Arizona sentinel and Yuma weekly examiner., 1912-03-21
As to a Third Term

The following is from an editoria
 in the New York World, Decembel
 13, 1907, now being republished il
 many papers:
 In the statement which MT. Roose
 welt issued on the night of the 1904
 election and repeated Wednesday
 night, he referred to 'the wise GUS
 tom which limits the president to two
 terms"
 There is such a custom. It is one
 of the most persistent traditions in
 the American politics. In the minds
 of some persons it is more sacred
 than a provision of the constitution
 But does it merit the reverence and
 veneration with which it LLcs been in
 vested?
 1u0 COuNSuIlOu mllCl II oLhCO bhS
 constitution had been in session only
 two weeks when in committee of the
 whole it took up the resolution pro- viding that a national executive should
 be instituted After a very brief de- bate Pinckney's motion was adopted fixing the term at seven years and making the president ineligible for reelection. Later the convention took the vie wof Hamilton, Morris and others that to make the president it- eligible would only tempt him to make a corrupt use of his power while in office. The term was reduc ed to four years and the matter of reelection left with the people and the presidential electors.
 To guard against nasty action in selecting a chief magistrate the con vention created the elaborate nachin- cry of the electoral college. It was provided that the electors should meet in their respective states to vote They were not to see each other or to confer together. One of the req sons why the convention refused tC' permit congress to select the ChIe executive was to prevent collision or agreement in the filling of that grea! office. The president must be chosen by Licked men elected specifically for that purpose, and as a matter of fur ther safeguard it was declared that no senator or representative or persor holding any office of profit or trust under the United States could be an elector.
 Hamilton, in the sixty-seventh pa per of 'Federalist," ably defended this method of checks by which the president should be selested by a col lege of the wisest and best men of | the nation, and the choice therefore | be uninfluenced by popular prejudice or passion.
 1t was equally desirable that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analysing the qualities adapted to the station and acting under such circumstances fav- orable to deliberation and to a judi cious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice A small num- Der of persons selected by their fel- from the general mass will be most likely to possess the in formation and discernment requisite to such complicated Investigations
 No president of the United States has ever been actually elected in the manner which the framers of the con- stitution devised or in the manner which the constitution was amended in 1902 to provide for, except when the electors failed to choose a presi- dent and the choice fell to the house of representatives. The method of making a president by a college of picked men especially chosen for that purpose has been a dead letter from he day the constitution was adopted.
 Washington was elected president because he was the unanimous choice 'f the country. The electoral college merely ratified popular opinion When le retired at the end of his second erm it was for purely personal reas- i ms. Although Jefferson had referred V o the president as "a bad edition of a ( Polish King" he would have been u dad to have him continue in office q n order to prevent the government r rom falling completely into the hands V f Hamilton and the Federalists. And r Vashington's refusal was dictated in 4 10 sense by belief that third term n night imperil American institutions. c lis real reasons, frankly stated in his t correspondence, were that he was il fred of public life and that as a can