Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

In contemplating this scene of legalized robbery, euphemistically termed “finance,” it will not do to lose our heads. There are banks and banks, there are insurance companies and insurance companies, there are trade corporations and trade corporations. They are not all alike. Some are in the game, as vassals and creatures of the Captains; some are in it, hoping, alas! but vainly, to outlive the Captains and profit by their fall; while others are out of it altogether; good, sound companies, safely managed and cautious to avoid contamination. The banks and other companies last named will not suffer from collapse, they will always continue to be solvent; but they will suffer from a forced conservatism and from an unduly small share of business, until our deluded people wake up and smash some furniture, or until the banks themselves recognize the dangerous part which their own issues play in this pandemonium of rascality. They will then be glad voluntarily to surrender them into the hands of the Government.

If now it be asked in what manner will the opportunities of the Captains for robbing the community be restrained or curtailed by substituting Government money for bank-notes, the reply is that the beneficial effects of such restraint will not arise so much from a difference in the money as from a difference in the power to issue or retire it. And in a future article will be shown, by practical examples, the difference between the working of an elastic currency when such elasticity is controlled by the Government, and when it is controlled, as it now is, by the Chevaliers of Industry.

* * * * *

“My agency in procuring the passage of the National Bank Act was the greatest financial mistake of my life. It has built up a monopoly that affects every interest in the country. It should be repealed. But before this can be accomplished the people will be arrayed on one side and the banks on the other in a contest such as we have never seen in this country.”

HON. SALMON P. CHASE.

* * * * *

“If it is possible to inaugurate a greater system of robbery of the people’s money [than the state banks], that system has been inaugurated in the present system of national banks. The money lost by the people under the old system of state banks is a mere bagatelle when compared to that which has been and will be taken from them under the present system of national banks.”

HON. JAMES G. BLAINE (1880).

* * * * *

“Attempts to monopolize wheat, copper, sugar and other commodities have been dealt with by writers and politicians as conspiracies against society.

“But the monopolization of money, the medium of exchange, is strangely regarded as essential to the welfare of society.

“And yet money monopoly is a monopoly of not merely one, but of all commodities.”

ARTHUR KITSON.

_The Open Door of the Constitution_

THE NECESSITY FOR AMENDMENTS AND OUR FAILURE TO REVISE THAT
DOCUMENT BY THE METHOD SUGGESTED BY ITS FOUNDERS

BY FREDERICK UPHAM ADAMS
_Author of “The Kidnapped Millionaires,” “John Burt,” “Colonel
Monroe’s Doctrine” and “The Shades of the Fathers”_

The men who builded the Constitution were consumed by no senseless adulation of their own handicraft. They were not possessed of the delusion that they were inspired, neither did they dream that future generations would search the record of their quarrels and selfish compromises for the key which would enable them to solve problems as they arose. They planned a document for the regulation of a people whom they believed unfitted for more than a small share in the affairs of government. They were not blind to its imperfections, but they assumed that those who came after them would have the sense to remedy defects as they developed under the operation of the system then timidly launched.

There is this justification for the worship of the founders of the Constitution, viz., they had the common sense to revise and modify their governmental charter so as to conform to new conditions—a trait or an instinct of which hardly a trace remains in their descendants.

In the popular parlance of those days the proposed Constitution was called “The New Roof,” and its founders urged the people to get under it and keep out of the rain. It is difficult to address an appeal to a people which prefers to venerate that roof on account of its antiquity, rather than to repair the innumerable leaks and fissures due to decay and to the gales and storms of more than a hundred years.

The man who venerates any work of human origin is an ass. His asininity is exactly in degree with the smallness of the objects selected for his veneration. The man who humbly lowers his eyes in contemplation of a political constitution proclaims a lack of mental breadth fitted to comprehend humanity or to understand the plain lessons of history, and he has insulted the one entity worthy of veneration—the Maker of the Universe.

In a preceding article I proved that the framers of the Constitution distrusted the people almost to the point of hatred, and that they deliberately planned to design a document which would give them the semblance of popular rule but none of its substance. This is an unquestioned historical fact. Its declaration may seem startling to those who are confronted with the unvarnished truth for the first time, but they will find it refreshing to study the real history of those days, rather than ignorantly to worship demigods who never existed.

Immutable laws cannot be coexistent with progress. We should study the past, not for the purpose of supinely imitating it, but with a view of profiting by its mistakes. That government is best which avoids the pitfalls of the past, exists for those who live today, and erects no barriers for the generations that will follow.

For the benefit of those who still cling to the belief that constitutional wisdom had its birth with Washington and his compatriots, I take the liberty of quoting a few extracts from letters written by the Father of his Country before and after the constitutional convention had finished its labors. These utterances of Washington are trite and easily understood, and since their authenticity is unquestioned, they possess as much of inspiration as any wisdom coming from him or his colleagues.

These extracts are contained in letters written by Washington to leading men of that period, urging them to give their support to the adoption of the new Constitution, and he pinned his faith to one argument, as you shall see. I commend to all idolaters of that document a careful reading of Washington’s opinion of it, and his advice to them.

Shortly before the convention met he wrote a letter to John Jay, bearing the date of March 10, 1787. The convention assembled May 14 of that year. In that letter Washington said:

“Notwithstanding the boasted virtue of America, it is more than probable we shall exhibit the last melancholy proof that mankind _are not competent to their own government without the means of coercion in a sovereign_.”

There is no occult meaning hidden in these words. Washington had no faith in the capacity of the people to govern themselves, and did not hesitate to say so. In this, as I proved in a preceding article, he was in accord with the overwhelming majority of the delegates who composed that convention. The question I desire to ask is this: Was Washington inspired when he wrote those lines to John Jay, and if not, when did his inspiration begin?

Let us see what he wrote after the convention had finished its work. On January 12, 1788, he wrote to Mr. Charles Carter as follows:

“I am not a blind admirer (for I saw its imperfections) of the Constitution to which I have assisted to give birth; but I am fully persuaded it is the best that can be obtained at this day, and that it is it or disunion before us. When the defects of it are experienced, a constitutional door is open for amendments.”

There is nothing evasive about this, but those who now repeat such sentiments are suspected of treason by fools, and of a lack of patriotism by unthinking conservatives. On February 7, 1788, Washington wrote to Lafayette and said:

“Should the Constitution which is now offered to the people of America be found on experiment less perfect than it can be made, a constitutional door is left open for its amelioration.”

We have made that experiment. Have we found the Constitution perfect? Where is that “constitutional door,” and why do we not open it?

Writing from Mount Vernon in October, 1787, to Henry Knox, Washington said:

“Is there not a constitutional door open for alterations and amendments? Is it not likely that real defects will be as readily discovered after as before trial? Will not our successors be as ready to apply the remedy as ourselves, if occasion should demand it? To think otherwise will, in my opinion, be ascribing more love of country, more wisdom and more virtue to ourselves than I think we deserve.”

Dear Shade of Washington! You may have been inspired, but you were not able to foresee the bigotry, the ignorance and the cowardice of your descendants. In the language of Cicero, “we are so tied to certain beliefs that we are bound to defend even those we do not approve.” We are like the fools Montaigne describes, “who do not ask whether such and such a thing be true, but whether it has been so and so understood.” We know that the Constitution is full of errors, but all that we ask is that we may be given the wisdom so to interpret it as to suffer as few discomforts from its perpetual operation as possible. In the language of Seneca, we believe in “not only a necessity of erring, but we have a love of error.”

One more of the innumerable quotations of like purport from George Washington will be sufficient. On November 10, 1787, he wrote from Mount Vernon to Bushrod Washington and said:

“The people (for it is with them to judge) can, as they will have the advantage of experience on their side, decide with as much propriety on the alterations and amendments which are necessary as ourselves. I do not think we are more inspired, have more wisdom or possess more virtue than those who will come after us. The power under the Constitution will always be with the people.”

I have been a fairly zealous student of American history, yet I have never seen these quotations from the writings of George Washington in print outside of the huge compilation of his documents and letters to be found in well-ordered reference libraries. Certain it is that our school children are not taught that such characters as Washington doubted the absolute perfection of the Constitution. Certain it is that not one man in ten thousand in the United States ever has had an opportunity to consider our Constitution in the light of the facts presented in this paper and in the one which preceded it.

The truth is that the people of the United States are unfamiliar not only with the history of the formation of the Constitution, but the vast majority of them do not know what it contains. Many of them confound the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution. What is the “Open Door” in the Constitution to which Washington repeatedly refers?

Before considering that, let us list a few of the abuses which the more thoughtful admit exist under our Constitution. Ignoring all of lesser importance I will name four, any one of which constitutes a menace to the perpetuation of free government. These are as follows:

First, the election of a President and Vice-President under the absurd and antiquated method provided by the Constitution, in which citizens vote for electors, and the decision is made by the unit vote of states, irrespective of the majorities cast. Under this grotesque system it has repeatedly happened that candidates obtaining an actual majority of the votes cast have been defeated by the minority. There is not one valid argument in favor of the continuance of this unrepublican and undemocratic elective monstrosity.

Second, the election of senators by the state legislatures, a system which is the fountain-head of the corruption of American politics, and which has given us a Senate, a large percentage of whose members owe their selection to selfish private interests. The error of this system has been so conclusively shown that there is no honest defense for it. The founders of the Constitution designed it for the purpose of making the Senate the citadel of patriotic wealth; it has degenerated into a chamber in which the admitted representatives of vested interests defend their masters against fair legislative enactments, and force unfair compromises on the popular branch which constitutes the House of Representatives.

Third, the equal representation of unequal states in the Senate. This vicious compromise was made in the constitutional convention as the price of the perpetuation of slavery. There was no justification for it even at a time when this nation was no more than a federation of states. Washington, Madison, Randolph, Morris, Franklin and every broad-minded man in that convention protested against it, and their fame is tarnished because they finally submitted to so cowardly and unfair a compromise. Now that the logic of events has made this a nation, despite the restrictive clauses of the Constitution, the dual participation of an unrepresentative Senate is so grotesque that its continuance is fraught with a danger which at any time is likely to precipitate civil war, in the event that at some crucial moment this body shall exercise its constitutional powers combined with those it has arrogated.

Unless the Constitution be entirely repealed, there is no way by amendment to deprive any state of its equal representation in the Senate. It is too much to expect that all of the corrupt boroughs which now hold the undeserved dignity of statehood will relinquish the selfish advantage bequeathed them by the unwisdom of the forefathers, but it is possible to make amendments to the Constitution which will reduce the Senate of the United States to a state of harmless inefficiency. It is possible to preserve its form and extract its substance, and the people should set about the task with no qualms of conscience. Great Britain showed the way when she boldly reduced her House of Lords to a condition of docile vassalage to the popular branch of her Parliament, and she was aroused to this righteous act of retaliation by abuses which were of small consequence compared to those from which we have tamely suffered. It is possible, under the Constitution, to strip the Senate of its legislative power, permitting it to retain its feature of unequal representation, and reserving for it a chamber in which those who wish for the honor can keep up the pretense of governmental power and prestige.

Fourth, the specific enumeration and limitation of the powers and functions of the Federal Judiciary, including the Supreme Court of the United States and all other courts authorized by Congress. This is the paramount subject for constitutional amendment or revision. The founders of our Government did not contemplate any such grant of power as now is wielded by the courts. There is nothing in the document itself which warrants the prerogatives which have been assumed by the courts, and the records of the speeches and the proceedings in the constitutional convention when the judiciary was under consideration contain no hint that they were to be granted the power to annul a law passed by Congress and signed by the President of the United States. Years passed before the Supreme Court dared attempt such a step, and when it did Jefferson scornfully ignored its mandate. Presidents as late as Lincoln have declined to acquiesce in the interference of the Federal Courts, but slowly and insidiously this branch of the Government has reached out and grasped power, until today it is supreme in fact as well as in name.

The Supreme Court is the creature of the Presidents and is subject to the direction of Congress, yet it has arrogated to itself the power of overriding the will of the entire people as recorded by its Congress and affirmed by its chief executive. If they are doing this without warrant of the Constitution, the day will come when, in the inevitable conflict between the court and the Congress or the President, or both combined, there will be precipitated a question which will rend the country with civil war. If they do this under the implied authority of the Constitution, that document should be amended so as to preclude their future interference with laws passed by Congress and signed by the President.

As we exist today we are not a republic or a democracy, neither have we a representative form of government. We are a “judiciary”—if one may coin such a word. Ours is the only country on earth where an elective or appointed judge presumes to wield the most autocratic power of the absolute monarch, viz., the veto of a law passed and demanded by the people. We have become so accustomed to this that we do not properly realize what it means. We teach ourselves to acknowledge the “sacredness of the judiciary” and to bow in humble contrition to any mandate thundered from the Bench. We assent to the insane doctrine that there is not enough of wisdom in a House of Representatives elected by 17,000,000 voters, combined with the check of an ultra-conservative Senate chosen by forty-five state legislatures, and indorsed by the judgment and responsibility of a President, to incorporate for our government a law until such law has been affirmed by the majority of a Supreme Court.

If there be sense in this dogma, I am unable to see why it is not equally just that a minority of the Supreme Court should not be empowered to annul laws. Why does the Supreme Court cling to the inconsistent theory that its majority possesses as much wisdom as its minority?

In a series of articles which I am now preparing, I am attempting to discuss certain of these questions with as much frankness as I possess; but the purpose of this paper, and the one which preceded it, is to call attention to “the unopened door in the Constitution”—the one which Washington repeatedly referred to in the passages from which I have quoted. It is a difficult matter to arouse public attention to any single amendment, no matter how important the subject may be. There is a reason for this.

The people instinctively know that no one amendment can redress the ills which now exist. They do not know how to go about a crusade for constitutional reform, and most of them probably imagine that there is no way in which it can be done. There is a way, a simple, practical and legal way, and the political party which takes advantage of it and conducts an intelligent campaign in its behalf will sweep all before it.

Here is “The Open Door of the Constitution of the United States,” as contained in Article V of that document:

The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall
deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this
Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures
of two-thirds of the several states, _shall call a
convention for proposing amendments_, which, in either
case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part
of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of
three-fourths of the several states, _or by conventions
in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of
ratification may be proposed by the Congress_; provided
that no amendment which may be made prior to the year 1808
shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses of
the Ninth Section of the First Article; and that no state,
without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage
in the Senate.

There is a door as wide as that of a church. It is the most liberal and democratic feature of a document filled with restrictions, and Washington and others were justified in assuming that we would have the sense to walk through it, rather than to attempt to get in by scaling the walls and crawling through a steeple window.

Our alleged progressive political platforms are of no value without a demand for the revision of the Constitution of the United States along some such lines as I have attempted to outline. It is idle to expect the people to rally to the support of any reform, however badly needed, so long as they have valid reasons to believe there is likelihood that a bill in its behalf will meet the fate of the lamented income tax law. Why ask them to shoot in the air when so broad a target is before them?

The wise thing to do is to attack boldly the unfair provisions of the Constitution, and attack it with a fair weapon fashioned by the Constitution. Such a campaign possesses all the elements of strength and strategy. You are safe from the attacks of those who ever hide behind the alleged sanctity of that document. You can turn their own weapons against them. You are standing on the Constitution. You are following to the letter the advice and wishes of Washington and others of his day.

The bulls and excommunications of the courts need not dismay you. Are not they the creatures of the Constitution? Does anyone deny that there is a possibility that the courts have gone beyond their constitutional powers? Is it not within the province of the free people to amend a constitution by constitutional means?

Again, a movement for any one of the reforms which are now pressing to the fore would appeal with irresistible force to its advocates if they knew that success at the polls would incorporate its provisions in the organic law of the land. Those who believe that the best interests of the nation will be conserved by more just systems of taxation, by direct legislation, by the control or ownership of the means of transportation and other measures in line with the logic of events, would know that they were not fighting in vain if a victory with the ballot meant a legislative victory.

I hold that the “Open Door” offers not only the one way to popular triumph, but that success by it is certain and not difficult of attainment. Our national structure totters because of an antique and crumbling foundation. Rebuild it!

_To One Departed_

Sitting, apart in the café, under a glare of light,
Surrounded by wealth and beauty, I ponder here tonight.
’Tis down in old New Orleans and the Carnival is in sway,
There are music, jest and laughter—the revelry of the gay.

While sitting here alone, dear, midst all this merry throng,
The band begins to play, dear, our old, best loved song;
They call it, dear, “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” and oh, it brings to me
A longing deep to lay me down and rest, sweetheart, by thee.

I listen to the music and hear the chattering throng,
There steals o’er me a wondrous spell, again I hear the song
_As sung by you_, in the long ago, whose sweetness was so brief,
And now, alone, I sit here with your memory and my grief.

I have wandered over many lands in search of something true,
And now I know, my darling, I found it but in you.
I’ve searched afar for sweet content, and sought in vain for rest,
I know I ne’er could find it, dear, save on thy faithful breast.

Amidst this scene of life and mirth it is for you I crave,
I seem to stand a thousand miles away, beside your grave,
And see the stars that o’er it, there, a gentle vigil keep,
And kiss the flowers that wave o’er you, my sweetheart, in your sleep.

So, sitting here, surrounded thus by joy and beauty rare
With much to bring me happiness, and much to banish care,
I know that now and evermore, I’ll always love you best,
And learn to lie beside you, dear, to sleep—to sleep and rest.

My eyes grow dim with longing; my heart grows numb with pain;
I feel that you are waiting, dear, to clasp me once again.
My soul pines for the journey’s end, when I, too, shall be free,
And I’ll lie down to sleep, love, in the last long sleep, near thee.

BERNARD P. BOGY.

_According to Garfield_

STELLA—Would you marry a poor man?

BELLA—Yes, I would marry a beef magnate who only made two per cent.

_Pole Baker_

BY WILL N. HARBEN
_Author of “The Georgians,” “Abner Daniel,” etc._

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS

In a small Georgia town a friendship has grown up between
Pole Baker, reformed moonshiner and an unusual and likable
character, and young Nelson Floyd, who was left as a baby in
a mountain cabin by an unknown woman just before her death.
Floyd, in the face of many trials and temptations, has worked
his way up in the world and made a man of himself. Jeff Wade
appears at the store, in which Floyd has become a partner,
to avenge on him a rumored injustice to Wade’s sister. Pole
Baker’s tact prevents a duel by making Floyd see that the
unselfish course is for him to avoid a meeting. Cynthia
Porter comes to the store, alarmed for Floyd’s safety. On his
way home to his family Pole falls a victim to his besetting
sin of drink.