In 1915 the constitutional convention then in session at Albany, was surveying the foundations of the political structure of New York, undertaking to make adjustments to the sweeping changes that had come over the life of the state in the previous twenty-year period. Committees were chosen to rake the far corners of the system for needed adjustment. Hundreds of experts were summoned and hundreds of citizens voluntarily appeared to press their views and their wants. The committee having in charge the organization of the _state_ government listened to an ex-president, the heads of two leading universities, prominent efficiency experts and every important state officer. The committee on _cities_ gave audience to the mayor and chief legal officers of every important city in the state, while the conference of mayors was sufficiently interested to send one of its number to stump the state for an amendment which would promote the welfare of New York cities. The work of these divisions of the convention was of deepest concern to the state. It received from the press and the public no small amount of interested comment. There was also a committee which touched on an interest that includes every inhabitant--county government. One might have imagined that this body too could have attracted at least one or two celebrities. There are sixty-one counties in New York State. Everybody lives in one. They safeguard property, personal and civil rights. But not so. Two or three public hearings; no ex-presidents; no college heads; no considerable number of interested private citizens--such was the tangible display of awakening to the subject at hand. At a singularly appropriate moment, however, a brand-new association of clerks of the boards of supervisors was formed. Several members of the body appeared in person before the convention. The committee appealed to them to enrich its fund of information concerning the home government. They were given a free rein to tell of the needs of their counties. In view of collateral facts, the testimony of this notable group of public servants is peculiarly illuminating. The representative of a central New York county was there and blandly did he announce that his people were perfectly satisfied with their county government; they would not dream of modifying it. The clerk from a Hudson River county was equally optimistic, and went to some pains to show in detail just how very well his county was governed. Similar testimony was presented from a county in the capital district. Then up spoke the clerk from near the borders of Pennsylvania: the people of this neighboring state had conceived so great an admiration for the form of his county government that they were longing to substitute it for their own rather simpler system.