Evening star., 1923-02-04

there have been intro
wv duced In tho present Con-
gress-Senate and House
together-seventy-o proposals to
amend the Constitution of the United
States, there Is little wonder that
defenders of that august and honor
able document desire to see the
brakes put on.
In this list OF seventy-one proposals
for amendments-twenty introduced
In the Senate and f1fty-one in the
House-there are twenty-five sub
Jects dealt with, roughly speaking.
The subjects run all the way from
giving Congress the right to regulate
child labor to a proposal to permit
the manufacture and sale of light
wines and beer, the prohibition
amendment Notwithstanding. Not
unnaturally the proponents Of these
amendments all see virtue in their
particular proposals. But If all
should be adopted the amendments to
the Constitution would constitute a
document as large as the original
document, or larger perhaps.
On the other hand, it would be a
great hardship if anything should
happen which would prevent the
adoption of any further amendments
TO the fundamental law Of the coun-
try-the Constitution. Changing con-
ditions, it has been found, warrant
changes in the Constitution.
But in Congress and out of it two
schools of thought are constantly
contending-the one to make the
amendment of the Constitution easier
and the other to clamp down an iron
lid on amendments.
Proposed to Change Methods.
Many of the amendments now pend
ing in Congress propose changes in
the method of making amendments.
One OF them, offered by Senator
Wadsworth, has recently been the
subject of hearing by a subcommit-
tee of the Senate judiciary commit
tee. The Wadsworth proposal indi-
rectly seeks to limit the facility with
which amendments may be made
But 1t also makes provision for a
referendum to the people of the states
from the action Of state legislatures
on constitutional amendments. This
is a proposal that has considerable
backing.
Senator Ashurst of Arizona, ad-
dressing the Senate last week on the
subject of amending the Constitution.
directed attention to the fact that
there is a total of 7,4o3 members of
the state legislatures and that the
total membership of Congress is 531.
He said that two thirds of the Con-
gress can act to submit an amend
ment to the Constitution to state leg
islatures and that majority of the
membership of the state legislatures
is all that is required to ratify an
amendment-though, of course, three
fourths OF the states must agree to
an amendment before it becomes part
OF the Constitution. His point was
that. instead of leaving the matter
of amending the fundamental law of
| the land to the will of the people. II
has been lodged In the hands of some
$500 men. elected to represent the
people, to be sure, but subject to the
pressure of powerful and we'll organ
ICED groups.
There are many persons who TODAY
insist that IL the questions of woman
sucrage and of prohibition had been
referred to the people of the various
states those amendments would never
have been ratified; that the state
legislatures were driven into favor
Ible action.
Amendments Long Pending.
Nineteen amendments have been
IN ha
was adopted. The first ten Of these
amendments were proposed by the
First Congress in 1883 and were rati-
fed. 1t had been the understandings
when the Constitution was adopted
that these amendments would be pro-
posed, and therefore they almost
stand as part of the original Con-
stitution.
Two other amendments were pro-
posed by the same Congress, and they
are still pending before the states
for ratification-merely a matter of
1874 years since they were proposed.
But there is no power in Congress
to recall proposed amendment to
the Constitution once it has been or
dered submitted to the states, and
there is no time limit fixed by the
Constitution in which amendments
must be ratified or rejected after they
have been submitted. This is an evil
to which the attention OF Congress
has been directed a number OF times.
Senator Brandegee of Connecticut
was the author of an amendment pro-
posing that all amendments must be
ratified by the states within sixty