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DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
The Chair recognizes Delegate White to
allot some more time.
DELEGATE WHITE: Mr. Chairman, I
yield three minutes to Delegate Schloeder.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
The Chair recognizes Delegate Schloeder.
DELEGATE SCHLOEDER: Mr. Chair-
man and ladies and gentlemen : this is
Delegate Scanlan's microphone. It is very
well warmed up by the time I get to it.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Go ahead.
DELEGATE SCHLOEDER: Like Dele-
gate Scanlan, I am originally a resident
of New Jersey and not from the rolling
hills of Union County, the way he is, but
from Hudson County, which some of you
may remember is the private barony of
Frank Hague.
Frank Hague was an old political boss
and the story goes that one time they found
that Frank Hague copied down some names
off the cemetery tombstones and that these
people had voted or these names had been
used as voters in municipal, state and fed-
eral elections, and when questioned about
this procedure by the United States at-
torneys, he answered that these people were
good Democrats in this world and there
was no reason to believe that now that
they had gone to their reward, that they
had changed their political affiliation.
It seems to me that this goes to the
whole concept of the extension of the right
to vote. They certainly were property own-
ers in the sense that they owned those
cemetery plots. They were non-residents of
a sort, not to get into metaphysical ques-
tions, but it seems to me to put this provi-
sion in our constitution is an archaic and
undemocratic process. It has no constitu-
tional place. It has no constitutional stature.
What we are doing here is turning back
the clock 150 years or more and constitu-
tionalizing the rotten borough system of the
English parliamentary system of 1780 and
1790.
I think that there are a great many in-
consistencies that Delegate Gullett has al-
ready pointed out. Section 9 of this article
is inconsistent where it talks about not
establishing a property test for public
office, and yet we are going to establish a
property test for voting, or certainly ex-
tend it.
We are also inconsistent. Some man
might have an inventory of ,$100,000 but
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he rents rather than owns a store in Ocean
City or somewhere else, and therefore he
is not eligible to vote.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
You have thirty seconds.
DELEGATE SCHLOEDER: The main
point that I would make here is that this
has no constitutional validity and I do not
think that this is something that we want
to enshrine in a constitution.
We do not want this State or this Con-
stitutional Convention that has made many
reforms and many forward movements to
enshrine in it the first property qualifica-
tion in the first state constitution in over
a hundred years.
If this is not in it, it seems to me that
this will not affect those municipalities that
already have this right.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Rybczynski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Mr. Chair-
man, before calling on the next speaker, I
cannot help but wonder how a school
teacher ever came up with a comparison
of the rotten borough system to this sys-
tem. This is truly amazing to me.
I call on Delegate Pascal to speak for
three minutes.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Pascal.
DELEGATE PASCAL: Mr. Chairman,
not only is my friend Delegate Schloeder
talking from Scanlan's microphone but he
is beginning to sound like him.
(Laughter.)
This particular Committee Recommenda-
tion which I stand to support was based
on logic and nothing else. Let us take a
look at the future municipalities in the
local government article.
I doubt if they are going to expand as
far as the local area is concerned. If they
expand they will go up. This is the center
of commerce. I would like to talk about the
local businessman who lives outside the
municipality but has his store or shop or
what-have-you in the municipality.
This man pays a real estate tax not
only to the municipality but to the county.
He pays a personal property tax not only to
the municipality, but to the county. And I
suggest that to support the municipal gov-
ernment, they are going to come to him
year after year. I want to draw the paral-
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