We should bear in mind that the extreme advocates of the short ballot, by eliminating all requirements for the approval and consent of the senate in regard to the appointment of heads of the great state departments, would make the governor supreme and independent of the legislature, even more independent and powerful than is the President under the Constitution of the United States. I sincerely hope that the Convention will not make this grave mistake. The number of state elective officers should not be reduced to less than four, namely, governor, lieutenant-governor, comptroller and attorney-general. The comptroller should be made an auditing officer charged with supervision as such over the various departments of the state and independent of the appointing power. The attorney-general should be made the head of a department of justice and the responsible legal adviser of the governor and of every state official. And the heads of all the great departments should be appointed by the governor with the approval and consent of the senate. No governor should be given the unrestrained power to appoint or to remove the heads of all departments. The requirement of the consent of the senate is a necessary and salutary restraint upon all governors, good or bad. It is better and safer that governors should be compelled to submit to some restraints than that absolute power should be vested in even the best and ablest and purest of men. The principle of a short ballot is the decrease of elective offices, but not necessarily the placing of absolute and unrestrained power in the hands of one man.