The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-21
HAsTY, IMPRUDENT PARTY.
 PLEDGES.

| Association yesterday, President
 Rhodes made the following allusfon to the Constitutional Conventions: who shopld rise to the lofTiest heights of patriotic performance of duty. To do this to formulate the soundest and wlsest Constitution possible-they should not longer permit thenfselves to be embar- rass5d by the late Democratic platfoIm, a hastily considered and unwise pronun- ciamento. If the Convention was charged with promnlgating Constitution with out submitting it to the people, they might hesitate to depart from Party pledges. But the Constitution is 10 De sub mitted to the people for ratification. and the Convention can @ oefors adjonnrning .n ing difficulties encountered in the task of making the best possible organic law in. compliance with platform ple1ges, and submit their work for final ratification oS rejection to the people without subjecting themselves to just criticism. The Conven- ton must do the very best 1t can with the lights before it today. l believe 1t will. and that it's work will be over whelmingly endorsed at the polls.
 The Advertiser oongratulates Mir. Rhodes upon this strong. patriotic, timely utterance. The Advertiser. The Birmingham News and The Birming- ham Age-H Herald have been urging this same view for some weeks. but 1t is significant that the Editor of The News takes the opportunity offered him yes- terday to urge publicly and personally this bold course upon the members of the Constitutional Convention.
 There is little doubt that many men- bers of the Convention find themselves hampered by the pledges made in Party platforms and by resolutions. passed by the State Convention. There istabund- ant evidence to show tLat these pledges are impossible to carry out, if the Fed eral Constitution is not to be nullified, if the best interests of the white people of the State are to be subserved, if the Convention is to act in the light of its best intelligence and conscience. Either some of those pledges are to be ignored, or else the Convention Is to fail, to a large extent, in its undertaking.
 It Is we'll known that Party platforms are rarely gotten up in judicial spirit, and that they afe just as rarely con- sidered in a deliberative way. They are usually reported at a late hour in a session. are hastily considered, very slightly discussed. and frequently adopted by minority of the body, very many members having already left. Furthermore. it is a notorious fact that State platforms are usually constructed to win out: they are made to catch votes rather than to enunci- ate principles and policies. All these allegations are emphatically true of the platforms which have been adopted by our State Conventions in recent years. Who can say. that they have reflected the careful judgment of a majority of the Party? It cannot be successfully established.
 In the light of these facts. it seems to us that the members of the Constitu- tional Convention would be thoroughly warranted in observing their oaths to do their whole duty to the State, rather than in undertaking to carry out im- practicable pledges made by Party Conventions. Their duty is to the peo- pie, to the State, to themselves, first and foremost. They are citizens first. Party men second.
 This view is the more rational and acceptable. in the light of the fact that the Convention has made a pledge of its own accord to submit it's work to the people for ratification. If they made a bad instrument. the people can reject 1t. The people can decide wheth- CT the Convention has done right in ig- noring nasty, imprudent, impracticahle pledges. And the people are more sure to recognize the conscientious pur> pose of the Convention, as witnessed by a broad, wise instrument, than to sustain them in observing Party pledges accompanied by a weak, unsat- isfactory Constitution.
 It would be an excellent idea today for the State Press Association to pass some resolutions embodying President Rhodes's suggestion. It would unQues- tionably have decided weight with the Constitutional Convention, for it would be a guarantee to that body that the Press of the State would back it up in doing its full duty in the light of it's best brain and dearest conscience. This guarantee would be of vast ser- vice in, convincing the people that the Convention had acted wisely.
 There is an editor in Missouri who has been holding up his hands to be counted for Roosevelt ever since last November. and there ought to be some way to reward such patience and de- .votion under Encouragement and in utter loneliness.