COMMITTEE ON THE EXECUTIVE, MILITIA AND CIVIL OFFICERS RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
STATE OF NEW JERSEY CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1947
COMMITTEE ON THE EXECUTIVE, MILITIA AND CIVIL OFFICERS
Thursday, July 10, 1947
(Afternoon session)
(The session began at 2:15 P.M.)
PRESENT: Barus, Eggers, Hansen, Miller, S., Jr., Smith, J. S., Van Alstyne and Walton.
Chairman David Van Alstyne, Jr., presided.
CHAIRMAN DAVID VAN ALSTYNE, JR.: I want to start off the afternoon session by reading a letter I just received from Governor Driscoll on the subject of succession which I think should be part of the record and which you should hear. (Reading):
“STATE OF NEW JERSEY
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT
July 7, 1947
Honorable David Van Alstyne
Chairman, Committee on Executive, Militia and Civil Officers
Constitution Convention
New Brunswick, New Jersey
My dear Senator Van Alstyne:
I am pleased that our mutual friend, Walter E. Edge, has presented to the Committee on Executive, Militia and Civil Officers of the Constitutional Convention, his views on the right of our citizens to reelect future governors to succeed themselves. I know of no one better qualified by broad experience than Walter Edge to express an important opinion on this subject. I am confident that his opinion will receive the careful consideration of the delegates.
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention, in the framing of a new Constitution, are exercising, within the limits of the enabling legislation, the sovereignty of all of our citizens. I have complete confidence in the statesmanship, integrity and patriotism of the men and women now assembled in New Brunswick. I am confident that the decisions that they make will constitute the expression of pure motives and will be in the public interest. I am sure we will all agree with Lord Bryce in his famous study of our government when he stated that the proceedings of a constitutional convention ‘excites more interest; its debates are more constructive; its conclusions are more carefully weighed,’ because they involve the basic framework of our government.
Accordingly, I have considered it the privilege and the duty of the Chief Executive of your State to encourage the work of the Convention, including the presentation of varying opinions on important subjects, even though those opinions may be different in some respects from those held by myself. As old friends, I am sure that Walter Edge and I are in agreement that every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. As Thomas Jefferson stated in his first inaugural address, ‘Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.’
Our delegates have, of course, more weighty problems that must be
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