Oral History Interview: Dr. Harry Bard, President, Community College of Baltimore, II

by Joan A. Andersen, July 9, 1974

[Transcript Note: JA stands for Joan Andersen; HB stands for Harry Bard].

JA: As one of twenty-seven, it seems to me you could have wielded more leverage there, than as one out of one hundred and forty-two delegates to a convention, which if you had to choose...

HB: Well, that's true. But it is surprising as to how much power an individual could have even if the thought is his own. There are a few things that I stood for at a point, at the earliest point of initiation. Let me take two or three illustrations to show you that even though I was one of over one hundred and forty at the Convention and as one of but twenty-seven I might add, one of fewer than twenty-seven at the commission, because there were people going off without being replaced on the commission. Let's take the whole area of consumer protection and education. I have long been a supporter of it. And then I had a personal experience in our own family. A few years previous to 1967, Mrs. Bard had been using a drug, not in terms of drugs that we now use to refer for those who are addictive, not an addictive drug, but a drug in order to clear up a problem that she had. Her whole body broke out as a reflection of drug poisoning. Incidentially, I got her iin the hospital in five minutes. Actually five minutes between the time I picked up the phone and the time she was in the hospital admitted elapsed, no longer. One can get in a hispital in Baltimore by using the phrase, "drug poisoning," which she had. I was very much interested in the fact that drugs were prescribed and in those days I don't think we were as sensitive about it as we are nowadays. Drugs are prescribed without full knowledge of the fact that some people may be allergic to them. Besides, earlier as a teacher of the social studies in the senior high school I came up at the heyday of consumer education, right after the economic depression when everybody felt that not only would the lack of money get you into trouble, but the misuse of money was as important as the lack of money. Though I think a person needed to have money. Well, I was alone in proposing that one be a constitutional article dealing with consumer protection and consumer education. New York State had experimented in this,but as you know, the New York State Constitution, for the same reasons as ours, failed because the voters had to vote on the entire consitution at one time instead of section by section. So I appeared before the committee of the conventiuon dealing with the whole area of Bill of Rights which was largely hortatory in nature. As you know, our Bill of Rights is, as we call it in Maryland, the Declaration of Rights. Here is the fact that one person can influence a large body. In fact, this is the whole theme of my new book, that one person....there is a good deal more latitude in political life than the average person understands and certainly than the body politic understands. There's no doubt about it. We often raise our hands in despair and say, "What can an individual do? You can't fight City Hall." But there are many ways in which you can fight city hall. You can set up a petition; you can take a case to court; you can carry out the kind of initiative that I had followed in connection with consumer protection and education.

Well, I appeared before the Declaration of Rights sub-committee at the consitutional convention and said, "Why don't we have a clause in our constitution saying that people have a right to be protected as consumers?" "Well," they said, "This is a far-out idea." I replied to the committee, "As a matter of fact, in 1864, when there were some who appeared before the consitutional convention which culminated in the Maryland constitution of 1864, they said, "Public education is a right of individuals and should be constitutionally protected." They were told: "We'll always have education. We can do it through statutory laws. We don;t need to have a constitutional protection." They said,, "But you have freedom of speech, you protect freedom of thought, how can you have freedom of speech unless you have protection of the right to be educated at a minimal standard?" So said the people in the 1860's. This was written in the constitution, as you know, Article VIII of the Maryland constitution. I said, "Now, similarly, our times are so complex in terms of the technology, in terms of poverty, in terms of the fact people are not protected in terms of the homes they buy, in terms of the drugs they use. True we have a Pure Food and Drug Law, but it doesn't go far enough. The buyer beware is the way in which we live." Well, they were not exactly warm about the idea. So, I got a hold of some of the people who were in labor (Charles Della and Nicholas Fornaro). We had some people from organized labor at the convention, both elected and lobbyists. I brought them back with me. I did some research on it and found, interestingly enough, that the attorney general's office was very much in favor of consumer protection. They had received literally hundreds of calls by people who had bought a home and repairs had not been protected. Although since then there have been some new laws in regard to protection of home repair, actually certifying people who are in the business of home repairs. They had bought clothing, home appliances, that had not been protected. Poor materials. These were people of poverty who had finally gotten to a point where they had some money and they lost it. Well, labor had been carrying out a campaign. The attorney general's office, said, "Good, we need this, if you put something in the constitution that will stimulate the legislature to pass statutory laws in support of the constitutional provision." Incidentally, I was also with a small group, not alone, saying the same thing about ecology and our natural resources. Only three of us there. But I was alone on consumer protection.

I talked with a number of our black delegates and there were a goodly number. One (Roy O,. Borom), from our own district delegation and a goodly number from Baltimore City, (such as Juanita Mitchell and Earl Kogerr from the 4th District). They were strongly in favor of it because they represented people of poverty to a large degree, the inner city in Baltimore. They recognized there was a need for protecting the consumer against goods that were of poor quality. Also that matter against interests that were exhorbitant. Although...

JA: Is that in the current constitution as amended? That particular provision.

HB: Consumer protection?

JA: Yes.

HB: No, but it got into our Constitution of 1968, and we started out with one vote for it, Harry Bard's. They, the committee, came out in favor of it. They became enamoured of the whole idea. They said, "This is not exhortation, it is a protective element. Even if it is exhortation, there are hortatory statements in the Declaration of Rights." A hortatory statement has a place in the constitution, particularly in the Declaration of Rights. Well, the committee favored it. Fortunately. But that was not the entire body and we had a goodly number of people who were against it. The people were against it fitted into this category: first, those who state that a constitution should be brief, the shorter the better, hortatory statements do not belong in constitutions. Then there were some from the legislature who states, "You are taking away rights that we should have." These are not constitutional rights, they are legislative rights. On the other hand, this didn;t take any rights away from the legislature, it encouraged them. So I won them over to that. They saw that they were encouraged. Then I had to win over some who were more or less oriented in terms of the courts. They said, "The courts will be flooded with people who will be bringing cases of grievance in terms of purchases. We don't have enough judges as it is." "Well," I stated, "the trouble is judges are not dealing with the common man. The common man really does not have his day in court. This is the thing that he needs to deal with: not only how to make a living, but how to make his dollar go as far as possible." Well, we won them over. The labor people helped to win them over. Ultimately, as you know, it passed the convention. My wife was in the gallery at the time. They passed it the last three days of the convention. It was a long fight from virtually the first week to the last three days. The odds were, I think, fifty to one against it.

JA: What was the vote, do you remember?

HB: The vote was more than two-thirds. But it was just about squeezed more than two-thirds through. I was pleased about it because it showed that if you marshalled your material and got some people on your side, and you were not hard-nosed about writing it in exact language, and you did not keep it as your possession, but you took what might have been your idea and you expanded it and changed it and got people in favor of it, then it became their possession. So by the time it passed, it is true that the chairman, Vernon Eney, paused to acknowledge Mrs. Bard in the balcony at the time, and stated that she had been one of the influential drives behind my initiative, which she was as a result of this drug poisoning that I told you about. But it was a high moment. Then I realized just what a big kick you get to see something that's worthwhile get done. You might be interested to know that while there has not been a constitutional amendment with the exact wording, the 1974 session of the state legislature was known as the "consumer session." Out of it grew many of the very thoughts we had talked about. The new department created July 1, 1974 called for the Department of Consumer Credit. And I really go the biggest kick out of this because I talked about it to one of my colleagues who voted against putting it in the constitution and said, "Would you believe that we would reach a day when the state and federal government are now protecting the consumer along the lines we all talked about?" She said, "No, I wouldn't have. You were right and I was wrong."

JA: Who was that?

HB: Better not say. I think you could almost guess.

JA: You characterized the convention at one point. You said it got "earthy" sometimes. Now what did you have in mind when you said that?

HB: Well, I'll give you an exciting experience. An anecdotal experience that has some elements of humor in it and yet it is very true. We were voting this particular day in the question of the election of the comptroller. There are many who believed that the comptroller ought to be appointed, as he is in many states, rather than elected statewide. After all, the comptroller serves the executive primarily and should be really a part of the executive's cabinet. I believe this is true, although I did not believe it with the same power that I believed in, let us say, the consumer question. The vote had taken place all morning and it was not a decisive vote. I had to leave that day to attend the hundredth anniversary of Morgan State College.

I was home, in a tuxedo, on my way to the Morgan State College affair in Baltimore. I received a telephone call from Clint Bamburger, who was from the 5th District and who was leading the fght in favor of this reform. He said, "Harry, you have to come back to Annapolis tonight, there's a special session on this question alone, a special vote." I said, "I'm not going to do it Clint." He said, "You've gotta come. I don't care what appointments you have, Delegate [Frederick C.] Malkus [Jr.] is coming from the eastern shore, and if he comes and your don't , they win and we lose. Your vote will cancel out his vote, and he's about to start from the eastern shore and I want you to get there before he does." So I siad, "Clint, I'm not going to drive like a wild man, I'm exhausted and I cannot make Annapolis in half an hour." He said, "I'll get a state trooper down to take you there." We had the priviledge of the use of state troopers. So he called me back in five minutes and said, "I cannot get a trooper from the Pikesville station and that's the closest to you. I'll have to get one from Randallstown, I've gotten permission. That's the second closest but that leaves you but 20 minutes to get to Annapolis. You won't have to drive, Harry." I said, "I don't like it Clint, but I'm not going to let you down. I'll go."

So I called the Morgan authorities who started their dinner and told them I'd be there late. Along comes the state trooper from the Randallstown station. He said, "We've got 20 minutes to get to Annapolis." I said, "You'll never do it, and I don't want to do it in 20 minutes. I do it in an hour and I'm not going to violate the speed laws." He said, "Don't worry about it, you're in a state car." So I got into the state car and I'm not far from the Beltway, as you know, and the lights were flashing and the horns were blowing and everybody moved aside. I've never been driven in a car moving as fast in all my life. We dashed down the Beltway and we got to Carling's Black Label, which is right alongside the Beltway, as you know, and he said, "I have to leave you here." I said, "Why?" He said, "This is the end of my beat but this is a relay and somebody else is going to pick you up." I said, "I am exhausted." He said, "I am too. That's why I'm giving you a fresh driver." I said, "You're giving me a fresh driver, but I'm not a fresh participant." So I got in the second car. Meanwhile, we were in telephone conversation with Annapolis.Vernon Eney was relaying, "We're not going to stay here all day." Clint Bamburger was talking back to me by telephone. "Look, can't you get this guy to rush?" I said, "I'm not going to permit him to drive any faster than he his driving." This was a straight drive, eighty miles an hour, and at times above eighty. As we came close to Annapolis, a telephone call comes in, "Senator Malkus has just arrived." He was a state senator, full-time, and was a delegate from the eastern shore and was to vote against the so-called reform proposal vis a vis the comptroller. Well I called back and said, "We are nearing Annapolis, tell them to hold the vote." Well, they held the vote. I arrived in my tuxedo. he had already arrived, Senator Malkus. They held the votes waiting for my arrival. Well you can imagine all those on the side of the so-called reform group when they saw me there, they just burst out in applause -- in this tuxedo. It was an earthy group. By then we knew each other well and there was all kinds of whistling, you know, what was I doing in a tuxedo? The only one there. Well the roll was called. It was a tie vote. Verney Eney said, "It's a tie vote, we'll have to vote again tomorrow."

So I said, "I've got to get back to that Morgan State College 100th Anniversary. Martin Jenkins is a long-time friend of mine. He had served on the committee with me and we had been fellow college presidents for many years. I respected him and I had my role in the affair." "Well, we'll give you a state trooper." I said, "I don't want that kind of a state trooper, I just want to drive leisurely. Even though I need to get back in a hurry, I want to do it in 45 minutes, no less. I don't want to exceed 65 miles, I'll go 70, but I'm not going to go over 80 at any point." Well the state trooper said, "Don't worry about it. This is my last assignment, and I'm going home after this." We drove back leisurely. I got back in time to have dessert. I missed all the food and missed all the speeches, for which I was thankful. There were far too many speeches. All ended well, I might add, we won the following day by a couple of votes. The votes were sustained for the final vote. We won. We got it into the constitution.

It might have been a Pyrrhic victory, because of Louis Goldstein, who I respect tremendously. I have really learned to have a lot of faith in what he does as comptroller. I think he really knows his business. A lot of people misjudge him because of that silly salutation which he uses, "God bless you real good." He is a good comptroller. He's known as such all over the country. He fought us tooth and nail. He said that the comptroller should be an elected office and should not be under the governor alone, even though many states do it that way. I will say that he was a much better practical politician and caused a lot of voters to vote against this document.

Part Three: The Constitution That Failed

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Oral History Interview: Harry Bard copyright © 1974 Oral History Research Center, BJC/BCC; *Use of certain published materials and manuscripts is restricted by law, by reason of their origin, or by donor agreement. The Baltimore City Community College also reserves the right to restrict use of unprocessed materials and documents which are unique and/or exceptionally fragile. Use of all materials is subject to the approval of the Director.
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