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can not obtain under the present constitution? I know of nothing. We have got an act to consolidate our towns, and that will do away with most of these governments inside of the city of Chicago. If some gentleman will just show me that the people of this State are crying out for a change of this government, I would like to know in what regard.

Gentlemen, it is too serious a matter this, of changing the fundamental law of the State. We have got a constitution that we have flourished under since its adoption in 1870, we have grown wealthy under it, there has been no hitch in its operation that I can discover. But the one thing that causes this agitation, gentlemen, is the constitutional limitation upon the power of incurring indebtedness. Office holders and politicians particularly are down upon that limitation that no municipality shall become indebted beyond five per cent of the last assessed value of its property. Some say we need it in order to reform our tax laws. A great deal is said about that. Well, I know we

have made a mess in this county of our tax law, but it is not a reformation of our tax laws that we need, gentlemen, it is a reformation of the people of Chicago that we need. (Applause.) There never was a community on God's earth so utterly demoralized on the subject of taxation as the people of Chicago (laughter and applause), and you can not get any general movement to remedy it. We have a few school ma'ms here, poor school teachers, that we have let bear all the burden and the expense of litigating, before the court in Springfield and in the Supreme Court, the question of taxing the franchises of corporations. I do not know of a man who has put his hand in his pocket to help them, or said a word to help them; do you know one, gentlemen? There is an old story of our profession, about a man that was tried for stealing a hog; the proof was positive; the jury went out and brought in a verdict of not guilty. The lawyer turned and said. "How is this, I do not understand?"

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"Well," said the foreman, "every one of these twelve men has had some of that pork himself." There is hardly a tax payer in this county but what has had some of that pork himself. Now that is the honest truth, and when you go out into the country, you tell them that is the fact. The old law is good enough if we will be honest, but when the office of Town Assessor under the old law with a declared salary of fifteen hundred dollars per year was worth $200,000 to the incumbent, you may judge of how he made his money. The Town Assessor of the town of South Chicago, one of the men who held that office, openly confessed that he had made $200,000 out of it in one year. I don't know whether the Board of Review is worth very much or not (laughter), but I know the Board of Assessors do not appear to be worth a great deal, because the Board of Review has the ultimate say about it, and it may reverse and change.

We have a new law limiting taxation to five per cent upon the fair value; the old law required taxation upon its fair cash value, now we have got a new fangled law of fair value, which went into effect, I believe, in 1898, and contained a provision that the assessment which is made, so far as real estate is concerned, should stand for four years. Some how or other that law got into court and the Supreme Court knocked it; it held that five per cent limitation was not valid. But it was a valuation made by the Board of Review, and under that valuation we had millions upon millions; but just as soon as the Supreme Court decided it what did the Board of Assessors and Review do? They went to work and cut it down over a hundred millions of dollars, although the law says it shall not be changed but once in four years, and now they have got a new act passed by the legislature raising it again. What is the use of laws unless they are followed, and what laws can you pass that will make men honest? I know of none. I say you must reform your community here if you wish honest taxation; and gentlemen, the problem of this day-the silver

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question being disposed of-is simply this, How can you make corporations and rich men pay their fair share of taxation? (Applause). Not any more, not any less, but treat them as you treat the poor man and the average citizen. This is the problem of this day. And if you solve that problem you will need no constitutional convention to change your fundamental law. (Applause).

PRESIDENT HOLDOM: The lawyers all know by experience every day that Judges have different opinions of the law as well as on other questions, political and otherwise. I am quite sure we would all like to hear from Judge Tuthill, I know he has something to say.

JUDGE TUTHILL:

Mr. President: I feel a good deal like a member of the English Parliament who, when Mr. Burke had spoken upon a question said all he had to say was ditto to Mr. Burke. I feel a good deal like saying "ditto" to what Judge Tuley has said. I do not believe there is any crying necessity for a new constitution. I believe that there is a very great argument in favor of any constitution that has lasted twenty years, a great argument in favor of one that has lasted forty years, and a greater one yet in favor of a Constitution that has lasted one hundred years, as has our national constitution. I have heard no one point out any defects in this constitution so glaring and so numerous that they can not be adequately remedied by means which the constitution itself) provides for its amendment; one amendment in every two years, five amendments in ten years, if necessary, and I believe that the experience of the generation which has existed since. the adoption of the Constitution of 1870 has been that this constitution is sufficiently flexible so that the acute, able, learned lawyers such as compose our Supreme Court can by their decisions give such construction to the provisions of the constitution that nearly all the glaring evils that may become apparent by changed conditions in the community can be remedied.

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The greatest defect, it seems to me, in the constitution, was this provision against special legislation with reference to this great municipality of Chicago. Now the court has found a ready means of getting around that objection so that it is no longer an objection which can be urged at all. There is no difficulty when there is a public necessity to be met here in Chicago, or in any other city in the State, large city, in pre paring a law which the legislature may enact if there is a great need of it, which will meet the changed conditions in the community.

There are a great many dangers about breaking up old constitutions. What man, in his right mind, in America today, what conservative, sensible, patriotic man in America today would advocate the calling of a constitutional convention to make a new national constitution? He would be considered almost a lunatic; he would be considered almost an anarchist,-any man who would advocate a proposition to call a constitutional convention of the people of all the states of the Union and let them there decide whether to alter this old constitution which is, and has been and every year is becoming more so, the admiration and the wonder of civilized and learned men who are familiar with the needs of the human race in civilized society more and more every year. Now I say that that same principle applies to a good state constitution; there is a difference in degree, but we have a state constitution which has called forth the admiration of wise men and of lawyers and of judges and of students of state-craft all over the world, and I say that the reason which would lead one to oppose a new constitution for the national government certainly would lead one to oppose a change in the constitution of this great empire State of Illinois.

Those changes should not be entered upon hastily, it should only be when there is absolute necessity for a change in the form of government. Now there is no such necessity

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pressing upon the people of Illinois today. The form of gov ernment which we have under our bill of rights and under our constitution is unobjectionable, it is admirable, and it is elastic. With laws passed by the legislature from time to time, to be passed upon by such a bench as the Supreme Court of Illinois, which is and I hope will always be, quick to respond to absolute necessity in changed conditions, our constitution should be left aloné. Great danger would threaten the community, dangers which we can not even conceive of or imagine, were these provisions, which are today the safeguard and the pilot of the State, to be ruthlessly overthrown and passed upon by men gathered together in a constitutional assembly perhaps that are less wise and less conservative, less judicious than the men who composed that constitutional convention in 1870. They were men of learning, men of deep convictions, many of them men who had given great time and thought to the study of all these great questions that were to be passed upon to be embodied in the constitution, and for my part I believe I express the sentiment of the best judges-not judges of law, but the best judges of statecraft and of state constitutions -when I say that they builded better than they themselves knew. Now let us not leave that which is good, that which has been proved and that which is really not criticised seriously by any one, and branch out upon an unexplored sea. I agree entirely with the judgment and opinion pronounced here by my distinguished colleague, the Nestor of the Chicago bench, Judge Tuley. (Applause.)

PRESIDENT HOLDOM: We will be very glad to hear from any other gentlemen who wish to take part in this discussion. I will say, gentlemen, for the benefit of all of you that there is a rule limiting these talks to five minutes; that ought to give a good many of you an opportunity to take part.

MR. PAGE: The principal argument which has been ad