MORE POWER TO THE PRESIDENT-ADAMS, JEFFERSON, LINCOLN AND NIXON ALL SUFFER CRITICISM Rexford G. Tugwell, one of President Roosevelt's original Brain Trust, is the principal drafter of a proposed new U.S. Constitution. (By Rexford G. Tugwell) As a result of examining the accumulation of powers by the President some years ago, in a book called The Enlargement of the Presidency, I came to the conclusion that the situation was becoming potentially more dangerous as time passed, and had become critically dangerous when genocidal weapons were perfected. That was some years ago, and experience since, especially Vietnam, has confirmed the conclusion. Presidential mistakes have given us Korea, the Bay of Pigs, and Vietnam. I felt obligated at the end of my book to suggest a remedy. I could find none within present constitutional boundaries. Presidents have not exceeded the powers that sometimes must be available. Unless some structural change is undertaken it would be extremely unwise to impose the kind of limitations now being suggested. The current criticism of President Nixon is very much like that suffered in their time by Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson and the Roosevelts. The question becomes clearer when it is asked from whom the expanded powers were taken. The answer, generally, is that they were taken from nobody. Roosevelt was castigated for arbitrary behavior in meeting the problems of depression and the present swell of protest is usually said to have begun with him. It is concerning foreign policy, however, that there is most criticism; and something of a climax came with the Cambodian invasion. If it is felt that no one person in a democracy should be allowed the discretion displayed in this instance, then it has to be asked who should share it? The Constitution allows the Congress to check but not to share; it can obstruct by not appropriating, but it cannot interfere with execution. The Supreme Court could do no more than tell the President he could not do what he would already have done. This is what Lincoln was told. The interests of Representatives and Senators elected from Districts or States are not national ones; they owe their first loyalty to their own constituents. Initiatives are expected to come from the White House. The fact is that the President in our system has no peers with whom he can share these responsibilities. If it is believed that they are too heavy and dangerous for one individual, then sharers must be created; they do not now exist and, under the Constitution, cannot exist. If the creation of peers should be undertaken there could then be a revised Presidency, one chosen after a less demeaning dialogue than is usual in our campaigns, and one relieved of the persistent obstructiveness his legislative leadership must overcome. Americans face an undertaking considerably more serious than simply making futile protests or trying somehow to impose on the President a requirement to consult with those whose interests are not relevant. He will not do it because he cannot; and he should not because the nation would be paralyzed in some modern crisis made instantaneous by the technology that now conditions our existence. We live in an almost continuous state of emergency; and the saying is quite true that crises belong to the Executive. In all our emergencies, the Congress has suddenly recognized its incapacity and stood aside while the President acted. In the present instances of Vietnam and the Middle East, the familiar pattern is being repeated. Vietnam began for some as a highly moral defense of self-determination; for others, it was a necessary action in the interest of containing an expanding communism. Our separation from Egypt began with a generally approved fit of petulance. No advice available to Eisenhower-Dulles or Johnson-Rusk would have changed their minds. We need a discussion of constitutional matters, not further attempts to find mere limitations on a power necessary to the national existence. A DOCUMENT FOR DICTATORSHIP-REX TUGWELL'S DRAFT FOR CONSTITUTION SEEN AS THREAT TO FREEDOM Jeffrey St. John is a commentator and essayist who describes himself as a libertarian. (By Jeffrey St. John) "We are different from all the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing," George Orwell's character in "1984" states. ". . . Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish a dictatorship." America underwent what some regard as a revolution without bloodshed beginning in 1933 with the FDR New Deal. Among the many minds who paved the philosophical path for the New Deal and became one of its principal "brain trusters" was Rexford G. Tugwell. Now the 79-year-old Tugwell admits in his book "The Brain Trusts" that FDR did not go far enough down the road to revolution. Mr. Tugwell's "New Constitution" appears calculated to finish what Franklin Roosevelt began. The document's most striking feature is its centralizing power impulse. Orwellian overtones are unmistakable, since its skeleton structure provides the framework for an all-powerful planning central state. The Founders of America, the framers of our Constitution, feared most of all the unchecked appetite of men in power. The concept of separation of powers and the limitations imposed on the future political leaders of the American Republic solved a problem that had plagued men ever since ancient Greece. "The truth is," remarked James Madison, "that all men having power ought to be mistrusted." It remains one of the remarkable evasions of American historiography that New Dealers and "brain trusters" like Mr. Tugwell have never been labeled for what they really are: counter-revolutionaries against the only true revolutionary movement of the last 200 years. The New Deal used the Constitution to destroy the Constitution. Evidence for such an indictment is provided by Mr. Tugwell himself. In March of 1968, for example, he admitted, while plugging his "new constitution," that use of the "general welfare" clause to justify New Deal programs was in complete contradiction to the very spirit and letter of the framers. The nation since the New Deal, therefore, has been living a philosophical and political lie. Liberal intellectual, political and moral leaders have been speaking with the voice of Jefferson (liberty preserved by limited government) while acting with the hand of Hamilton (power of vigorous government for economic security). Jefferson would have hated the New Deal, and more so since it was the New Deal and the Democrats who borrowed his name while acting in contradiction to his basic principle that men in power should be curbed and bound with the "chains of the Constitution." Jefferson loved liberty more than power. What we have witnessed since 1933 is not only a progressive breaking of these chains of the Constitution but also the decline of individual liberty. Men of reason and liberty should regard Mr. Tugwell's "new constitution" as a repudiation of freedom. However, its submission has one important use. It may precipitate a long-overdue intellectual and philosophical dialogue. First, whether we have allowed our Republican form of government to be quietly transformed, placing all liberties in jeopardy. Second, whether the individual in the future is to be sovereign and free, as the Founders intended, or whether we are to be regarded without the right to our individual lives and properties, to be regarded as raw material and natural resources to be commanded by an elite of the state in war and welfare for the "common good." SIX YEARS FOR PRESIDENTS? (By Smith Hempstone) WASHINGTON.-Sens. Mike Mansfield of Montana and George D. Aiken of Vermont have a point. They contend that it would be better for the President, Congress and the country-in short, for all concerned-if the chief executive were limited to a single six-year term in the White House. Their proposal, in the form of a constitutional amendment, at present is bottled up in Sen. Birch Bayh's subcommittee on Constitutional amendments. Advocates of a single six-year term base their support on the effect such a system would have both on the President and on Congress. Aiken, the Senate's senior Republican, maintains that the proposal, if adopted, would "allow the President to make decisions free from the temptation of political expediency.” Similarly, Sen. Mansfield, the Senate's Democratic leader, believes that a single six-year term would effectively remove the President from the "pedestrian partisan arena," allowing him to devote all his energies to affairs of state. There is just enough truth in the Aiken-Mansfield proposal to make it alluring. First-term presidents, including the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, certainly do spend a disproportionate amount of their time and energy working to ensure their own re-election, as indeed do senators and representatives. And yet it is nonsense to suggest that the scheme would remove the president from partisan politics. In any event, the need to be responsive to an electorate compels a president to take into account public opinion in the country, and the public is not always wrong. Opponents of the proposal further maintain that a president limited to a single six-year term would be a lame-duck from the time of his inauguration, upsetting the delicate balance of the democratic process. He would in effect become (as Clark Clifford has put it) a glorified "county manager," beyond popular reach and without popular appeal. Lost would be "a vital driving force for progress, for change, for reconciliation of conflicting social forces." Frequent elections are wasteful of the nation's time and energy and of those of the men who lead it. But somehow, despite all weaknesses, incongruities and paradoxes, the system works, and it does so as well as, or better than, any other system in the world. When all is said and done, the Aiken-Mansfield amendment amounts to a vote of no confidence in democracy, the principal effect of which would be to guarantee two additional years in the White House to mediocre presidents and deny the country two years of service from those chief executives who had done their job and done it well. GROUP WORKS ON NEW U.S. CONSTITUTION (By David S. Broder) A draft of a proposed new Constitution for the "United Republics of America," with six branches of government and a President limited to a single nine-year term was published yesterday by Rexford Guy Tugwell, the former Roosevelt braintruster. Tugwell's document, described as the 37th draft of a still unfinished project, appears in the latest issue of the Center magazine, published in Santa Barbara by the Center for Study of Democratic Institutions. Tugwell and officials of the Center said the draft Constitution was being made public to stimulate discussion, not with the idea that it would be adopted intact. But Robert Maynard Hutchins, chairman of the Center, noted in an introductory statement that the existing Constitution "says nothing about the principal concerns of the present day . . . technology, ecology, bureaucracy, education, cities, planning, civil disobedience, political parties, corporations, labor unions or the organization of the world." Tugwell, a 79-year-old retired professor who came to prominence almost 40 years ago as a New Deal planner, began working on the project six years ago. By coincidence, the draft document appeared just as the Senate was preparing to open debate on the most sweeping constitutional amendment proposed in many years-one calling for direct election of the President and abolition of the electoral college. The Tugwell draft would also provide for popular election of the President, but it goes far beyond that in its redesign of the American government. Among the sweeping changes recommended for consideration, Tugwell would: Abolish existing states and substitute no more than 20 "republics," each of which would have at least 5 per cent of the national population. The name of the country would then become "the United Republics of America." Create three additional branches of the national government-an electoral branch to administer elections and set regulations for political parties, a plan ning branch to develop long-term budgets and goals, and a regulatory branch, to coordinate the work of the administrative agencies. Finance all political activity from a 1 per cent income tax surcharge and forbid personal expenditures by any candidate. Give the President a single nine-year term, but provide for a new election if 60 per cent of the voters rejected his leadership after three years in office. Create jobs for two vice presidents, elected on the same slate as the President, one to handle foreign, financial and military affairs and the other internal affairs. Make the Senate an appointive body, with lifetime tenure. Former Presidents and presidential candidates and certain other retired high officials would automatically be members, along with persons nominated by national non-political associations and some picked by the President and the House. Elect members of the House for three-year terms, with 300 chosen from local election districts and 100 elected by the nation-at-large. Establish a National Watchkeeper, elected by the Senate, to oversee the "adequacy, competence and integrity of government agencies." Have the Chief Justice (renamed the Principal Justice) nominated by other sitting judges, not the President, and give him an appointment for 12 years, not life. During his term, he would appoint all lesser judges. Require the high court, on a constitutional question, to "return to the House of Representatives statutes it cannot construe." Only if the House failed to resolve the question within 90 days could the court make its own judgment. Create a series of citizens' duties, paralleling the guarantees of individual rights carried over from the present Constitution. For example, the article guaranteeing freedom of expression, movement and communication says "the exercise of the rights may not diminish the rights of others or of the republic." In a preface to the document, Tugwell states his belief that "the time might come when the American people, exasperated by the obstructionism of their Congress, the unwarranted assumption of legislative powers by their Supreme Court, or the unbearable load of duties undertaken by their President, might decide that new institutions are necessary to fulfill their reasonable expectations of progress." Under those circumstances, he says, the adoption of a new Constitution might become the central issue in a presidential election campaign. The election of a candidate pledged to a new Constitution, he suggests, might constitute a mandate for so sweeping a reform. Of his own draft document, he says: "We think we have been as American as apple pie, but made with the best apples and baked in an electric oven, not one attached to an old firewood stove." [Published by the H. W. Wilson Co., 1925, New York] EXCERPTS FROM "A SINGLE SIX-YEAR TERM FOR PRESIDENT" (Compiled by Edith M. Phelps) BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHIES Independent. 75:323-5. Ag. 7, '13. Single six-year term for President. (Same. Both Sides: Briefs for Debate, etc. by The Independent. Reprinted from the weekly issues, 25¢. 1916.) Nichols, Ray Egbert. Intercollegiate debates: Yearbook of college debating. Vol. V. p. 397-438. Report of debate and references. Hinds, Noble & Eldredge. New York. 1915. Painter, Estella E. Six-year presidential term. (Abridged debaters' handbook ser.) 47p. pa. o.p. H. W. Wilson Co. Minneapolis. 1913. Texas. University. Dept. of Extension. Public Discussion and Information Division. Intercollegiate debates and bibliographies on a literacy test for immigrants and a six-year presidential term. p. 35–60. (Texas Univ. Bulletin. No. 351. Exten. Ser. No. 57. August 5, 1914.) United States. Library of Congress. List of references on presidential term. 16p. mim. April 10, 1920. GENERAL REFERENCES BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS Beard, Charles A. American government and politics. p. 185+. 4th ed. rev. Macmillan. New York. 1924. Bryce, James. American commonwealth. 2vol. new ed. Macmillan. New York 1914. (Re-eligibility of the President. Vol. I. p. 45-6.) Cyclopedia of American history, ed. by Albert Bushnell Hart. Vol. III. p. 535-6. D. Appleton & Co. New York. 1914. Garner, James W. Government in the United States, national, state and local. p. 275-6. American Book Co. New York. 1911. Hart, Albert Bushnell. Actual government as applied under American conditions. (American Citizen Ser.) p. 259–66. Longmans, Green & Co., New York. McClure, A. K. Our Presidents and how we make them. p. 457-62. Harper. New York. 1902. McMaster, John Bach. With the fathers: studies in the history of the United States. p. 57-70. D. Appleton & Co. New York. 1896. Miller, Samuel F. Lectures on the Constitution of the United States. p. 151-2. Banks and Brothers. New York. 1893. Ogg, Frederic A. and Beard, Charles A. National governments and the world war. p. 95-6. Macmillan. New York. 1919. Reed, Thomas H. Form and functions of American government. p. 238-9. World Book Co. Yonkers, N. Y. 1916. Reed, Thomas H. Government for the people. Ch. XIV. B. W. Huebsch. New York. 1915. Sparks, Edwin E. National development, 1877-1885. (The American nation: a history ed. by A. B. Hart. Vol. 23.) Harper. New York. 1907. (p. 165-70. Grant and a third term.) Stanwood, Edward. A history of the presidency. 2vol. Houghton, Mifflin. Boston. 1898. (See index to Vol. 2 under President-term.) Story, Joseph. Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: with a preliminary view of the constitutional history of the colonies and states before the adoption of the Constitution. 2vol. Little, Brown & Co. Boston. 1892. (See Index. Vol. 2 under Executive.) Thach, C. C., Jr. Creation of the presidency, 1775-1789; a study in constitutional history. (Johns Hopkins Univ. studies. Ser. 40. No. 4.) 182p. Johns Hopkins. 1922. United States. Congress. House. Debate on the proposed amendment to the Constitution, that "no person who shall have been elected President of the United States, shall be again eligible to that office," December 18, 1828, February 6, 1829. (In U.S. Congress. Register of debates in Congress, 20th Cong., 2d Sess., 1830. Vol. 5, p. 119-25, 320-1.) United States. Congress. House. Debate on proposed amendment to the Constitution, that "the President and Vice-president shall hold their offices during the period of six years, and no person who shall have been elected and served as President, shall be again elected to that office," February 19, 1829. (In U.S. Congress. Register of debates in Congress, 20th Cong., 2d Sess. 1830. Vol. 5. p. 361-9.) Wilson, Woodrow. Congressional government: a study in American politics. p. 242-93. The executive. Houghton, Mifflin. Boston. 1898. Woodburn, James Albert. American republic and its government. p. 115–16. PERIODICALS Americana. 7:743–50. Ag. '12. Shall the President serve one term? Atlantic Monthly. 92:736-42. D. '03. Some second term precedents. Charles M. Harvey. Collier's Weekly. 41:7. Je. 27, '08. My conception of the presidency. William H. Taft. Collier's Weekly. 41:7. Jl. 18, '08. My conception of the presidency. William J. Bryan. |