New Britain herald., 1930-04-10
VETS SHOULD NOT "ENDANGER CONSTITUTION"

the COnStllullON that they appear tu be in favor of a movement to call a constitutional convention to revise that historic document. .r
 Fortunately their number are few. Whenever the idea has been brought forward in responsible wet quarters it has been frowned down.
 Article V of the Constitution, largely following the draft of Jam es Madison, provides;
 The Congress .. on the applica- ton of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states. shall call a convention for proposing amend ments (to this Constitution. which shall be valid when rati- fled by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states. or by conventions i'll three fourths there of
 But this has never been done. From the time the Constitution was adopted to the present day, the most that has been done about changing the Constitution has been to add amendments without the formalities Of a convention. To call a constitu- tional convention and perchance re- write the instrument has never met with enough popular approval at any one time to put the idea over. The fear is that such action would put the entire Constitution in jeopardy
 Yet the legislatures of 35 states, or more than two-thirds, have at one time or another memorialized Con- gress to call such convention. The proponents of a convention claim that all these memorials are valid. The opponents claim that most are invalid because obsolete. Also. the purposes Of many of the memorials, such as popular election of senators and woman suffrage. have been met. Congress usually considers that memorials to it lapse with the Con- gress to which they are presented The Supreme Court has not ruled di- rectly on the question, but in Dillon Y. Gloss neld that Article V implies that amendments to the Constitution must be ratified within a reasonable time after they have been proposed
 Once. after the Tilden- Ha.es pres idential controversy, the demand for constitutional convention Was strong, and no less a parsonage than the famous Senator Ingalls, of Kan sas introduced a resolution in Con- gress by which the state legislatures were urged to apply for a constitu-  tional convention. Each state was to elect two delegates at large and one from each of it's congressional dis tricts.-No federal or state office hold CT was to be eligible. The conven- ton was to be held in Columbus, Ohio, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was to preside. The Ingalls, resolution did not provide how votes were to be counted, but in the Constitutional Convention Of 17S7. the state delegations voted as units and each state had one vote.
 Today. as a comcomitant of the controversy over the 18th Amend ment. q similar idea has been vouchsafed by the disaffected who say it is the only practical way to get the amendment out Of the Con- sttution. it being possible for I ,
 
 the manner it was put there. Last September. it will be remembered, the Legislature Of Wisconsin memo rialized Congress for such an amendment. But it is not clear whether constitutional convention could be limited to consideration of the 18th Amendment The Assocla- ton Opposed to the Prohibition Amendment would not support a resolution in the New York Lcgista- tl re in 1927 for q constitutional con vention, fearing for the entire docu- ment
 Should prohibition agitation con tinuc, with no chances to obtain the relief sought by populous wet states, it is probable that the Wis consin idea will gain in favor.