SHALL A THIRD TERM BE

T

FORBIDDEN?

HE scandal of a public feud such as we lately suffered from a President, expectant of a second term, and an ex-President, anxious for a third one, has given vitality 'to the old idea of electing the Executive for a longer term and making him ineligible to reelection.

Under such a rule the country would be spared a repetition of the disgrace put upon it by the wrangling of Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt. It would remove Presidents from the temptation to devote their time to the creation of a machine and it would leave them free for the dignified and disinterested service of their country. It would make it forever unnecessary for a President to gallivant through the country making personal stump speeches and that too only to the members of his own party.

The idea is not, as Mr. Roosevelt declares it, "a tom-fool proposition." It is not even an ordinary fool proposition. It is a proposition well worth thinking about though that is not necessarily to say worth instantly adopting.

For there are arguments against the proposal, as well as for it. Six years would be a long term for a bad or even a poor President. We have been fairly lucky, but four years has been found a long time to wait for the administration of some of our Presidents to expire; to have to put up with the wrong man for six years would be a calamity indeed. More important More important still, six years is too long a time to defer the nation-wide vote which affords the people their only chance the only chance they take to express their minds on national questions. It requires an issue of dramatic interest like the fate of two famous men to draw out the whole vote—and it is extremely important for free government that popular voting should be encouraged. In this respect the European system has an advantage over ours; in England, for instance, a general election with everything at stake may come at any time. Last year Great Britain had two general elections, at both of which the people spoke

their mind with conclusiveness and with a good deal of manifest enjoyment. Six years is too long a period to elapse between general elections.

II

On the other hand four years is too short a time to expect a President to come to his best; too short to allow him to work out his policies. It has generally been found that a President is a better officer during his second term than he was in his first. An inspection of the history of the Presidency will show that the people of the United States have always believed one term to be too little. During the 124 years of our national existence the people have clearly shown their desire to have the President serve two terms. It will probably surprise many to be reminded that we have reëlected nine Presidents and have declined to elect only seven. John Adams, Van Buren, Polk, Pierce, Buchanan, Hayes, and Harrison were the only Presidents elected by the people who were refused reëlection. John Q. Adams was chosen by the House of Representatives; Harrison, Taylor, and Garfield died during their first term, and Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, Arthur, and Roosevelt came in by the deaths of Presidentsthough the last named, after he had served practically a full term, was elected to the second one.

Now this is the actual record of the feeling of the people on the subject of reëlection to the chief executive office: they like to give a President a second term. They have never given one a third term, though they might have done so in seven cases.

If the Constitution needs amending, the voice of the country as indicated in political history would seem to suggest placing the bar to eligibility at the end of a second term, not the first.

It is not, however, certain that the sense of the country demands any constitutional limit at all. It may be a mistake to forbid the second term to any President no matter how peculiar his qualifications or how peculiar the need of them; it is quite conceivable even that circumstances might arise under which

wisdom would require his election to a third term circumstances under which everybody would agree that that unprecedented step was necessary for the country's welfare. It is not a happy circumstance that the large principle involved in the proposed change should turn on the excitement now caused by Mr. Roosevelt.

Is it not a thing which had better be left to the people to take care of themselves? After all, it is the people we have to trust, not a document. Is it wise for us to restrict and limit ourselves, gratuitously, unnecessarily? Perhaps it might be a good thing if we had less Constitution, not more. Most of the progressive movements of the day are met by restrictions opposed by the Constitution or alleged to be opposed by it, and our energies are now too much engaged in amending details which need never have gone into the Constitution. Our Government is still in process of evolution- and always will be, so long as it is a living thing. The Presidency is distinctly in evolution. It is not what the Constitution expected it to be. It is an office unlike any other in the world, the President having come to be a sort of irremovable and irresponsible premier as well as titular head of the nation, the man to whom the country looks for a legislative programme as well as executive performance. Why not let the Presidency work itself out without further Constitutional restrictions, trusting to good sense of the people to meet -as the people after all must meet the dangers when they arise.

personal broil, hurling epithets and accusations at each other as they hurried by train and automobile from shouting crowd to crowd. Presidents, having received renomination, have campaigned for reëlection, but never before did two candidates upon whom rested the obligation to preserve something of the dignity of the Presidential office stump the country in a personal campaign. If such a spectacle is a necessary accompaniment of direct Presidential primaries, that is a strong argument against them.

It would be hasty to come to that conclusion, however, merely because an exPresident of peculiar temperament provoked a President to an unseemly contest. The Presidential primary is a new thing. It has not yet had a real trial. Moreover, primaries were held in only a few of the states. They were, except in five or six cases, extemporized affairs, unregulated by law and unruled by custom. It would not be possible for candidates to make personal canvasses in all the states, and it is likely that this fact, together with public sentiment certain to pronounce against it, will in the future prevent the personal appearance of aspirants in any such scenes as were this year enacted. Had there been no primaries this year, it is pretty certain that Mr. Roosevelt would have resorted to much the same tactics, and that the President would have felt himself forced to go on the platform to defend himself. In other words, the trouble this year was not so much in the circumstances that primaries were being held in a few states as in the character and methods of Mr. Roosevelt and the unwisdom of Mr. Taft.

A more serious consideration that lies against the Presidential primary is the fact that so few men this year took the opportunity to vote. If the people have no wish to choose their own candidates, it is not worth while setting up the machinery for them.

The special meagreness of the Democratic vote may be explained partly by the probability that many Democrats, their interest attracted by the spectacular contest in the other party, voted in the Republican ballot-boxes; and partly by