Manchester High School - Somanhis Yearbook (Manchester, CT)

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SOMAN HES EVENTS 27 Somebody has said that a hope of success is often a guarantee of success. I am placing great faith in this statement, for I am wishing and hoping and dreaming that my dreams and aspirations are of the sort that lead to suc- cess. Ruth Palmer Smith THE CONSTITUTION AND LAW ENFORCEMENT The Constitution of the United States of America is one of the most noteworthy documents in existence today. Since its birth, silver-tongued orators of all ages and generations have praised its magnitude, its expres- sion, its form, its power, and more important yet, its liberty-guarantee, couched in the blunt straight-forward phraseology peculiar to a generation of real patriots. But today there is the danger that the inheritors of this patriotic formula, while enjoying its privileges and blessings, may be raising a generation of children into an atmosphere of law-contempt and misplaced patriotism. Let us look back to the First Constitutional Convention of 1787, held in the city of Philadelphia, and trace the history of the Constitu- tion to the present day. Gladstone once said that the American Constitution was the greatest work ever struck off at a given time by the mind of man; however, he did not take into consideration the fact that very little in the Constitution was original. Its roots lay in the legal inheritance and governmental experience of the colonies and were developed by certain compromises between represen- tatives of the Thirteen Original States. These representatives met in In- dependence Hall in May, 1787, and drew up our Constitution, which was based upon the fundamental principles of the Magna Charta, the Massachu- setts Bay Colony Agreement, and the Constitution of the State of Connecti- cut. The main feature of this document was the novelty of the dual form of government which it created—a government dealing directly with its citi- zens, yet composed of several sovereign states which held a system of checks and balances over the central government. The final document was the re- sult of continuous compromise; but in it was embodied a great governmental principle, a hope of a future for a great country; and this document has ever since been the mariners’ chart for our Ship of State. At first Constitutional affairs progressed splendidly and the country prospered and developed under its jurisdiction, until in 1860 there arose a great question. Should the integrity of the Constitution be preserved and the country whose inseparability it vouchsafed remain one strong nation? or was the Constitution a thing to be regarded when convenient, and disregard- ed when inconvenient? That question was answered, though it took four long, hard, bloody years to answer it. Lincoln had sworn to “preserve, pro- tect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” He did his duty. The integrity of the Constitution was maintained and passed on unharmed to the next generation. Today the Constitution is meeting as great a test as it met during the Civil War, but today the enemy is less obvious. In 1860 our fathers fought in the open; now they are fighting under cover. The enemy now is the ever-present and ever-growing attitude of law-contempt. Law is necessary! Without law we are lower than brutes, for we know that beasts have, and obey, the jungle laws. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. So we have personal laws, family laws, tribal laws, and final- ly governmental laws. Law is the back-bone of the nation; when a nation becomes lawless, it ceases to exist. In our country, as our own representa-

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26 SOMANHIS EVENTS stenographer. Please deliver me from that; it is the very abyss. Webster defines a stenographer as, “a writer of phonography.” If this definition were complete, | should be unafraid; but | can enlarge upon it. In one of my textbooks, a whole chapter is devoted to telling how an ideal sten- ographer is the next thing to perfection itself. She must be an expert typist, a rapid and accurate transcriber of shorthand, and above all a good speller. There I am very fearful, for I cannot spell. I have learned spelling rules galore but there are so many exceptions to these that it is of no use, I can- not spell. For this reason Iam one of those people who are firm advocates of phonetic spelling. If psalm is pronounced salm, why should a confusing p be placed in front of it; and why should weird be spelled weird, and siege siege and seize seize? No, I never will understand it. If spelling is so necessary, | must discard the hepe of ever being an ideal stenographer. My next thought is that I will be a writer. Then I am free to invent new words and spell them as I choose. But the field of writing is so large that to say one wants to be a writer is rather indefinite. There are three pos- sibilities which interest me: the short-story, the novel, and the novelette. The short-story has one disadvantage; it’s too short. The novel has a corres- ponding fault; it’s too long. So I think I should prefer to write a novelette, which is a happy medium between these two, as it has all the characteristics of a novel in a shorter form. The plot seems easy. It will be a realistic story of modern life. The hero and heroine are two up-to-date jazz-lovers with no thought of the future. Their parents are aghast at their actions and try with little success to show them their folly. Now, [am in a dilemma. My hero must be made to think of the more prosaic things of life, and my heroine must be brought out of her mad rush for pleasure and converted into a sweet, loving, and dutiful daughter. How may this best be accomplished? Perhaps I should kill off the hero and then let the heroine come to her senses, turn martyr, and pine away and die. But who will kill the hero? He is the most popular man in the community. Even the blackest villain re- spects him, because he is chief of the fire-department. Ah! I will have an unknown assassin shoot him in his study while he is writing a letter order- ing more chemicals to put out a fire raging in a neighboring town. Still— that would be resorting to fate. It really won't do. I’ve heard that any story that resorts to Fate in order to bring it to a climax is worse than no story at all. Alas! Until I learn how to end a story with such a situation, T cannot be a writer. The third possibility is that I be a teacher. I feel that perhaps I know more about this profession than any other, as I have been in almost daily contact with certain of its members for thirteen years. But a teacher must know a tremendous lot, not only about her chosen subjects but about simple facts of general science, literature, languages, etc. as well. How often have I heard this remark—perhaps I’ve said it myself—: “Oh! Ask her; she ought to know, because she’s a teacher.” Ah! The magic of that word teacher! She must know everything—whether it be why tides change, or exactly what is radio, or who is the greatest man in the United States. Be- sides, children have an inexhaustible stock of mighty questions which they seem to delight in asking the teacher. Though the answer may be simple, it requires tact and a good vocabulary to explain things to an exacting child. A small friend of mine is quite disgusted because I cannot explain to him the solution of such questions as: “If aman was up in an aeroplane and the earth came to an end, where would the man land?” I do think teaching would be very interesting, and perhaps after I went to a special school guaranteed to educate one to be a teacher, I might succeed at it. And so I dream and similarly, I suppose, other people dream. Hope and youth go hand in hand. We look forward to brightly-painted futures.

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28 SOMANHIS EVENTS tives make the laws which govern us, we indirectly have a voice in the gov- ernment; yet our modern craze for law-contempt constitutes the greatest menace known to such great institutions as the Constitution and the Supreme Court. In 1917 an amendment to the Constitution was proposed by Congress. In 1919 the law known as the 18th amendment became a part of our national rules and regulations! We know that this law prohibited in general the use of intoxicating liquors, but what matters it, just what the law prohibited? The legislators, the representatives of the American people, deemed this law necessary and the law was duly passed by both houses, signed by the presi- dent, and “O-K-e-d” by the Supreme Court. However, legal warfare over the amendment did not end with its ratification by the necessary number of state legislatures. Public interest had been aroused. Vast properties were endangered. Great Constitutional lawyers and eminent counsels, such as General William Marshall Bullitt, W. D. Gurthie, and Elihu Root, were retained and an effort was made to defeat or nullify the amendment in the courts. Two sovereign states,, Rhode Island and New Jersey, brought suit against the United States in the Supreme Court. Seven test cases were de- bated but all to no avail. The decision remained that “by lawful proposal and ratification, this amendment has become a part of the Constitution and must be respected and given effect the same as the provisions of that instru- ment.” However, the average American gives little heed to the Constitutional aspect of the amendment. His interest in the prohibition movement is fixed on other features which to him seem to be of immediate personal concern. So, though he calls himself a law- abiding citizen, he neglects the mandates of the Constitution for a more pressing interest of self-satisfaction, and fails utterly to realize that the constitutional aspect is of far greater importance for the future welfare and happiness of himself, his children, and his country. Therefore, little realizing what he is doing, he does not hesitate to violate the law. Since one law may be broken so easily and profitably, other laws are inevitably broken. Children, then raised in the homes of these citizens, grow up in an atmosphere of law-contempt, and what hope is there to change their opinion outside the home, with such an influence to combat? This, then, is the menace to our future peace and quiet! The present generation has a tendency to consider the law as a thing to be unheeded— unless, of course, some criminal is in danger of his life because he broke some law; then every clause, every word, every syllable in the law that he has broken is evoked to save his unworthy neck! Thus law breaking follows law-breaking until today the sanctity and honor of the Constitution are in danger—in danger from two sources: first, from ignorance of the law; and secondly, from contempt for the law. Let us take a few examples: In the last presidential election over 4,800,000 men and women voted for a party, of which the chief plank in the platform was for destroying by Con- stitutional amendment the judicial system set up by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and their fellow patriots. Did they know what they were doing? Again, Congress proposed by a large majority in each House the so- called Child Labor Amendment. Immediately the legislatures of the States began to reject it as violative of the Constitutional principle. Either Con- gress was badly wrong or the states were in error. Lincoln foresaw just such a danger, as exists today, and in advance he gave us his remedy. Remember his immortal words: “Let every American, every lover of Liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country and never to tolerate their violation by-