The Silent Lobby

To what extent today's political apathy on important issues will go can have no more definite demonstration than on the two presidential-term constitutional amendment. In this state the legislature is prepared to vote on it after a few short hours of discussion in committee with virtually no open opposition. If Massachusetts puts its approval on the amendment, it will become the fourteenth state to do so in a month after its submission to the states by Congress.

Whatever the size of the majority of public opinion in its favor (and no conclusive proof of great popular support has been forthcoming), the passage of this amendment will be of serious significance to the country and its future. Indeed, no matter what the proposed amendment may be, any major revision in the nation's constitution deserves consideration of the most exhaustive kind. Instead, this one is being rushed through state legislatures, predominantly Republican, as it was steamrollered through Congress, in a hush-hush and how-dare-you-oppose-this manner. Besides, the playdown given hearings and discussions of the amendment by most of the nation's press is as much responsible for the general indifference and ignorance regarding it as are the political motives of some of its sponsors.

A state legislature which can give hours to personal byplay on trivial issues ought to be able to spend a few days earnestly deliberating a potentially critical change in the country's political structure. And organizations in this state which become rightfully indignant on relatively minor subjects before the legislature ought to think twice about the consequences of this amendment before shrugging it off as too trivial for their concerted opposition.