The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1913-01-22

a disposition TO discard the old in favor Of the
new to assume that disappointing results flow
from defects in the plans of the architects
rather than from incompetence or carelessness
in those chosen to execute them. The ten
dency of this is mischievous in that it familiar
ICES the people with the idea that the compact
of union between the states setting forth prn-
ciples on which the general government must
pc run is to be. tempered with whenever its
prescriptions or prescriptions seem to conflict
with any policy called for by popular sent-
nent which may not last year Current legis-
laton. is necessarily empirical and should
therefore be subject to ready alteration
peal but tho constitution cannot be safely made
TO bear the brunt of every shortcoming of the
lnstrutn entalities which charged with its
application 1t is, when all has been said that
may be of possible inappiieabiltty to some
phases of community life which have developed
since II was adopted, the chart of liber-
ties and those who would persuade the people
that no more reverence is due it than to
ordinary enactment of legislative bodies, which
change their membership and political opinions
from session to session, are running the risk
of paying price much too high for the
complishment of immediate purchases of yet
undetermined value.
This is not to say, of course that the con-
stitution, the work of human brains should be
treated as fetch, and placed beyond the reach
or subtracuons or additions. Our plea Is only
against the spirit of unreasoning iconoclasm
that comes at last to view whatever is as wrong
and whatever is not a thing to be desired.
There have occurred, and doubtless viii occur
again. occasions when changes in the letter of
some of its clauses were imperatively needed
to give effect to the spirit of the whole. Or it
may be that some of the machinery provided
viii prove inadequate to the objects proclaimed,
and then it would be unwise not to fill in the
deficiencies. Or it may be that the courts.
was the in regard to the income tax. viii
find meaning in the language used different
from that the authors intended to convey, and
preventive of the exercise by congress of the
power to equitably distribute the burdens of
government among the citizenship, and here
again can be found adequate for in
voking the voice of the states to reCtify the
discordancy. For instance, the proposition to
have the president elected by the body of the
electorate, without reference to state lines,
would entirely revolutioniZe the theory of cleo
toral representation; but abolition of the
fiction Of electors and submitting the presidency
to the verdict of the voters of each state would
be merely modification 70 method in register
ing the result This is the plan advocated by
Governor Baldwin of Connecticut. The present
electoral college is cumbrous device and liza
bic to give rise to difficulties such came
precipitating a national crisis in 1876, and also
contains the possibilities of combinations sub
vcrsYe of the popular choice To do away
with entirely useless piece Of political
mechanism, which long experience has shown
to be such. would not at all initiate against
the principles Of the constitution, but rather
remove an artificial agency not in consonanCe
with thcm.-Norfolk Nirginian- Pilot.