The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1907-12-17
On 1dR ApRn Il Anttrn
StatRH OnnEtttuttntt
BY DIR. EDMUND j. JAMES.
President of University OF Illinois.

- T is highly demoraizing for an individual, a state r a nation
TO pretend to live up to a principle and make no attempt to do
so; to pretend to observe a law and yet habitualy violate it;
to pretend to keep within the limits Of a written constitution
and yet constantly overstep them.
sM MaE 1t is equally, if not more, demoraIzing to go our own way,
do what we please without regard to anything but our own
81 views of expediency and then maintain that all these things
80 are in harmony with our professed principles our accepted
laws and our written constitution, when in order to justify
this view, it be necessary to interpret these principles, laws IT consitu-
ton in such a way as to violate all rules of logic and accepted canOns of
Interpretation.
This is what we are doing in the United States today in respect
to our Federal Constitution. So far has this process of construction been
carried that the confidence Of the average man in the projections and
guarantees of the Constitution has been profoundly shaken. 1t is no
uncommon remark that if the Constitution is the only thing which stands
in the way of a proposed law, some means can be found Of evading
that.
The fact is that we have come face to face in our national develop
ment with problems of such complexity and such magnitude that they
can not be solved without a large cooperation of the Federal Govern
ment; and this cooperation can not be extended within the limits Of
the Constitution as it is-unless, indeed, we are willing to adopt new
and enlarged principles of construction which would nulify the most
important provision in the Constitution and convert it from an instrument
deegatng certain limited functions, into a instrument vesting an un-
limited and Overwhelming authority in a government which, by its very
magnitude would become ever more irresistible.
The fact is our present Constitution has been so changed by
construction and Interpretation that its authors would never recognize it.
And if we had not thus changed it our Union would have gone to pieces
long ago. 1t is full of antiquities even now, though the American peo-
pie have spent more blood and treasure in giving it a definite meaning
than they have spent in all the wars of defense and odense which they
have waged in the century and a quarter of their existence.
One of the fundamental purposes Of a constitution is to enable a
people to pass over easily and quietly from one social and industrial
state to another; to enable it to move forward, dscardng the useless
and worn out, while it holds fast to everything that was good in the
old.
Our Constitution is a marvellous instrument, and no me can study
its origin and development without being filled with wonder and ad-
miration.
But we must not forget that it proved inadequate to enable the
nation to progress peaceaby from a state guaranteeing the existence of
African slavery to one in which that institution had disappeared.
All the present indications point clearly to the fact that it is in
adequate to enable the nation to solve the many pressing problems re-
lating to our society, industry and politics.