New Britain herald., 1930-03-27
Solicitor General Believes It and Declara- ton of Independence Should Be Regarded as Noble But Intermediate Chapters in American History.

Philadelphia, March 27. --"The constitution is something more than a written and definitiye contra t. It is a living organism, susceptible of adaptation and, therefore, of in- finite growth, and it's vitality de- bends on its correspondence with the necessities and spiritual ten dencies of the American people, This statement was made last night by Rep. James NJ. Beck of Pennsylvania, former solicitorgen- eral of the United States. at a meeting of the American Philoso- phical society, the oldest learned society in America. which met in it's 141-year- hall.
 Rep. Beck delt with changing conceptions of the constitution. He spoke in part as follows:
 Tt seems to me that we would have larger and nobler concep- ton of the Constitution if we re- garded the Declaration of Inde-
 
 the Constitution as very noble but, nevertheless, intermediate chapters in the great epic of the American Commonwealth. If Canada were 10 terminate tomorrow the slight re- maining tie, which binds it to Eng land, it's career as a nation woulI not then begin. It has been, in truth, a nation from the first Eng fish settlement, and similarly, the American Commonwealth has been a nation from the time that the Virginia adventurers created that first born of the Mother Parlia ment, the Virginia Legislature at Jamestown.
 Constitution Living Organism
 "The Constitution is something more than written and definitive contract. It is d living organism. susceptible of adaptation and, there fore, of infinite growth. and its vitality depends upon it's cor respondence with the necessities and spiritual tendencies of the American people. This only illus trates afresh the immortal truth of Aristotle, that any constitution which does not thus correspond to the 'ethos' of the people will nee essarily perish. While the judicial conscience of the American people, the supreme court, in the true spir- it of sacerdotalism. affirms thot the constitution today means cX- actly what it's framers meant, yet no one can read it's interpretations Of the constitution. contained in two hundred and eighty volumes of the supreme court reports. without being profoundly convinced that, with extraordinary ability, they have developed and adapted the constitution, as a quasi-constitution al convention in the restricted sense, to the changing needs of the most progressive nation in this most changing period of the world $ history. Thus, it cannot be serious ly contended that one of the great est of the federal powers, namely. the regulation of commerce, means today what the framers meant when they vested this power in tho federal government. To them the division of governmental power be- tween interstate commerce and in trastate commerce was eXtrorQi- narily simple, while it's attempted application to a country welded to- Sether by the railroad, steamship. telephone, telegraph and the radio, has required a judicial subtlety, that has made our dual system of government, in the economic sphere, one of the most intricateiy complex nations of the world. In this respect, the men who framed the Constitution would not recog rize their handiwork today.
 Constitution Ada S able
 The profound impact of q ma- chanical civilization upon our writ ten form of government was ap- preciated by the greatest of all chief justices, John Marshall when he said, in one of the greatest Of his opinion, (McCulloch Y. Mary land):
 This provision is made in 2 constitution intended to endure for