St Marys High School - Blue Mantle Yearbook (Milford, MA)

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the most progressive age in history. But despite this great pow¬ er of amendment, our government has undergone few basic changes in the past century and a half of revolutionary transformation. Including the first ten amendments, ratified in 1789, as part of the original document, only eleven have since been added. Perhaps the.principle reason for this fact, is that the people who have administered the Constitution during periods of adaptation and adjustment have generally exhibited the same spirit of conserva¬ tive self-restraint as the men ' who originally drafted it. But how long can the Constitution resist the insidious gnawing of time and circumstance? Was it destined to withstand the sophistic influence of Communism or the equally baleful dema¬ gogy of dictatorship which hover so threatening near the bor¬ ders it has rendered safe for democracy all these years? What as¬ surance have we that this great document will not be so twisted out of shape and so distorted in version by a people gone mad with the innoculation of the Popular Front that only museums and their curators will house it or show any reverence for it? Mas¬ querading under the banner of democracy, the Popular Front has wrecked many another work of civilization. Can it be that the schemers who blasted to bits the law and order of other people are on their way now to blast to bits our Constitution? Certain¬ ly, the world today is experiencing a universal challenge to authority, Witness the appalling increase in crime which has spread even to the greatest cities, once the very symbol of law and order. The rumblings of revolution and anarchy may be felt among the most enlightened peoples and in the most stable of dem¬ ocracies. Widespread revolt against the integrity of domestic and public morals is apparent on every side. The reign of law¬ lessness sheds its portentous shadow over the world like some great bird of pr%y Fortunately, however, man ' s Inextinguishable desire to live cannot be altered by the tremendous changes in his environment which have brought all this about. He has but to di¬ agnose the evil and he will In some way devise a remedy. Polit¬ ical institutions are common in their inability to touch human nature very deeply. Nevertheless, they can protect man ' s dig¬ nity as a human being, and they can champion his God-given risht to exercise his faculties of mind and body without undue re In our day particularly, they can and must defend his right to work, as a God-given means of acquiring a share in this world s goods. The Constitution was ratified because it acknow- J-edged these rights. It not merely did that, it acknowledged them as God-given and not state-created. If we have sense enough to insist upon this fundamental principle, the Constitution will live and our lives and liberties will remain secure under it. . T f} e Constitution is neither omnipotent nor infallible, but it has been successful in restraining each successive vener¬ ation of Americans from the tempting excesses of political power, and as long as this vision continues to inspire them, the Ameri-

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the ' constitution and a changing world NE hundred and fifty-one years ago, fifty-five of the greatest statesmen in America assembled within the nar¬ row confines of Independence Hall, Philadelphia, for the purpose of revising the content and increasing the efficiency of the Articles of Confederation. These men were fully aware of the great difficulties attendant upon such a task, the welding of thirteen jealous and discordant states, exhausted by a demoralizing war, into a har¬ monious whole. Though baffled by serious doubts as to the finhl and successful end of their labors, a common fidelity to their noble objective bound them together with the golden and indes¬ tructible links of charity -- the love of their fellow-man and their common country. Hatred Is the soil out of which labor fi¬ nally produces the shackles of tyranny. Love Is the soil out of which labor produces the benediction of freedom. It was this labor of love which gave the founding fathers the courage in the face of reverse and discouragement, despite far-reaching and apparently irreconcilable differences of opinion, to persevere to the end. They were far more than mere theorists groping blindly in the realms of the imagination for they had actually experi¬ enced the evils for which they were to provide not indeed a trans¬ cendent panacea but one of the most outstanding attacks in all history. This notable assemblage debated for four long and weari¬ some months, in the withering heat of the summer, before it pro¬ duced the remarkable document which must be acknowledged the greatest effort of its kind ever produced by the hand of mortal man. The framers of the Constitution were gifted with unusual knowledge of the human heart and almost uncanny foresight about its reaction to change, with the result that the Constitution of 1787 is, in its essential features, the Constitution of 1938. They fashioned it to endure for ages to como and consequently to be adaptable to the ever-increasing complexity of world affairs. Wonderfully wise in the powers which they delegated specifically to the government they were sagacious to the point of inspiration in what they left unprovided. The provisions of Article V auth¬ orizing the amendments concretely demonstrate their avowed unwill¬ ingness to attempt to prescribe immutable rules by which the government should cope with the unforseen exigencies of the fu¬ ture. To this consequent elasticity of the Constitution is due in no small degree its stability, since judicial interpretation and, when necessary, formal amendment have enabled it to keep pace with the ever-accelerating changes of what has been called

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can people will attain ever greater successes in political fields It does not only delineate and balance justly the powers of na¬ tion and state but as well the rights of government, and indi¬ vidual. It defends the integrity of the human soul! In other governments, this responsibility rests upon the conscience of its legislative body. Under the Constitution, it is part and parcel of the fundamental law of the land, enforceable by judges sworn to defend it faithfully. But, again, let us insist that the law recognizes our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi¬ ness, and the judges are sworn to defend them faithfully because God gave them to us long before ...laws. or a system of courts to de¬ fend them were ever heard of. Although the ink with which this venerable compact was inscribed has nearly faded from the yellowed parchment, its prin¬ ciples should be etched indelibly in the heart of every American worthy of the name. The Declaration of Independence sought to make the world safe for democracy, but the Constitution attempted the far greater task of making democracy safe for the world by encouraging a people to impose themselves the salutary restraint of the right use of their liberties. Edmund Burke has aptly phrased this idea: Liberty to be enjoyed must be limited by law, for law ends where tyranny begins, and the tyranny is the same, be it the tyranny of a monarch, or of a multitude, - nay the tyr¬ anny of the multitude may be the greater since it is multiplied tyranny.” AC