TATE ENGINEERING, INC. 671

and tradition. Above all, it is dynamic and therefore, I feel, destined
to endure. Great principles are adhered to, yet flexibility is assured
to perpetuate a viable State government.

State government has a special role as the sovereign government
closest to the people. It is immediate and intimate. It is the laboratory
for political experiment, the instrument to test and apply new political
solutions to new and old problems. A constitution is the super-
structure and soul of a state. If it is too rigid, state government can-
not grow, and in this period of incessant change — of explosive com-
mercial, industrial and population growth — rigidity ultimately will
strangle state government.

Good state government is always important but without constitu-
tional reform it may well be impossible. Administrative reorganization
should always produce heightened efficiency but without constitutional
reform it may prove ineffectual. A modern constitution is the founda-
tion of a modern state; a viable constitution permits a vital state gov-
ernment. Thus, constitutional reform is at once the first and final step
to creating a state government which can operate efficiently in the
latter half of the twentieth century and evolve to function effectively
in the twenty-first.

ADDRESS AT DEDICATION CEREMONIES,
TATE ENGINEERING, INC., BALTIMORE

January 31, 1968

Expansion of Maryland industry is always a cause for celebration,
but today my pleasure is doubled for not only does this ceremony
signify unprecedented plant expansion but the success of a corpora-
tion piloted by a good friend.

The progress of Tate Industries from a one man, one office opera-
tion in 1925 to a four plant enterprise with over four hundred and
fifty employees in 1967 is a story well-known to most of you here
today. It contains all the elements of the American dream, of mana-
gerial genius and building the better mousetrap. However, while the
growth of Tate Industries over the past twenty years has been steady,
the growth over the past two years has been phenomenal. Acquisition,
expansion and construction — the great aspirations of private enter-
prise — have become the commonly accepted attributes of Tate
Industries.