Henry Justin Allen

MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR HENRY J. ALLEN
TO THE KANSAS LEGISLATURE, 1919.

To the Members of the Legislature:
I realize that there is in the mind of every member of the Legislature a deep appreciation of the peculiar hour in which this session meets. It is not so much that the problems which confront us are new as that the spirit with which we answer the command of public service is new.
The nation has just emerged from a sacrificial offering to the highest dreams that mankind may dream. The gift of men and material wealth which we have made, and without which the victory could not have been won, has brought us to a fundamental realization of what the citizen owes his government in the way of individual service and individual responsibility. Our natures have deepened and widened as we have met the demands.
Kansas has paid her share of the mighty obligation, and we have come to this session with the hope that all we do here shall be worthy of those who have suffered and those who have died that the cause of civilization might go forward. It is not with any complacency or self-pride as a state that attention is called to the prompt and conclusive manner in which every demand upon the patriotism of our people has been met.
Democracy has been passing through its supreme test, and while the fighting is over and the need for farther sacrifice of life seems ended, the test is not yet fully met. There yet remains the problem of demobilizing the centralization of the national government. Individual and state functions, which have been generously surrendered to the strong centralization necessary to fight the war, must now come back to their natural status. Duties surrendered to nationalization must come back to the state and community life, bringing various questions which have been absent from our attention. It is apparent to all, of course, that the sooner the state returns to its normal method of business, emphasizing the work of its home institutions and resuming the status quo ante, the better it will be for the welfare of the state.
There yet remain in every state, and in the nation, its problems of reconstruction and readjustment, which demand the broadest consideration and the wisest settlement. There yet rests upon us a demand for large vision and the courage to go forward in a program of construction at an hour when the natural tendency would be to react and retrench.

THE NEED FOR HOME-OWNING.

In my judgment, the most rapidly growing question in Kansas to-day is that which concerns the increase in tenant occupation of farm lands.
All countries have had their day with this menace. The Eastern States have struggled with it for years. In Illinois it has grown so alarmingly that something like sixty percent of the best land of that state is now owned by men who hold it for speculative purposes or for what it will yield to them in rentals. For so many years in Kansas we were free from the evil that we had grown into the easy habit of believing that we would always be exempt. It has been the boast of all citizens who eulogize the state that we are a "a commonwealth of home-owners." Therefore it comes as something of an alarming surprise to note that since 1880 the percentage of farms operated by tenants has been increasing as rapidly in this state as in any state in the Union, and much more rapidly than in many of our sisters states. To-day in some of the counties comprising the eastern half of the state practically 50 percent of the farms are operated by tenants. In 1880 the percentage of Kansas farms operated by owners, in proportion to the whole, was 83.7. In thirty years this decreased to 63.2; during the past ten years it is apparent, so far as figures are available, that the farther decrease has brought the situation almost to a point where half the farms of this state are operated by tenants.
As our lands have increased in value the tendency to speculate in them has increased, and to-day an alarmingly large extent of farm area is owned by men who, while realizing that the percentage of profit from holding the land may not be in itself remunerative from the standpoint of immediate return on capital invested, still hold if for the unearned increment.
It is regrettable, too, that the best land of the state is the land upon which the speculator first fixes his eye, and the increase in tenant farming in the eastern half of Kansas is fully doubled in percentage the increase in the western half of the state. But the speculative activity which is notable in the eastern half of the state has also spread to the western half, and to-day the increase in land tenantry all over the state is greater than it has been at any time in our history.
I think it will be accepted almost without argument that no more overwhelming disaster can come to any commonwealth than that which is threatened in the present tendency. As we contemplate the after-war conditions which now confront us, the greatest danger in America, it appears to me, is that peculiar tide of unrest which we call bolshevism, I. W. W. ism, and the other forms of social discontent. The world is uneasy with this spirit just now. In Russia first, and later in Austria and in Germany, the discontented classes have destroyed government and now seek to restore the equilibrium without any very definite program of order.
In a just government there is only one real remedy against the rising tide. There is only one sure process by which you may make a man an optimistic, constructive influence in this country, and that is by adding him to the home-owning class. the solidity of France, for instance, with all her tragedies during the past four and a half years, has been due to the wide distribution of land among the people. Those who have witnessed the tide of agitation in that country, driven by clever German propaganda, have seen it rise and break again and again against the soldity which had its basis in the facts that a very large percent of the land of France is owned by those who till it. It is the landless and homeless man who first joins the ranks of the discontented.
To get rid, as far as possible, of farm tenantry, to promote the tilling of the soil by the owner of the land, to increase the number of homes owned by farmers and others, should be the most important governmental object of the present hour in this state. Every consideration calls for it. Not only the protection of the state against the rapid increase of speculation in our farm lands demands it, but a new reason impels us especially at this time. There are coming home from overseas, and from training camps at home, many thousands of young men who would embrace an opportunity to work the soil if a chance were provided whereby they might posses a farm upon terms of easy payment.
Secretary Lane has suggested a plan which will bring relief in some states. This plan places at the disposal of soldiers, on easy terms, public lands and lands secured through reclamation projects. We have no such lands in Kansas, so that our measure of relief must be in whatever provisions are possible to secure a redistribution. Any effective plan in this direction depends first upon cheap money and the possibility of buying on easy terms.
California has taken a very progressive step in this direction in the creation of a fund through which she buys lands in large holdings and resells them to small farmers on easy payments. Other states are studying the proposition of creating associations backed by the states to create a system of credits through which a good tenant farmer can borrow up to 90 percent of the value of the land. Doubtless there are many plans which could be aided by legislation for the creation of credits to be used for the increase of home-owning. A fund such as California has created, used to provide second mortgages, might become a simple and direct aid to the system.
A valuable addition to small holdings might also come from a more intelligent and effective interest in the possibilities of irrigation in the western portion of the state. Kansas has played withe the subject of irrigation. We should provide a more intelligent and effective aid to this project than has yet been given through state sources.
Assistance can be given also by adopting suggestions that have been made from time to time by the Tax Commission of this state. An exemption from taxation of all improvements on land farmed by owners would have a wholesome tendency to reduce land speculation. Some form of progressive land tax, with special tax on absentees, would have a remedial effect upon the tenancy problem. The exemption of mortgages from taxation and the substitution of a filing fee for mortgages would eliminate double taxation. A law exempting mortgages from taxation has three times passed our state Legislature. On one occasion it received the veto of the Governor, and the last law upon this subject was held to be unconstitutional by the supreme court. The efforts of the Legislatures to include this needed amendment to our taxational system proves that its necessity is understood.
Some states have adopted, with fine effect, the system of classifying property so that all land and city property owned for speculative purposes shall bear a larger relative burden of taxation than that which is operated and improved by the owner.
I strongly recommend to the Legislature that the entire subject of growing tenantry of land be given constructive attention. It will require, of course, constitutional change to create anything like a broad program. The changes will involve not only the subject of taxation, the subject of cheap money that can be loaned up to nearly the value of the property, but likewise the subject of limiting the amount of land a man may own in this state for speculative purposes.
In support of what I have said above, I include herewith a revealing excerpt from an excellent address recently delivered by Samuel T. Howe upon the relation of taxation to this subject. Mr. Howe calls attention to the fact that some of the members of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture are suggesting certain propositions which to some extent are involved with taxation:
"The following view is expressed by a member of the Board: 'The development of agriculture in eastern Kansas lies in tracts of medium size, farmed by the owner. The following three rules in regard to taxation would help materially to secure the desired change and give justice to all: (a) A higher rate on tenant lands than on owner-farmed. (b) On tracts of 160 acres or less, the land indebtedness shall not be included for taxation. (c) Increased rate of taxation with increased holdings of all kinds of property. The first and third will help make a man who holds large tracts as an investment put such land upon the market. The second removes a great impediment from the path of the poor man trying to get a home, and stops double taxation. The third tends to make taxation equitable. The poor laborer, the man heavily in debt on the farm, and the millionaire, all pay the same poll tax. The laborer pays property tax on all he has. The mortgaged farmer pays on all that he has and on all that he owes. The rich man pays on what he gives in as valuation, and the assessor has no way of detecting undervaluation and omission. These omission are in many cases more than the second man pays on altogether. Increased rate would tend to make this equitable; and this will help the returned soldier get his farm or home.'"
The above propositions are restated simply to give opportunity to say that no such plan of amending the tax laws of Kansas as suggested by Mr. Howe, or, indeed, of making any progressive charge in them, is possible under the present constitutional limitations.

TAXATION.

Probably no man who has given any thought whatever to our Kansas system of taxation fails to realize its incongruities and inefficiencies. The present system--if a process so inadequate could be dignified as a system--was written into the constitution of the state at a time when practically all of our property consisted in land, horses and mules. Repeated effort has been made to give the system some elasticity through which we might secure a proper classification of property; but in whatever direction the effort has been made, it has encountered the constitutional limitations, and so we have gone on placing in one tax category all kinds of property, from lands and buildings to razor strops. The necessaries of life and the articles of luxury are placed upon the same basis. It is indisputable that inequality in the distribution of the tax burden must of necessity result from a system requiring the taxation at a uniform rate of subjects so widely varying in kind and quality.
In addition to this, thousands of dollars of revenue possible under a modern system of taxation escape us. Injustices without number prevail in the distribution of taxable obligations, and the fact that unequal and unjust taxation is fastened upon us by the letter of the constitution and the laws is too patent to leave room for any debate upon the subject. Most of the states which suffered from an unequal system fastened upon them by the letter of their ancient constitutions have made amendments to permit the classification of property by the legislature, and the prescription of rates differentiated according to the economic differences among classes of property. The general-property tax system, which is the only refuge we have under the constitution, answered very well decades back, when practically all property was of a tangible character, but to-day it is ridiculously inadequate when more than one-half of the wealth of individuals is in the form of intangible property.
I urgently call your attention to the need of relief at the earliest possible moment.
A model tax system is now before the whole country for consideration. The component parts of it are as follows: First, land classified according to its differing economic values; second, some kinds of tangible personal property also classified as to economic value; third, reasonable taxation of businesses; fourth, income taxation; fifth, inheritance taxation. Such needs to the Kansas system as the inheritance tax law, the income tax, legislative freedom in matters of taxation, so that the Legislature may enact an equitable system, are obvious unless we desire to retain a method of taxation which is an absolute barrier to our progress.

INCOME TAXATION.

The greatest superiority of income taxation is becoming better understood. Its principle is based upon ability to pay. The federal government so far recognizes this that it expressly provides in its income-tax act that states having income taxes may have access to the federal returns. This provision makes the laying and collection of income taxes by the states very much more simple than heretofore, and there is a wide-spreading movement in the country for state income taxes. Undoubtedly Kansas would be benefited by the enactment of a low income tax with low exemption. The income tax, even though moderate, would relieve the burden on property, and especially on industry. One important reason worthy of the consideration by the Legislature for a moderate income tax exists in the access which the state would have to federal income-tax returns. Our State Tax Commission has repeatedly told us that several hundred million of property in Kansas is hidden from assessment and escapes taxation year after year, but the property so escaping our assessors must be returned on income-tax blanks to the United States internal revenue collector. But access to those returns is restricted to those states which have adopted the state income tax. Therefore, in addition to the just return from a modern state income tax, we would have the very desirable aid of this reliable fund of information in carrying out our general-property tax system.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT.

My attention has been called to serious faults in the workmen's compensation act. In my judgement, any form of workmen's insurance should posses in the strongest possible degree two features: First, the reliability of the insurance--that is, the certainty that it will be paid; second, the time element--it should be paid at the earliest possible moment. Our workmen's compensation act was copied from the statutes of other states, and we have managed to copy some serious faults, the most serious of which is that the present statute leaves the administration of the law to the courts unless a compromise or arbitration is had.
An injured employee should escape the payment of an attorney's fee. He should be able to escape the delay of an action in court, and there should be no door through which fraud and oppression may enter. Under the present Kansas law I am told that employees frequently pay attorneys' fees which range from 30 percent to 50 percent of the amount recovered. I believe the law should be amended so that the Public Utilities Commission of this state might administer it as a special part of its duties. Under such an administration of the law, no attorneys' fees would be needed and there would be no delay in obtaining relief. The commission would give prompt and just attention to all matters of injury, and there should be no appeal from the decision of this commission. If, with the future growth of the state, this work became too burdensome for the Public Utilities Commission to have in charge, then a separate commission could be created for this purpose, as has been created with success in other states.
I strongly urge that the Legislature give constructive attention to the entire subject of a workmen's compensation act. I do this out of the full realization that the law we have is in reality a reflection upon our character as a justice-loving people. I call especial attention to the law in Ohio, where the state, with very splendid results, has taken care of the subject of workmen's compensation through state insurance.

WORKING CONDITIONS OF WOMEN.

I am heartily in favor of any legislation that will improve the conditions and hours for the working women of Kansas.

GOOD ROADS.

No subject is receiving in the country to-day such widespread attention as that of good roads. In a recent meeting at Annapolis of the Governors' Conference, I was deeply impressed by the fact that the subject of good roads was the most absorbing of any in the conference. The governors represented forty-two states, and I believe that, without exception, every state was studying a good-roads program with the intention of intensified activity upon this subject.
In practically every case the foremost consideration is being given to the fact that in a little while there will come home from training camps, from overseas service and from war industries many thousands of men seeking employment. The rate of discharge of workers from nonconvertible war industries will be very rapid, and begin almost immediately. In importance next to this will be the release of men under arms in the United States, and the last reservoir of unemployed men to be emptied into the country will release 1,800,000 soldiers from abroad.
To act as a stabilizer of labor is seeking employment, a good-roads building program might be of the utmost importance. I do not mention this because it is in any sense the supreme consideration of a good-roads program, but merely to indicate the peculiar timeliness with which we might begin whatever activities may be carried on under the present constitutional limitations. There is no doubt of the fact that as soon as our men return from overseas they will bring with them a definite impetus for good roads. I have heard thousands of our men over there say, "When I get home I am going to be a good-roads booster." Every day brought emphasis to the realization that without the good roads in France this war could not have been won; it brought also the realization that the roads had constituted in days of peace a chief commercial asset of the republic. The strength which the French nation has received from the completeness of its good-roads system, which links together every market center and every great farming area, was the strength which enabled her to meet rapidly the strain which the war placed upon every part of the nation, commandeering its every resource.
My attention has been called to the program of the Kansas Good Roads Association, endorsed, as it has been, by my predecessor and the Highway Commission. We have reached the point in our career as a commonwealth where we realize that future development will be affected in very large measure by what we do at this time touching the building of permanent roads. It has been pointed out that only four states--Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Kansas--do not give state aid for road construction. It is not in our case that we do not endorse state aid; it is merely because the restrictions of our ancient constitution do not permit it.
The program of the Good Roads Association calls for a bond issue for building hard-surfaced roads, the principal and interest on these bonds to be met out of the proceeds of automobile licenses. A similar program has been adopted by the state of Illinois in a popular election, the vote in favor of it being more than six to one. A system of state roads connecting all our market centers would add new life and new potentiality to every industry in the state. It is peculiarly just that the cost of the state roads would be met by a license upon the vehicles which use these roads. So many things are made possible by a general good-roads system that the state would be madly reactionary to longer ignore it.
The added enjoyment of country life which has come with the automobile, the possibilities of intensified cultivation that have arrived with farm motors, the bearing which the new day in transportation has had upon the possibility of improving all the opportunities of the farmer, social, commercial and educational, are so obvious that there is no argument with which to meet their challenge. Kansas has done well on public improvements, such as the building of schools and state institutions; but she has been utterly negligent touching this, which has become the most modern demand.
I endorse the program which the Kansas Good Roads Association has presented, with the deepest hope that it receive your best attention.
Attention is called to the fact that the proposition of the bond issue is not the only one which requires constitutional change. There is now waiting for us two million dollars of federal money, and this sum is likely to be multiplied before many months. To make the best use of this federal aid we must have the constitutional right to place with it a like sum in state aid. Under the benefit-district law, while some progress has been made and more is contemplated, the program is working at a decided disadvantage, and the whole system lacks the cohesiveness which the larger plan requiring constitutional permission would give it.

TREATMENT OF STATE INSTITUTIONS.

While fully conscious of the fact that taxes during the war period have been high, I urge against a program of retrenchment which would curtail the necessary institutional buildings. The needs of the educational institutions have been happily cared for by the promulgation of the mill tax law; but there remain the eleemosynary and corrective institutions. It would be very easy to limit their usefulness incalculably at this hour by adopting a penurious policy in dealing with their necessities.
In addition to the sound business policy of keeping abreast with the demands of our growing commonwealth, there is at this hour the added requirement upon us that we keep in mind the desirability of healthy conditions in our labor. We cannot curtail the building program without curtailing labor. This subject has been so seriously considered that there have been established in some states, notably Pennsylvania, emergency building funds under separate commissions to put in motion desirable public work in order to meet emergencies that may arise in the labor situation. I do not urge the adoption of such a fund in Kansas, because it is not likely that our situation will become sufficiently critical to justify it; but undoubtedly we shall feel before the year is over something of the problem which will become very critical in some of the eastern states. It is estimated that something like two million people will be thrown upon the labor market in a few months, mostly in the East and the South, through the closing of war factories. As this army of unemployed works westward in its search for employment it will undoubtedly touch us with more or less force. Added to the flow of this labor from nonconvertible war industries will be something like 3,000,000 men from home training camps and overseas service. I wish to call your attention to the fact that we are not doing our part if we meet this problem in a spirit of nonbuilding and stringent retrenchment.
There is much money that we might save which is now wasted in inefficiency and mismanagement in many of our expressions of government, and to save this should be our most serious concern; but saving money at the expense of needful public progress is a form of public waste from which we should refrain.

STATE GEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT.

The growing importance to Kansas of her natural resources in petroleum, natural gas, lead and zinc, coal, clays, salt, gypsum, road materials, cement and water, and the peculiar need for special study of certain problems in connection with the water supply for public use in irrigation, development of road materials, and further development of petroleum resources, all call for the reorganization of the State Geological Department. If it is to be made useful in a comprehensive way it will need to be placed upon an adequate business basis. A very considerable increase in the funds needed for the Geological Department will be necessary.

NEEDED INSPECTION OF METAL MINES.

Within the past three years there has been a tremendous development of the lead- and zinc-mining industry in the southeastern portion of the state. This industry has grown to a point where it rivals the coal industry of the state, but no provision has been made for the proper safeguarding of these mines. There is immediate need that a provision be made for the inspection of the lead and zinc mines of this state in order to prevent appalling loss of life and infliction of injury.
It is my belief that the Legislature should provide for a deputy state mine inspector under the present State Mine Inspection Department, and that he should be selected with especial view to his capacity for work in the lead and zinc mines.

EDUCATIONAL.

My attention has been called to the legislative program of the State Teachers' Association, which strikes me as being full of suggestions which are entitled to the gravest consideration of the Legislature.
It provides for a state insurance law prepared on an actuarial basis, guaranteeing an annual income for life to those persons who have given all of their energies through a term of years to the public schools of the state; it contains a provision for the taking of the office of state superintendent out of politics; for improving the statutes under which the county superintendent of schools is chosen; and other changes in our system necessary to make it meet all the needs of the modern day.

JUDICIARY REFORMS.

Some important and necessary reforms in the judiciary system of the state have been considered by the Legislature in the past few years. They have not been enacted into law, because it is first necessary to amend the constitution so that these reforms could be legally adopted.
In this as in other desirable action, the constitution as it now stands is found to be a bar to progress.

NATIONAL PROHIBITION AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

The constitutional amendment providing for national prohibition should be ratified at the earliest possible date.
A resolution requesting the United States Senate to submit a constitutional amendment providing for woman suffrage should be passed without delay.
Kansas has been a leader in these movements, and this leadership calls for prompt action, which I hope will be taken.

STATE RESERVE BANKS.

I wish to call attention of the Legislature to the plan of the Kansas state bankers to establish state reserve banks. It is argued by these bankers that Kansas now keeps a large part of its reserve in cities outside of the state, where it goes chiefly to meet the demand for loans in states where it is deposited, when it could and should be used to develop Kansas resources. They believe that state reserve banks would result in keeping Kansas money at home. This is a desirable end, and the problem deserves the best attention of the Legislature.

NEED OF A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.

Nothing is more apparent in Kansas than the need of a general over-hauling of the constitutional system. The restrictions of the document, which was adopted at an hour when the state was small and its problems simple, become yearly more apparent. We have reached a point where relief touching the most needed reforms is absolutely impossible without constitutional amendment or a new constitution.
Proper treatment of such subjects as good-roads legislation, increase in home-owning, an adequate system of taxation, is utterly impossible under the present conditions. The general need for improved methods of state and county government under a system which would introduce modern business principles into government is equally impossible of accomplishment.
My able predecessor, in his message of 1917, said:
"The most extravagant and wasteful branch of government is that of the county in its present form. County taxes have nearly doubled in the last ten years, increasing from $4,882,235 in 1906 to $8,942,736 in 1916. With all our complaint of increased taxation, it seems incredible that no effort has been made by the Legislature to curb extravagance at this source, where it is greatest. We have sometimes seemed to begrudge the money required for the maintenance of state institutions, even to the extent of hampering their growth, development and usefulness, when in reality the money required for them is but a small part of the public revenues. We have been saving at the spigot and wasting at the bung-hole."
Governor Capper's terse analysis of the situation two years ago is even more true to-day than it was at that time, because each year emphasizes the inadequacy of our present county method. In some counties we have elected as high as seventeen county officials, and generally with the unhappy result of discovering that people do not vote for clerks, and others who perform special duties at the courthouse, with sufficient discrimination to guarantee us good results. The county ballot, like the state ballot, is too long. The employment of clerical help should be upon the same basis as it is in private life--ability to do the work. The present county system in many instances does little more than establish an expensive political asylum, the unnecessary cost of which is met by the taxpayer.
It is undoubtedly true that a simplification of our county government alone would save to the taxpayers of this state between one and two million dollars a year, and would result in better government. Instead of electing a man to hold a county office through political considerations, without reference to his ability, and then employing a deputy to do the work, we would begin the system where the deputy begins--with the necessary work of his office. Other states are studying this problem and are heading in this direction. It is not a revolution. It is merely the evolution of business principles in government.
The necessity of changes in the fundamental law, without considering the subject of simplifying county government, calls for at least six constitutional amendments, which under our system of amending the constitution would require more than six years for all the needed changes to find expression in law. There is also to consider the well-known disposition of the people to regard with indifference the importance of a constitutional amendment when it is submitted to them. No more conclusive example of this could be found than in the case of the constitutional amendment submitted in 1914 upon the recommendation of the State Tax Commission to give the Legislature the right to classify property for purposes of taxation. It was conceded by all who gave any intelligent thought to the subject that this was a meritorious constitutional amendment. It was a need so obvious that the presumption was that it would pass practically without opposition. Yet the people failed to take adequate interest in the matter. It was merely one of the many things demanding attention in a general election, and they practically ignored it, with the results that nearly 40 percent of those who voted for Governor did not vote upon the amendment at all. The amendment though it received a small vote, was defeated by a trifling majority.
We have attempted many times to "tinker with the constitution" through the process of amendments, but have never received anything approximating a general consideration of any constitutional amendment. The objection to this process of correcting the fundamental law of the state is that it constitutes a patchwork of provisions not related to each other, not forming any part of a comprehensive plan, and for that reason it is necessarily imperfect. So many reasons exist for re-writing the constitution of the state that I believe this Legislature should give to the people an opportunity to express themselves upon the question as to whether or not they wish a constitutional convention.
The law provides that it is within the power of the Legislature to submit this matter to the decision of the people. There is no other way of initiating it than through legislative action, and I do not believe that the Legislature can, in common justice to the people of this state, deny them the right to express themselves in the next biennial election upon this subject.
In case the people in the next biennial election choose to have it held, the convention should be called in the succeeding off year, so that it would be the one absorbing topic demanding their attention at that time, and the constitution thus written would be the expression of an intelligent interest and a full cooperation.
The present provision for writing a new constitution does not call for its submission to a vote of the people after it has been written. If this Legislature decides to submit the subject to the people for their vote, it should submit it with the provision that the constitution, when written, shall be submitted to a vote of the people for their approval or rejection.
Formerly, when the need of a constitutional convention was urged, four objections were generally cited by those who opposed it. One was that it might endanger the prohibitory amendment as it exists in our present constitution; another, that we did not need a new constitution; another was the expense; and the other was the fear that we might write an improper constitution. The first-named objection has disappeared. The prohibition question is settled. The second objection is also disposed of. No man now contends that we do not need constitutional change. The third, that we cannot bear the expense, is pretty and unworthy of us; and the fourth, that there is danger in submitting to the people an opportunity to rewrite their constitution, is cowardly. There is nothing in the history of the people of this state which gives the Legislature any right to be afraid of the judgment of the people when that judgment is backed by the thoughtful consideration with which it would be surrounded in a constitutional convention, held after three years of proper discussion and education.
The states of Ohio and Indiana contributed very largely in the writing of our present constitution. Ohio, from which a majority of the provisions were modeled, has discarded the old document that guided our grandfathers, and has written a new one, which has enabled that great state to go forward into many forms of improved government denied to us. Indiana, from which we gathered some of our ideas, is now engaged in rewriting her constitution. Many progressive states in whose society Kansas has pretended to travel have either rewritten their constitutions or are now engaged in the process.
We have a united people. The Legislature is very largely in the hands of a united party. There has never been an hour in this state when the need for a new constitution was more apparent and when it could be written with so obvious an expression of harmony and cooperation.

Transcribed from: Message of Governor Henry J. Allen to the Kansas Legislature, 1919.
[S.l. : s.n., 1919?]
Transcription by Rita Troxel.
Editing and html work by Victoria A. Wolf,
State Library of Kansas, November, 2003