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
Wednesday, June 25, 1947
(Afternoon session)
(The session began at 2:00 P. M.)
PRESENT: Barus, Eggers, Farley, Feller, Hansen, Miller, S. Jr., Smith, J. S., Van Alstyne, Walton.
Chairman David Van Alstyne, Jr., presided.
CHAIRMAN DAVID VAN ALSTYNE, JR.: All ready?
Thank you very much for coming before our Committee, General Bowers.
As you probably know, this is the Executive Committee of the Convention, which is also charged with that section of the Constitution that concerns civil officers and the militia. We would like particularly to get your opinion with regard to the military.
You mentioned to me over the telephone this morning that General Powell and General Barlow probably would like to consult with you before you came, but I felt it would be a good idea to have your opinion and theirs separately, and then you could all get together and give us the benefit of your combined opinion.
If it is agreeable to you, I would like to have you make a statement as to how you feel that the sections concerning the militia should be changed, if at all, and when you have finished we hope you will allow us to ask you some questions.
MR. JAMES I. BOWERS: I would like to make a statement with respect to the way this meeting was arranged. By accident last night someone happened to listen to a telephone that was ringing, in Trenton, after five o’clock, after I had gone. I had an appointment in Princeton on the way up to my home in Somerville. Well, the message was, I think, from you to Colonel Charles, who happened to be in General Barlow’s office at the time, stating that you wished me to be here today, and General Barlow at 2:30. Then something was said about General Powell coming in early in the morning. That message was relayed to me a short while thereafter – after I had called the office around 6:15.
This morning, however, Colonel Read in my office talked to Colonel Sharp, who had called General Powell’s Chief-of-Staff, and had relayed to him the message about the proposed appointment
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