed out of the Constitutions of those states. And no doubt many of the things now pressing for consideration and which will be put into the Constitutions made in this generation will become so well settled or so unsuitable to changed conditions as to pass out of these Constitutions and make room for more appropriate or more pressing provisions. The great problem before the founders of the different American commonwealths so far as property was concerned was to provide for the development of the resources of the country and the production of material wealth. The great problem now pressing for solution by this generation is not so much that of the production of wealth as that those who produce it shall enjoy it. In other words their problem was that of production, ours is that of distribution. While I would not belittle the force or effect of any law, the real Constitution of any state is not upon the printed or written page, but in the hearts, the intelligence and the conscience of its people. The men who framed the Constitution of the United States did not deem it necessary to put a Bill of Rights in the Constitution, deeming its provisions so well established in the Common Law of the land as to be unnecessary.

But the people refused to accept it except with the understanding that such a bill should be incorporated, which was done by the