Requisite Reading in Hotel Drawers

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

There are not many Americans who can quote the preamble to the Constitution, even though it is the beginning of America’s most important document. Sure, Americans love the contents of the hallowed manuscript: separation of powers, due process and freedom of speech. Yet most people probably do not have a favorite article or amendment, nor are they likely to know where in the Constitution freedom of speech is legally guaranteed. This needs to change.

Perhaps it is the densely-packed, regulation-filled pages that make the Constitution more of a symbol than a fascinating read. But maybe there just are not enough of them lying around, next to dentist chairs or in DMV waiting rooms, available for folks who have nothing better to do.

It wouldn’t be hard to provide Americans with more opportunities to read the supreme law of the land. One way would be to put copies in hotel rooms, next to the Bible and the yellow pages. Given a choice between those two and the Constitution, I bet a lot of Americans would pick up the Constitution.

The Constitution would certainly attract more readers, since, unlike the Bible, it applies to all Americans. It is also much shorter, providing a more manageable read for a lonely night on the road. Its small size also means it is cheaper to print, and money could be drawn from voter education groups and political foundations to produce and distribute millions of copies.

This would not be so daunting a task. The Gideons International currently hands out 59 million scriptures a year to hotels, prisons, schools and hospitals around the world. A similar effort to distribute the Constitution, a document accessible to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and atheists—not just Christians—wouldn’t be any more complicated.

A 1997 Fodor’s survey found that only 23 percent of travelers read the Gideons Bible in hotel rooms. It is time to supplement the Bible with another canonical text: the United States Constitution. Americans should form a non-profit organization based on the Gideons model to raise money and distribute Constitutions in hotel rooms across the country. The health of American democracy will certainly benefit, even if only a fraction of travelers pick it up. And non-Christians will no longer have to settle for just a telephone book and a TV Guide.

Now, only one question remains: in the drawer, which book goes on top?

—Nicholas F. B. Smyth is an editorial editor.