nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

PROCEEDINGS 67
representation as compared with the small constituencies, and with the states
that have Boards in their bounds and, therefore, fifteen local members on
Boards. Even this adjustment will leave a state of a half or three quarters of
a million Baptist members with a great deal smaller proportionate representation
than the states having small constituencies of a few thousand, or even a
hundred thousand members. For instance, Texas with 800,000 Baptists and
three members on the Boards would have each Board member representing
266,000 persons, while a state with 10,000 or 25,000 would have one Board
member representing only ten or twenty-five thousand. This gives the small
states much more proportionate representation and voting power than the big
states. We do not go on strict numerical basis, and we are not afraid to trust
any group of intelligent Baptists who have all the facts, and take time to weigh
them, but it is not best for our policies and management to have the fixing and
control of those policies and management in the hands of representatives who
represent, say only 5 or 10 per cent of our total membership.
4. We are suggesting a limitation of tenure to a maximum of two threeyear
terms with an exception in special cases of members who, by reason of
technical or professional services, seem indispensable. Of course the report does
not make it mandatory that they shall serve two terms. The nominating committee
and the Convention could displace a member after one term of three
years, but not sooner constitutionally.
5. We have given the Boards freedom to have executive, administrative,
finance, and investment committees to accommodate their form of organization.
The reader will note that we have improved the methods and safeguards in
handling moneys and securities so that securities cannot be manipulated and
hypothecated without the Board's knowledge. That sort of By-Law would have
saved us nine hundred thousand dollars in the days of one Mr. Carnes.
Under the By-Laws, Section 6, "Agencies of the Convention," we have a
more accurate listing than heretofore. The Southern Baptist Foundation is
listed because the Atlanta Convention, 1944, voted to establish that .agency.
Some may think Section 7 is revolutionary but it is not. It is just good
sense and care in electing our most important special committee, the one" to
nominate members of boards, commissions, and standing committees.
The present method of choosing this important committee is for the new
president, before the Convention adjourns, to appoint one from each state as
the next committee on boards, commissions, and standing committees. The new
president is not the official president until the Convention adjourns. He has no
time, and maybe not the acquaintance with the whole territory (how could he
have?) necessary to find out who in the many states are most available and
competent for this difficult service. This appointment requires an intimate
knowledge of the personnel of the whole territory. How absurd to expect one
man who is just becoming president to make the best appointments when he
has not a day to write or investigate the personnel in the different states. The
present plan is just about the worst we could have. The plan suggested will
utilize the knowledge of the messengers of the states about their own personnel
which they know as nobody else can know; and it leaves the Convention free
and sovereign in its own rights.
Moreover the'plan suggested is not complicated or impossible of operation.
The messengers can easily get together and nominate three persons from their
. state, one of whom the Convention will elect, if it wants to; and if it does not,
it can amend the report and elect someone else, just as Baptists have done from
the year one, and will go on doing.
Let me say that the members of this Committee have been, with the fewest
exceptions, the most hardworking, courteous, painstaking, meticulously careful,
and accurate group I have ever worked with; and I have helped, through the
years, to write many constitutions and by-laws, charters, articles of faith, and
covenants. As chairman, I want to express my unqualified, profound thanks
to them, for they have been "swell" to me in their courtesy and co-operation,
and appreciation of me and my efforts in my difficult labors as chairman.
The readers will find all the names appended to the report which follows,
except four who for one reason or another said they could not sign the report.
I addressed a card to every member of the committee asking for authority to