The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1925-09-28

Constitution Week" is fins
thing-provided it is the constitution
that you celebrate.
1t may help revive loyalty to on,
institutions and familiarity with the
document in which they were first
embodied.
If it could also arouse US to face
our problems with the courage, fore.
ness which the fathers Of the con.
! it would be we'll worth q weeks holi.
day for the whole population, every
! year.
| But cherish no illusions.
This may be what "constitutior
week should be for, but it is by nc
means what some of it's most vocifer.
Gus agitators want to use it for.
They want ito ere establish the
constitution in the minds and hearts
of the people," not as a great mile.
stone Of human progress, but as &
hitching-post, to prevent furthe,
progress.
To this end. they seek first tc
make an emotional cult of the text
Of the constitution. and then to use
this emotion as atmosphere for the
propaganda against the direct pri.
mary. direct legislation, public own.
ership and labor unions.
They put out popular common
taries. in simplified lawyerese. on
the legalistic rather than the institu.
tional and historic aspects of the
constitution.
They are interested, not so much
in what is in the constitution as in
the fact that certain things are not
in it-not in the great steps of pop.
ular government and individual lib.
erty which it took forward, but in
! the other steps which its trainers
wisely refrained from including in
the first effort.
Not the constitutions trust in the
people. but the limits beyond which
it was not willing to risk the first
tria! of that trust, must be our
guide.
The most sacred dogma is that
nothing which the fathers were not
yet ready to venture in 1889 shall
ever be ventured thereafter.
Eighteenth-century politics and
nineteenth-century economics shall
forever be the last word in human
|rprogress, and the constitution shall
be their barricade.
1t shall be the Aristoteles and the
Talmud of scholastic text-fetichism ;
nothing which it omits shall be per-
missible even to think. BY making
doubt of the inerrancy of the faith
ers. especially in their omissions,
wickedly unpatriotic. we set our con-
sciences to guard the portals of the
intellect against the intrusion of
ideas.
If this is to be the spirit of con-
stitution week-and there are very
busy agitators trying to make it So
then the sooner we make it real
constitution week, to study the con-
stitution as living institution rath-
er than as Byzantine parchment
the better it will be, fof the consti-
tuition, for the country, and for US.
The appointment Of the special air
service investigating committee will
serve, among other things, the i'm
portant purpose of separating the
investigation of General Mitchell
from the investigation of aviation.
From the military s'Cndpoint, il
was necessary to denote him in the
first place, and it may be necessary
to accommodate him now with the
| martyrdom which he is so osten.
tatiously seeking. But, if so, the re-
suit must not be, or even seem to
be, the hushing up of what may be
serious quest ons in regard to avia-
ton itself.
A separate board, conspicuously
! competent, and at the same time in
dependent, will not only find out the
| truth--an army or navy board might
do that-but will close the mouths
of any who would impeach the good
faith of any less disinterested body
Now we shall have the truth
| and know we have it.