University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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i6 THE REDWOOD gerated or not, we will simply aflBrm that concrete cases of abuse, do not spoil the excellence of the system. Over and above the fact that the evils of the proposed amendment are im- measurably greater than the present system, two facts remain which effec- tually show the impotence of this argu- ment. These are, first that theoretic- ally the philosophy of the present system is superb; and second that prac- tically this system has given us a won- derful Senate for a century. But that system which is in theory consistent and ej0fective, and in practice immensely successful, is possessed of intrinsic use- fulness. Therefore the argument of abuse is a boomerang unless our opponents dare to advance such an absurd, illogical, and pernicious theory as the sophism that the abuse of a thing destroys its use. And now allow me to recall briefly to your minds the three points which I have tried to portray. First, I showed how the constitution by its nature and associations imposes on every citizen the solemn duty to resist perversion of its clauses or spirit. I tried to show you how our government has escaped the fate of all other repub- lics simply because of the excellence of this constitution. I told how it was the instrument which welded a few scat- tered colonies into a great government, and fanned a feeble spark into a beacon light among the nations of the earth. And I showed how the change proposed would be the first departure from both the letter and the spirit of this consti- tution. My second point proved the evils of the system. Firstly I showed that inasmuch as the Senate had been successful and supereminently so for one hundred years, and the new method was based merely on hypothesis, in deserting the present mode, we are forsaking the certain for the uncertain, which is wrong. I showed that the change would lead to and precipitate three grave evils. First, a demand for proportionate suffragism and thereby destroy state sovereignty. Second, I demonstrated the philosophy, the iri- dispensibility of the idea of check and countercheck in a government and how by the amendment the Senate would no longer be in a position to act as a check on the popular house, as it would be a popular house itself. Third, I proved the natural conclusion that the reasons for so radical a change in order to offset and balance the inviolability of the con- stitution and the dangerous evils of the proposed system should be very grave, apparent and weighty. And I showed that the principal reasons for such a change are absolutely insufficient and nebular. In fine, I have proved this thesis: In order to be justifiable, that change which is possessed of intrinsic evils and which works evil by its act, from the nature of the thing changed, must be actuated by grave reasons which make it expedient and necessary; but the constitutional amendment pro- posed, which is possessed of intrinsic evils and which works evil by its act, from the nature of the constitution, is not actuated by sufiSciently grave

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THE RKDWGOD 15 All these events are but a natural sequence of such an organic change. And even if they were merely probable that probability alone would forbid us from deserting a tried and theoretically true system for a hypothetical. Now for the third point. If I can prove that the virtues of the amendment are not sufficient to counterbalance and justify the two great evils of it, I will have thrown around the constitution a breastworks which render it invulner- able to this amendment. For such a radical and such a serious constitutional change the opposing arguments must necessarily be superlatively grave and convincing. They are not. Our oppo- nents cry, First — It is the will of the people. If you do not ratify their will, you evidently mistrust them. To this we reply that the will of the people is not always justifiable or authoritative, lyook at the great popular errors with which history is sullied. lyincoln was abused, reviled, calumniated by the people. Washington, even Washing- ton, was bitterly opposed by certain classes in his day and at one time we know his command of the army was almost repealed. Socrates, a model to his countrymen, was driven to death by the will of the mistaken populace. Aye, and it was the insistent voice of the people that sent the Innocent Victim of Nazareth up to the heights of Calvary. The voice of the people is no argument. In this case the cry of the people will subside. Demagogues never yet floated a lasting enterprise. It is said that the defeat of this amendment would show that the people are distrusted. By no means. Not from distrust of the people is this amendment to be defeated but in order to maintain that system which can give us an independent dignified body, which may always act with a re- straining influence on the Popular House. The next plea of our oppo- nents is that the Senate has degenerated. I flatly and emphatically deny that the Senate is a degenerated society. The United States Senate has embraced for 120 years and embraces today the most brilliant public men of the nation. I repeat with all the earnestness of which I am capable that the Senate is not a degenerated society. There is one millionaire and Senator who was widely accused of buying his seat in the Senate. But whether he did or not it is an argument incontrovertable for the intrinsic incorruption of the Senate, that that very man with all his money and influence was a nonentity, a recluse, a Robinson Crusoe in our great House. For this, the greatest deliberative body in the world, (even tho ' by occasional cases of corruption a man is foisted on into its number) accepts no passport except that which every American is bound to respect and accept — ability. There may be and probably are individ- ual exceptions, where men have abused their trust, but who will dare accuse the twelve of perversion, because the unfortunate Judas was corrupted. The third reason ofi ' ered by the innovators is that under the present system abuse has crept in. Waiving any discussion as to whether these abuses are exag-

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THK REDWOOD 17 reasons to make it expedient and neces- sary; therefore the constitutional amendment proposed is not justifiable. This great government of ours is rep- resented by our constitution. She has conquered all the difficulties that ob- struct, all the temptations that assail the rise of nations as Caesar conquered the provinces and tribes of Gaul. And like Caesar in Rome, she stands today preeminent among the nations of the earth. But a trial has come. We see her attacked by the destructive sword of innovation, in the hands of the very men to whom she gave their sacred liberty. I know not how others may feel. But for myself, when I see our constitution surrounded, like Caesar in the Senate House, by those who re- iterate the stabs of treachery, I would not, for this right hand, have her turn to me and say, Kt tu quoque, fili mi, — And thou too, my son! JAMKS Francis Twohy, ' 07. A THOUGHT OF DEATH! 01 vain, vain, Is hope when pain Has made me slave! (Despair, despair. Is ever there, It is the child of woe — I cannot hra.ve An agony Which cannot hut he sol Anthony (3. (Diepenhrock, ' 08.