The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-07-27
BY WILLIS THORNTON NEA Service Staff Writer

The Third Term question, as al- ways, is generating more heat than light. As a sort of political hot po- tato, 1t Is passed rapidly from hand to hand without much chance to study 1t.
 There are many misunderstand- ings about this tradition" and whether one regards 1t as a prece- dent with virtually the force of law, or as a wobbly superstition, depends largely on the circum- stance.
 Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Grant Theodore Roosevelt, and Coolidge were all urged to run for third term, and Woodrow Will son, according to recent revela- tions by Senator Carter Glass, wanted to do so. Theodore Roose- welt is the only one who ever got so far as being on the ballot for a third term, and this was not a third consecutive term, the Taft regime having intervened.
 NO LEGAL
 LIMIT
 In the first place, 1t is not uni- versa1ly understood that this is not a constitutional question. The Con- stitution sets no limit on the number of terms, 8 third, fourth, 20th being equally permissible 50 far as the Constitution is concerned. This issue was debated at some length at the constitutional con- vention, and the decision to place no restriction on reelection was a deliberate one. Hamilton argued powerfully in the Federalist against any restriction on reelection.
 But the third term tradition Is usually ascribed to the "unwrit- ten constitution" beginning with Washington's refusal to run for third term. This is shaky ground. Anyone who will trouble to read the famous Farewell Address will see that Washington was almost apologetic about his determination to relinquish the office in which he had been so unhappy, seeming almost to beg the electorate to let him off, on the ground that every thing was going 50 smoothly that he was no longer needed.
 The first real statement of the third term objection on general grounds is that of Jefferson, and 1t is on Jefferson as the philo- sophical father of the republic that the "traditionalists" must rely. He said, refusing toward the end of his second term reconsideration for a third, "This office, nominally for years, will in fact become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance"
 Jefferson desperately feared the establishment of monarchy in the United States, and wrote to Wash- ington from France during the convention urging safeguards against continuation in office of the president. Though Jefferson, too, was anxious to leave the cares of the presidency, 1t is fair to say that his objections to a third term were based on genuinely philo- sophical grounds and on the fear of monarchy.
 GRANT WANTED
 A TRIPLE
 A constitutional amendment to put this Jeffersonian principle into the fundamental law was repeatedly proposed during the 20 years until the time of Jackson, who advocated a single term and no reelection There was some agitation for Jack son to run third time, but he was old and tired, and had Van Buren ready to carry on his policies. Not until Grant did 1t again become a serious issue.
 Grant was, of course, a military man, and the cry of "Caesarism' followed immediately on his sec- ond election. He clearly wanted a third term. but was forced into a weasling statement that T would not accept renomination if ten dered, unless 1t should come under such circumstances as to make 1t an imperative duty - circum. stances not likely to occur" He didn't even get the nomination ir 1877 when he returned to polite, after a four-year interval.
 Mckinley rejected third tern talk, and Theodore Roosevelt, or being elected to second tern promised not to accept another nomination. But in 1912 he rar on the Progressive ticket. The third term" issue was not cleal because it would have been onlJ his second elective term. since hi first was the uncompleted part oi McKinleys.
 In any case 1t would not hav' been the third consecutive term And the principal practical obiec. ton to the third term Is that ths candidate is able to use the h.