The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-01-14

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Rights"
The people shall be secure in their persons,
houses, papers and possessions from all un-
reasonable searches and seizures; and no war;
rant to search any place, or seize any person or
thing, shall issue without special designation
of the place to be searched, and the person or
thing to be seized, nor ,oithou probable cause,
supported By oath or affirmation.
There's jerk for you'll much like what
young people call "thank-you-ma'am"
when sleigh-riding. But as the meaning is
clear and very beneficent, and the humor un-
conscious, we may well forgive our fathers
who, a little awkwardly, placed this shelter
ing @gis over our heals and thus saved us
from lettres-de-cdchet, star chamber war
rants aud all other exercise of arbitrary pow
er. A similar, but not quite so glaring, am
biguity occurs in the corresponding section
of the constitution of the United States.
But there was perhaps no book ever writ
ten in which there was not something to eX
cite smile, with the possible exception OF
Greenleat's National Arithmetic, which once
desolated the public schools of Maine and
the adjacent states. Johnson's Dictionary
even, has bit of gruf humor Eow and then.
But our constitutional humor is not yet ex-
hausted. Think of the praiseworthy fore
sight and economic sagacity implied in i'm
bedding down deep in the organic law, be-
yond the reach of popular caprice or legisla-
tive venality, provision that, in case the
President of the Senate or Speaker of the
House becomes Governor, he shall not receive
two salaries, but shall take his S2500 and
thank Heaven for his advancement, even at
the sacrifice of the $500 salary of the other
place! Would that this foresight could have
been more comprehensive and not exhausted
itself on one rather unusual contingency.
But this at any rate was enough to show the
spirit of the men of 1919. Those good old
farmers did not mean to raise up an Office
holding aristocracy. And they did well.
Their economical spirit, as exhibited in the
constitution, has descended to their sons,
and to this day the current expenses of the
state government are so small as to excite the
derision of outside barbarians. They are
scarcely enough to pay the salaries of the
dentists in ordinary of any sovereign in Eu-
rope. His Royal Hghness, the Prince of
Wales, spends more on one of his Partisan
sprees than it takes to run the executive,
legislative and judicial departments of our
government for year. The canny states
men put in the constitution a clause forbid
ding members of the legislature to increase
their own pay, and the consequence is that
we have the worst paid and the most incor-
ruptibie legislature in the United States. But
the clause of our constitution which has the
most practical value, in our opinion, was in
troduced with the amendments of 1S47. 1t
forbids the increase OF the state debt beyond
100000, except for war purposes, and de-
cares that ''the credit OF the state shall not
be loaned directly or indirectly in any case."
These old-fashioned provisions have given
the state the reputation of being ''slow."
Spectators who want TO get at the state
treasury have thought it feapully slow, and
have contrasted it. much to its disadvantage,
with the free-handed open-hearted states
where seedy millionaire or deeayed rail
road can get lift, in an emergency, from the
public funds Nevertheless, with all its ''i-
liberality" and "backwardness" and "slow-
ness" Maine has somehow fulfilled the es
sental functions of commonwealth better
than most of its neighbors. 1t boasts of the
more than average comfort, happiness and
virtue of its people, and especially of the best
crop of men raised in any equal population
on earth. 1t would be with great regret that
its people would see these characteristic tea-
lures of the constitution materially changed
by any revision. Movements to abolish the
limitation on the state debt have often been
started by people who have thought it was
''disgraceful'' for Maine to be so much be-
hind the times. But such movements have
never got beyond the initial stage.
There are repects, however, in which the
constitution is really behind the times. Illi-
nois and other western states have revised
their charters with view to protect their
people from such dangers and discomforts as
are peculiar to the present age. These new
constitutions are remarkable for their treat
ment OF the subject of corporations, especial
ly railroads They forbid special legislation,
all its creatures, even railroad companies, they
provide against the grant of pecial privileges
or immunties to any class of citizens and es
pecially against comforting irrevocable rights
on corporations. They contain sections in
tended to secure equal taxation and to pre-
vent undue haste in legislation and the en-
actment of laws without the real knowledge
or consent of the legislators. Names con-
stitution may well be modified in a corre-
spending manner. There is now law in
tended to relieve the legislature from the
mass of special legislation yearly required of
it, but no attention whatever is paid to it.
Perhaps if some provision of the kind, only
more sweeping, were made part OF the con-
stitution it might receive some attention.
With respect to railroads, too, there is need
of the safeguards which are found necessary
in the West. Our corporations are mild
hammered monsters, but they are growing
and NAV sometime have a mind to eat us all
up.
Besides the changes which are rendered
necessary by the new circumstances OF mod
ern life, there are doubtless some Others
which justice and expedieney have de-
manded from the first. How many people
are there in Maine who understand that rep
resentaton in the legislature is not really in
proportion to population? Yet such is the
case. The ratio of representation, instead of
being uniform,is is increased by the constitution
for the laroer towns and cities by
this means the city OF Portland alone loses