The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-05-08

thus wrought have trenched in some Assembly.
 "The Romans had saying that the times change and we are changed with them. It is so with governments. Change is the expression of vitality. By frequent change the General As sembly of Connecticut has been kept abreast of the general world move ment towards higher ideals of legal right and social good. We have eX- amiIed many propositions put for ward as calculated to advance them, which after close scrutiny have been finally rejected. One of these it is especially fitting to remember on this occasion. It is that respecting the initiative and the referendum.
 ''Connecticut invented the referen- dum but she has confined 1t to the consideration of changes in her Con stitutiOn. She has not adopted the initiative, and it is because she has preferred to abide by the original form of AngIo-Saxon government- that in which the people speak by their chosen representatives, meeting face to face for discussion and de- liberation.
 ' from the first, made haste slowly. She is rightly called the land of steady habits. Her legislation has often been tentative. She has experimented before coming to a final decision. In the words of one of her foremost historians, Seldom has any advance been made until the experience of a temporary act had explored the way and found 1t safe
 Not What They Seem.
 Things are not always what they seem. Epictetus, in his discourse on combating semblances. says:
 Be not hurried away by excite ment, but say, mblance, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are and what you represent. Let me try you
 Such a rule. has been the phi1os- ophy of Connecticut legislation. Rousseau. in his Du Contrat Social says that the legislative power is the heart of the state' If he had known
 when writing that treatise, that moro than a hundred years before, on the hanks of the Connecticut, a new com monwealth had been in fact set up by a social contract, he would have been glad to find his theories sup ported in the New World. The free l men of Connecticut had indeed made | their legislature the heart of their l government.
 They considered an election to il l to be so great an honor that no one l should publicly offer himself as . 1 candidate. It was to be presumed | they thought, that the best man 1 would be chosen because they were | the best. Until the close of the eigh- i teenth century a nomination to either house of the General Assembly was 1 never sought. Chief Justice Swift writing in 1795, aIludes thus to this 1 ancient custom:
 l "In this State. no instances has l ever been known where a person has ] q ppeared as a public candidate. and l solicited the suffrage of the freemen i for a place in the legislature ShoulG 1 any person have the effrontery oi 1 folly to make such an attempt. he l may be assured of meeting with the | general contempt, and indignation ot 1 the people. and of throwing an in. 1 separable bar in the way of attaining i the subject of his pursuit.
 System of the Laws of the State 1 of Connecticut, I, 6S.)
 i Public opinion no longer support: i any such rule of political conduct. I could only be suitable for a small ant | Homogeneous State, in which men O | any special prominence were person 1 ally known to a large proportion O l the inhabitants, and re-eIections wert 1 usual. Only three men held the plact i of recording officer of the State ono 1 of the General Assembly from III; | 10 1910. They were father, son ana ! grandson, each annually reelected l and the term of the last was onl, | ended by his resignation, when h. 1 turned it over to one who held tn place for 8. full quarter of a century Of the General Assembly itself vii | liam Hillhouse was a member fo
 over fifty years.
 The Preamble.
 "The Preamble of our Constitution
 states that the people of Connection 1 have ordained it lin order more ef | fectualIy to define, secure, and per | petuate the liberties, rights and priv
 @eges which they have derived iron their ancestors" The Constitutions .t Convention of 1902 proposed to sub
 stitute for this declaration of pur i pose these words: desiring to perpet
 uate the liberties, rights and privi i leges which they have derived iron
 their ancestors The heavy majorit
 by which its proposed Constitutio
 was voted down indicates for on
 thing that the people were no
 anxious for new definitions or new SC
 curities. They were content with tn
 old ones. They were willing to let tn | General Assembly go on in it's ancien , course, with all it's amplitude c
 scope. They knew the perils of clos
 definitions of what is or may b
 law. They wanted no securitie l against legislation except such g their courts had always been foun 7 adequate to supply.
 '"The landmarks in the history (
 the General Assembly of ConnecticI are its division into two separat houses in 1798; the change frol semi to annual sessions an the stricter limitation of it's power by the adoption of the Constitutio a. hundred and twenty years later l their further reduction, after fort . years, by the XIVth Amendment i the Constitution of the United State! D the substitution in 1928 of an uppt 0 house selected by senatorial distric j. for one elected by the people