ly vaunting himself as the evangel of this reawakened spirit of liberty and progress, cunningly drove England into a spirit of antagonism to all that was new simply because it was new, and into a blind devotion to all that was old simply because it was old. And so it came about that the splendid new spirit that swept over Europe, a spirit that should have been its civic regeneration, a spirit that called Lafayette and Steuben, Pulaski and Kosciousko, Robert Morris from Liverpool and Albert Gallatin from Switzerland, to this side of the ocean, grasped few of its possibilities, because that spirit spent itself in blind gropings in a wilderness of leaderless wanderings. In such times and in such seething periods of unrest, a weak man may turn a nation into a mob, but it takes a great man to keep a nation from becoming a mob. And therein lay the difference of outcome on this side of the Atlantic from this epoch of unrest. It was the far-seeing vision of such men as Franklin and the fathers, wise beyond their day and generation, that led the people by the path of sane and sensible self-control in the new order of government. It takes the great need, the great crisis, the great call of a great people, to create great men, and to the new world's great, heartdeep cry for leadership, Providence in its own time answered them as it has always answered since, when the cry ascends. Another period of widespread flux and change is upon us today, and not upon us alone but upon the whole world. The times are pregnant with unrest and the labors of travail are upon us. The great economic, commercial, social, and other changes that invention, expansion, centralization have brought about perplex, dumfound, dishearten us. We are just awakening to them, and as yet we do not know how to meet them. But the unrest of this great people is an unrest for construction and not for destruction, and an unrest that honestly hungers for leadership and light. The call of the nation today is for trusted guiding, and the lack of the nation is our inability to answer that cry. Can we doubt it will be answered? The past of our country bids us have no doubt as to its future. The years of colonial struggle and unrest ended in Franklin and Washington. The many years of seething uncertainty through our precivil war era ended in Lincoln, and our present era of unsettled and unsettling unrest must end in leaders that will speak to the nation as these great men of the past have spoken, not in volumes of words that are as unheeded as they are soon forgotten, but in words and counsel which, like those of the revolutionary fathers, shall ring true a century after they are spoken, in words of wise and sane counsel and warning that our children's children shall rise up a century hence and call blessed. Proposals to Change the Constitution One of the results of the quick and easy adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment is an apparently general attitude of mind towards the Constitution which cannot be too greatly deplored, and which should cause the gravest concern as well to the successful advocates of prohibition as to those who opposed it. It has called forth, from all parts of the country, a perfect flood of jocose and derisive proposals for the alteration of the fundamental law of the land. The general tenor of these suggestions is that, since it has been demonstrated that "morality legislation" can be written into the Constitution without much difficulty, and since a constitutional amendment affords a satisfying and irrevocable method of reforming the manners and morals of one's neighbors, it is not necessary to stop with putting down the liquor evil. Reformers are to be encouraged to proceed along this new and promising line with their numerous and varying crusades. Why, it is asked by the press, should we not procure the adoption of a series of new constitutional amendments to prohibit the manufacture and use of tobacco, the publication of obscene books, the production of dramas of a prurient tendency, the evil of overeating, the production or commercial use of that explosive substance molasses, and the employment of children in industry or manufactures? "The great importance of the prohibition amendment," says the New York Times, "lies in its demonstration that you can do anything with or through the Constitution." The New York Herald adds: "There is a shocking story given out in Washington that 95 per cent of American troops abroad are tobacco addicts. If we cannot have another constitutional amendment on that score, what is the use of a Constitution?" Thus the great instrument of government which should be the object of our deepest veneration has become a laughingstock. This phase will pass, of course. Those who know the native American's grim seriousness about essential matters, as well as his inveterate habit of masking his convictions behind a veil of persiflage, may well regret this outburst of indecent jesting, but need not regard it as, in itself, a menace to the future of the Constitution. But there is ground to think that it may be far otherwise with the millions of aliens who are slowly being Americanized and prepared for citizenship. As they lack our perspective, they may well be supposed to take these mirthful proposals with serious gravity, and thus to form, irremediably and at the most critical stage, a totally perverted conception of what the Constitution really is and what it is meant to secure and to perpetuate. Aside from these matters, there is no apparent diminution in the number or variety of the efforts made to secure changes in the Constitution. This is perennial; it is a process which has been in operation since 1787. At every session of Congress a relatively large number of joint resolutions are intro duced proposing amendments. Some of them were on the calendar, or on their way to it, when the Sixty-Fifth Congress expired. There are others There are others which have not yet reached that stage, but which are loudly and widely advocated, and to that extent deserving of attention. It is the purpose of this article to describe some of the most important and persistent of these suggested amendments. A very favorite subject of discussion has been the proposal to limit the President to a single term of office. Up to 1890 resolutions for amending the Constitution to this effect had been introduced about 125 times, and more or less interest in the subject has been shown at each successive session of Congress. It received a fresh impetus about 1912, when President Taft, in several public speeches and in one of his messages, expressed himself as strongly in favor of an amendment proposed by joint resolution in that year to restrict the President to a term of six years and to make him ineligible to re-election. On one occasion he remarked: "I venture the suggestion that it would aid the efficiency of the executive and center his energy and attention and that of his subordi.. nates, in the latter part of his administration, upon what is a purely disinterested public service, if he were made. ineligible after serving one term of six years, either to a succeeding or a nonconsecutive term." But on this, as on many other subjects tinged with practical politics, the people in general have shown very little interest in theories, but much in policies and results. It is the popularity of the president for the time being, and the general estimate of his administration, that sways their minds at the moment; and no body of popular sentiment has ever been worked up sufficient to force the submission of a constitutional amendment to the states. Linked with this general subject is the frequently recurring proposal that the President should be elected by the direct vote of the people. Since 1826, resolutions for this purpose have often been presented to Congress. Undoubtedly the Electoral College is a curious example of the survival of a political institution to which great importance was originally attached, but which has become a mere automatic piece of machinery. There has grown up a usage or custom of the Constitution which has not abolished, but has enveloped, the Electoral College, and thus we have silently changed our Constitution. But since the citizens do virtually vote directly for the presidential candidates, and seem to feel no impatience with the interposition of the presidential electors for the mere purpose of registering their votes, there has never been sufficient urgency behind these proposals for a formal amendment of the Constitution to carry them further than the committees of Congress. But there is a periodical recurrence of a movement to change the date of the inauguration of the President and Vice President. There are more reasons than one for this proposal. The weather in Washington on the 4th of March is more often inclement than mild. Violent storms have several times prevailed on that date in presidential inauguration years, and usually But the conditions are entirely unsuitable, if not even dangerous, for outdoor ceremonies. Great crowds throng the capital on such occasions, and hundreds and even thousands of cases of severe and sometimes fatal illness are the inevitable result. Of course, the time for the inauguration could be changed without a constitutional amendment. The President could take the oath of office on the 4th of March, and his ceremonial induction into office could be postponed. there is another matter. A President elected in November has no control or even influence over the conduct of the government until the following March, and even then the Congress elected with him does not assemble (unless a special session is called) until the beginning of December. Whenever the elections have shifted the administration from one party to another, from the days of John Adams' appointment of the "midnight judges" down to recent times, this situation has been fraught with embarrassing if not dangerous possibilities. It is not surprising, therefore, that numerous proposals should have been made to bring the inauguration of the President and the assembling of the Congress much nearer to the date of the elections. At least twice the Senate has passed such a resolution by the requisite majority, and at least once it failed in the House by only one vote less than the necessary two-thirds. There has been some difference in details, but generally the suggested amendments have followed the plan of a resolution introduced in 1917 by Senator Shafroth of Colorado, by which the terms of the President and Vice President would begin on the second Monday in January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives on the first Monday in January, following the election, with the beginning of the first regular session of each Congress appointed for the first Monday in January. For a long time the drift of power has been away from the states and into the hands of the central government. The latter has waxed great at the expense of the former. Much of this has been accomplished by extremely liberal interpretations of a few clauses of the Constitution, some of it by enactments of Congress having such slight connection with any power expressly delegated to that body that it can scarcely be discerned without a microscope. But at the same time there have been almost innumerable proposals to enlarge the powers of Congress by constitutional amendment. For example, it has been very often and quite lately urged that a clause should be added to the Constitution giving to the national legislature the authority to make uniform laws on the subject of marriage and divorce throughout the United States. In the same line, various reform associations and civic societies have asked Congress to submit an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting polygamy in the United States. A resolution or memorial of the Legislature of Louisiana in 1916 preferred this request. And at about the same time a convention of ladies in session at Atlantic City adopted a resolution demanding that "the President and Congress" should forthwith change the Constitution so as to abolish poly gamy-in innocent oblivion of the necessity of affirmative action by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. Again, it has been very seriously urged that the prevention or punishment of lynching should be made the duty of the federal government, of course by constitutional amendment. And so of a recent proposal for an amendment giving Congress power at all times, in peace as well as in war, to legislate for the control of the supply and distribution of food. And we read in a press dispatch (September 17, 1917) that "the administration will soon start a drive for a new amendment to the federal Constitution, which will empower the Census Bureau, under the Department of Commerce, to keep a record of all births and deaths in the United States." This does not by any means exhaust the list of suggestions for amplifying the powers of the national government. It would be tedious to enumerate them all. But we may note in passing the resolutions introduced in recent years to bestow upon Congress the power to regulate insurance, manufacturing, and all corporations, to suppress monopolies, and to regulate the hours of labor throughout the United States. But there have also been proposals to curb the power of Congress. Among them should be mentioned (with such becoming sobriety as the subject demands) Mr. Bryan's earnest demand for an amendment which would prevent Congress from declaring war upon any foreign power except when so instructed as the result of a referendum vote of the people of the United States. A joint resolution to exactly this effect, but with a reservation of cases of actual invasion and of cases where the danger is so imminent as not to admit of delay, was introduced in the Senate on August 31st, 1917, by Senator Gore of Oklahoma. But why restrict the blessings of the referendum to the single question of war? And why neglect the equally blessed initiative? Mr. Bryan predicts their incorporation into the federal Constitution in the near future. He declares his conviction that "before many years" the people of the United States "will add a Twentieth Amendment reserving to the people the power to veto, through a referendum, the acts of their legislature, and, through the initiative, secure such desirable legislation as they are not able to secure through their representatives." And there are many who agree with him. In 1907 it was stated, and apparently on good authority, that 110 members of Congress stood pledged to vote for the initiative and referendum as a part of the national Constitution, at least in respect to certain topics of supposed popular interest, if not for their universal application. Events of very recent interest have brought to the front two other proposed amendments. One is to abolish the requirement of a two-thirds vote in the Senate for the ratification of a treaty. A Boston newspaper says: "That is one of the demonstrated blunders of the founders of the Republic. They allowed a majority vote to declare war, but required a two-thirds vote to terminate one." Whatever urgency may be behind this movement, it is certain that the Senate will never |