The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1916-08-22
The Proposed Constitutional Amend

!
! So little has been said about the pro-
posed constitutional amendments that
we suspect large proportion of the
citizens of the State had forgotten
that the electorate is to adopt or re-
ject four amendments to the consti-
tuition of North Carolina at the general
election next November. There are
four of these proposed amendments and
they were submitted to the vote Of the
people by the Legislature of 1915. The
large number Of people throughout the
State who for years have realized the
necessity for some changes in the fun
damental law of the commonwealth
Will be gratified to note that a special
campaign is to be waged between now
and the November election to inform
the people of the proposed amend
ments, why they are necessary and
what will be the effect of their adop-
ton.
1t is proposed that if these amend
ments fail of adoption it will not be
through default, as was the case LARGE
ly when ten amendments were snh-
mltted to the voters in 1913 It is
proposed that the people shall be in
formed OF the four amendments so that
they will take interest enough to vote
on them and to vote intelligently on
the merits Of each amendment propos
ed. In addition to Indifference. there
were two notable causes that contrib
uted to the defeat Of the amendments
proposed In 1913. One was the fact
that so many amendments were sub
m1tted at once. The result was lack of
concentration of effort and focus of
attention upon any one. The other was
the fact that one of the amendments
radical change in our sys-
tenn OF revenue and taxation, and the
people are decidedly 'from Missouri,
when it comes to tampering' with
the Fundamental law regulating taxes.
The amendments to be voted on this
year start out with the two distinct
advantages of being only four in num-
Der and not involving the matter of
taxation. Therefore, if a campaign of
tensive enough to thoroughly inform
the electorate as to the necessity for
and the effects of these amendments,
there would seem to be a good chance
for their adoption.
The four amendments are virtually
the same as those submitted by the
Legislature of 1913 as numbers three
for, eight and nine. One Of them is
designed to prevent delays in trials
by providing emergency judges. The
apparent necessity for this provision
has been forcibly brought home to
number of counties in the State this
year by the continued illness of Judge
Cooke and the death of Judge PEBBLES
In some counties the dockets have been
piled up, numbers of terms of court
have been missed and trials of numer-
GUS cases have necessarily been long
delayed to the inconvenience, expense,
and injustice of parties to
the suits, while those charged with
crime have been denied prompt trials
of their cases. With this proposed
to the constitution in effect,
the Governor might have commissioned
an able lawyer or even former Judge
to go to these counties, hold the terms
of court on scheduled time, clear up
the dockets and dispose Of numerous
cases to the great advantage of iti-
giants and all those involved in the
eases on the dockets.
The other three amendments are de-
signed to relieve the General Assembly
of great masses of "chicken feed' leg
islation that is very trivial in its ma
ture from the standpoint of the State
at large and yet takes up the great
majority Of the time of the sessions Of
the Legislature and Of the individual
members, who are biennially loaded
down with this class of legislation to
such an extent as to make it impossi-
BILE for them to give proper and nee
essary study, time and thought to the
consideration Of larger matters of