The Phoenix index. (Phoenix, Ariz.) 193?-19??, 1939-08-26

pivc the needed vitamin D, to the
system DR.. McBeath also stated
toat dietary control along with
government. are Otter not. in any
constitution or law. but lii the
good sense of the people them
selves. In our opinion, the llml-
tation OF one man to not more
than eight years as president OF
the United States OF America Is
one of the best unWritten rules Oh
American government. The great
democracy is not dependent upon
this life of any one man. there are
scores of men in the United States
who could be its president with
as much success as any other man.
One of the fictions that MAIN
ta:ns relationships in the convlc-
tion of the people that the "dic-
tator" is somehow Indispensable
that without him everybody would
be lost, all the common good en-
dangered Even if that were true
In Germany or Italy or Japan
small states that can easily De
bossed, it is not true of the United
States, and has not been true even
when the country was scarcely
three percent of its present popu~
lation and not one third its pres
ent territorial size and not ~
per cent as literate and Intelligent
as it now is. The American people
have never felt that they needed
any one citizen as president Tor
more than two termS,-and they
did not need or want many Tor
that long a time.
With hundreds of well-trained
natriots who are able to stand as
first citizen among their fellows
it seems silly TO think Of giving
any man for any reason more than
two terms. Many people favor
making the presidency ONE term
or six or seven years, to prevent
weak human nature from spend
ing all the first four years TRY
ING to get a second term.
Franklin Deiano Roosevelt has
certainly done all that one man
could do. most certainly all that
HE. could do, in the two terms
which have been given him. he
likes to break presidents; he may
even change Christmas to more
propitious time than December 70.
Many of us will wish that he could
10 it, as a May or April date would
suit much better But to change
Christmas date is not one hun
llreth part as serious matter as
changing the mind of the Ameri-
can people from the centuries old
conviction that no man among
them is absolutely necessary to the
maintainence of the great repu-
olic.
AS a matter of fact, in our right
minds, We know that Roosevelt is
NOT necessary for any indispen-
sable thing; if he should die to-
morrow, nothing would happen ex-
cept a great funeral. One of the
finest things in America is some
thing that is not and cannot DE
written out in so many words IN
any constitution or low; their
feeling of independence, not only
OF foreign powers, but of any in
dividual or leader or plutocrat IN
their midst. All men among us are
episodes; only the nation itself is
an institution. One hundred years
from now every person now living
will be dead,-With the exception
of a few Of the infants being held
this moment in somebody's arms.
It was not necessary in this coun-
try that a citizen named Roosevelt
should have had two terms: it was
not necessary that Franklin D.
Roosevelt should have a single
term as president. 1t is plain
superstition that without him our
recovery plans would have been
impossible or very different; just
as it is a superstition that without
Herbert Hoover the depression
evils would have been appreciably
different.
If the United States citizens ever
turn to electing any man among
them for more than one term as
their chief executive, they will
violate something far more I'M
portant than many things written
in their national constitution. If
any man seeks such election, he
proves thereby that he has much
more regards for the technical
than for the real and the import
ant. Somehow we do not believe
that Franklin Roosevelt is of a
mind to try it; we believe that he
sees as clearly as any of Us can
see, that third term will be as
bad for himself as for his country.
He got less cooperation in his
second term; he would get mostly
opposition in third term. May the
American not lose the idea that the
salvation of this country is not in
any individual, but IN the people
~, coIuoC