Third Term Filmflam

While the nation's attention is absorbed by the Lilienthal case, budget and tax curs, and labor legislation, the Republican leadership with unusually little noise and difficulty has obtained all bit final Congressional approval for a constitutional amendment limit Presidential tenure. This piece of "must" legislation is another all-too-common example of hasty, vengeance-begotten acts which have already thrown the 80th Congress into a maze of political confusion on each of the three, mentioned spotlighted issues.

Steamrollered through the House and the Senate Judiciary Committee, this proposed amendment would put a limit of two terms or nine years (in the case of a Vice-President assuming office) on the tenure of any President. Viewed superficially, it would seem that this was innocuous enough, inasmuch as only one president has been successful in gaining more than two terms of office. But regarded from both the theoretical and the practical angle, the dangers, inherent in the passage of this measure take sudden and disturbing shape. Many students of government and political theory question the element of democracy involved in telling the people. "You can't elect this man of your highest office, even though most of you want him there, because he has served long enough now." This restriction placed on the electorate in periods of crisis, when certain experienced leadership is required, should make the lawmakers think twice before nodding their collective heads in obedient assent.

The argument that a President in his third term will be in a position to establish a dictatorship contains little logic when it is considered that the same man would have had ample time to do so in his first two terms. Furthermore, if this limitation is enacted, any such evil-minded chief executive will not thus be frustrated in his attempt. He will merely have to hasten it so that the coup falls within his allotted two terms. No president with serious dictatorial designs will permit a constitutional article or amendment to stand in the way of fulfilling his plans. But, how obviously this amendment is motivated by a pathological anti-Roosevelt passion can be seen from the declarations of a few of its less discreet supporters. Before they were properly stilled by their more astute leaders, they said rather wistfully, that such a tenure limit would certainly have prevented the late President from being elected in 1910.

This amendment cannot be intelligently supported by those who profess belief in the political good sense of the majority in times of decision. Those who do not share this faith in the people and majority rule are less than sincere in advocating this barrier to the free choice of candidates on the flimsy grounds of a tradition--indeed, a tradition repudiated twice in four years by the voters of the country.