The Winslow mail., 1925-12-18


Grady Gammage, until last year
superintendent of the Winslow pub
lie schools, before several different
! audiences recently Mr.. Gammage
taught courses in the constitution
to more than three hundred stud
ents during the recent summer ses-
sion and has recently received re-
quests for information and helps
for teaching the constitution to
classes of teachers and to pupils
in the public schools. He expects
to prepare a syllabus and outline
for this purpose.
We are passing through a hectic
period of history. Today is, per-
haps, as momentous as the days
preceding the Civil war. By COM
promise our country was then led
to the brink of national disaster.
Through a compromise of our
ideals and principles we may now
be facing an even greater danger
than the Civil war There was d
chance then that our country might
be split in two. If this had hap
pened we probably would have had
two constitutional governments.
The danger we face today is a
break down of all constitutional
government and consequent check
in the development of free institu-
tions everywhere.
1t was Sampson of whom it was
said-"He wist not that God had
departed from him." So too our
national as we'll as individual ideals
may slip from us. We may not be
conscious of their going. But their
loss brings us face to face with
great crises.
No nation is richer in ideals than
our own. We find them running
through the whole fabric OF our
history. To the more specific we
find great expressions of American
ideals in the Declaration of lnde-
pendence, in the Constitution, in
Washington's inaugural and fare
we'll addresses Lincoln's Gets
burg and inaugural addresses, in
Theodore Roosevelt's powerful ap-
peals for civic righteousness and in
the eloquent messages of woodrow
Wilson. If the crime wave, II dis
honesty in and out of public Of
fee. if ignorance of and a lack OF
respect for the fundamental ideals
and institutions of our country are
significant, then we may well ask
ourselves the question are we as
a nation allowing these things to
slip from us.
The Constitution of the United
States has been in operation every
hour since April 80, 1889. Through
it the individuals rights are more
scrupulously protected than in any
other country. 1t has been tested
time and again. Thus far it has
emerged triumphant from every
storm. Under it the United States
has grown to be the richest, hap
piest, and most powerful nation In
the world. Yet there are those who
would set it aside for some new
fantastic and untried experiment IN
government.
Many of us take our government
and our constitution as we DO the
air we breathe as matter or
course. We are liable to think OF
it as a free gift-costing nothing
We forget that it represents
struggle extending over seven hun
dred years and that our freedom
was bought with the blood OF
hundred battlefelds. In mans
struggle upward to his present
status in democracy and constltu-
tional government, he suffered
banishment, the rack, the thumo
screw. the dungeon and every 9TH
er cruel and wicked punishment
despotic kings could devise.
Is it then asking too much that
we lay hold of those great funda-
mental and everlasting principles;
that we cherish and protect them
transmitting them to future gen
erations enhanced in their glory
and strength and more firmly I'M
bedded in our national life than
ever before?
Elihu Root, one of the great out
standing lawyers not only OF Amer
ica but of the world recently SAID
this:
''One effect of the great war has
been to break up old habits old
beliefs, old faiths, old cOntentments
and to cause a vast multitude OF
people to be impatient of every
kind of restraint and eager for free
dom to follow their impulses of the
moment. They forget how much
they have, how many blessings they
owe to the fact that they live un-
| der the rule of law, in a country
| of peace and order and security
and opportunity. They have not
! learned the lesson of poor Russia
| and China. They forget the teach
| ing of religion and the experience
of mankind which show that man
must be governed by rules of con-
duct, not by impulse; by establish
ed principles, not by the whim OF
| the moment, or there can be no
peace nor justice nor morality in
civil society. They do not realize
1 that it is the constitution of the
/ United States which has establish
/ ed those rules of right conduct
those limitations upon official pow
+. er. those guarantees of individual
/ lihorty which are essential to the