POLITICAL NOTE: Open Mouths

At Hyde Park one day last week Franklin Roosevelt heard a great deal about the Constitution from a variety of people who consider his attitude toward that piece of paper highly dangerous, if not downright destructive. Picking for their political sound-off the 148th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution by its framers at Philadelphia, important Republicans throughout the land warmed to a theme which they hope will be paramount in the 1936 presidential campaign. Though few G. O. Partisans dared to mention him by name, the speeches of one & all were aimed directly at the President of the U. S. No less full of wails and warnings were a number of disgruntled Democrats who used Constitution Day to view the New Deal with loud alarm. If the contents of these addresses could be accepted as a fair indication of what the U. S. is in for next year, the Constitution will then be discussed with an extraordinary vehemence and a startling lack of originality. Excerpts from last week’s outpourings:

Boston. Ailing Democrat Albert Cabell Ritchie, Maryland’s longtime (1920-35) Governor, had a speech delivered by proxy at Faneuil Hall. Said he: “If the executive takes over the functions of the Legislature, the end is dictatorship. We do not want dictatorship in this country. We want democracy.”

Democratic Governor James Michael Curley, who holds a patronage grudge against the New Deal, assailed “so-called intellectuals” who “harbor delusions that Almighty God has centred in their puny heads the wisdom of the ages and rights to overrule the Constitution.”

“The Constitution is more than a structural form of government,” cried James M. Beck of Philadelphia, who be haves as if that document were his private property. “It is a great spirit and defends the right of a man to achieve his own destiny. . . . What this country needs is not a ‘breathing spell’ but to enjoy again the privilege of breathing the pure air of constitutional freedom!”

Pittsburgh. To the Sons of the American Revolution, Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby declared : “The idea which pervades the Constitutionis the protection of the rights that are common to all men. . . . Let us be true to it! Faithful to it! Worthy of it!”

Kansas. Thrifty Republican Governor Alfred Mossman Landon observed : “The real danger to our Constitution lies not in frontal attacks, but in the violation of the fundamental principles of economy, frugality and common honesty which were the lodestar of the writers of that document.”

San Diego.On the concert stage of San Diego’s Exposition, frosty-haired Herbert Clark Hoover drew wild applause from 20,000 Californians when he rasped: “For 20 years in the service of my country at home and abroad I have dealt with the backwash of war and revolution. . . . I have one conclusion from it all. Liberty never dies from direct attack. No one will dare rise tomorrow and say he is opposed to the Bill of Rights.”

Manhattan— In front of City Hall, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. told a mass meet ing of polyglot citizens: “Remember, my fellow Americans, this freedom and well-being which you enjoy. … It was dear-bought by the blood and tears of true Liberals. . . . Watch well the changes that political tinkers may attempt, lest under the guise of aiding you they steal your liberties. This Constitution is your heritage.”

At an uptown rally of G. O. P. women from 20 States Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt Sr. was introduced as “Our First Lady.” She evoked affectionate applause by quotingGeorge Washington on the Constitution as follows: “The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and alter their constitution of government. But the Constitution that at any time exists, until changed by the explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon us all.”

“The philosophy and practices of the New Deal are utterly foreign to the letter and spirit of the Constitution,” pronounced Chairman Henry P. Fletcher of the Republican National Committee.

Washington. On behalf of his American Liberty League, Democrat Jouett Shouse warned: “The Constitution can and will be altered when there is over whelming sentiment for such a course. But it must not be destroyed through illegal acts of any administrative official!”

Chicago. Denied the use of Soldier Field by the city’s Democratic Administration, Chicago Republicans hired the Stadium, stretched a huge banner labeled CONSTITUTION across one end, staged a pageant called “The Land of Liberty” with 2,000 actors.

Presiding was tall, urbane Robert Rutherford McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, who proclaimed: “We are here tonight because we see these [constitutional] rights jeopardized by a movement, financed with billions of dollars from the Federal Treasury, that seeks to replace our Republic with a dictatorship, our Constitution with a whim, of an officeholder!”

Thereupon Publisher McCormick introduced as first speaker his bitter newspaper rival, Publisher William Franklin Knox of the Daily News. “Let us on this Constitution Day,” pleaded Mr. Knox, who would not mind being the Republican nominee for President next year, “pledge ourselves as free men who love freedom, to maintain it both against the follies of impractical visionaries and against the assurances of those demagogs who would set up as a substitute for free popular institutions a bureaucratic rule dominated by an all-powerful executive.”

Rebuttal. Sole spokesman for the New Deal on Constitution Day was Secretary of Commerce Daniel Calhoun Roper. To a gathering of the Kiwanis International at Alexandria, Va., he declared by way of rebuttal:

“It is essential that we keep the changing, living characteristics of the Constitution constantly in mind, for there are those today who would mislead the public into believing that to change or adapt this great instrument to serve changed conditions is to desecrate it. …

“My answer to the wailing cry of ‘Back to the Constitution’ is the progressive and American challenge of ‘Forward with the Constitution!’ . . . The right of amendment is the heartbeat of our constitutional system.”