The Mena weekly star., 1918-08-15
Reconsideration"
 ts Oot G1iorst FauIt
tBy Clio Harper.)

Little. Rock, Aug. s.-The new con stitution is being written.
 Someone has said that the conven- ton will go down in history as the reconsideration convention;" to which the rctort was made that ii is better 10 reconsider while there is yet time 10 correct a mistake, rather than let il go until it is too late.
 And so it happens that there are great many propositions reconsidered after they have been passed upon and adopted.
 A new proposition is presented like the unicameral or one-house system of legislation proposed by Delegate C. E. Daggett of Lee county. Its merits are presented most alluringly by it's proponents, and many members are carried off their feet by the prospects of inaugurating an ideal condition of things that will remedy all the evils of the body polite.
 And perhaps, it is so chimerical and impracticable that the conservative membership does not realize the dan ger until it is too late, and the hypno- tized majority have voted for it's adop- tion.
 Then a reconsideration becomes in- evitable.
 4 third potent cause for reconsid- eration may be traced to popular dis approval of some action that has been taken by the convention And when the lawmakers begin to hear from "up at the forks of the creek" they begin to suspect that they have been too nasty in their conclusions.
 And again reconsideration is ne- cessity, or at least political expedi- ent, which often amounts to the same thing.
 As a matter of fact, in reconsidera- tion is found one of the chief sources of strength in the orgaic law that is being framed.
 For that reason many of the hard and fast parliamentary dead-locks that are set for the enactment of stat utes are being ignored by the consti- tutional convention.
 It is an instrument that is to last for the next forty or fifty years, or maybe longer, and, therefore, it must be drawn with as great deliberation as possible.
 Many revolutionary changes that at first have had considerable follow ing, have been disregarded on sober second thought. On practically every one of these, the statement has been made on the floor by some opponent of the measure that If this is put in the constitution, it will not be rati- fled by the people"
 "If all these lugubrious predictions are true, or a small part of them,' '' said J. V. Walker of Fayetteville, "then the constitution is already de- feated." And J. D. Head of Miller county pleaded that "the ship should not be scuttled before it is launched
 But, then, as whole, the constitu- tion appeals to those who have stdd- jed it carefully, as reasonably safe and sane document Radicalism does not occupy very large place in its provisions.
 Judge J. H. Evans of Logan, one of the most effective floor leaders of the convention, has favorite expression that carries weight on many occa. sions, '"That's all right--copy of tho old constitution"
 But sometimes the expression strikes a cross-grain, as when a dele, gate asked, the other day, "Well. i: the old constitution so sacred that wt cannot change or amend it? Must W, swallow it just because it is old ?"
 And vet the old constitution is be ing accepted by a majority of tn, delegates as a pretty safe harbol from the storm of untried experiment and pretty theories.
 Many are demanding the precedent of success before they are willing tt engraft theories, however alluring upon the instrument that is to las for several generations.