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University Daily Kansan Wednesday,Dec.9,19
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Presidential Terms
One year down and eight to go. That's all the time Lyndon Johnson can serve as President of the United States because of the restrictions of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution.
IT WASN'T SO MANY YEARS ago that another man with tremendous crowd appeal rode over all obstacles to win the presidency. Franklin D. Roosevelt turned the trick four times. He was allowed to do this because he was unfettered by a constitutional amendment which today limits the President's tenure. Because of FDR, Lyndon Johnson can only set his sights on another eight years.
Since Harry Truman stepped out of the nation's top job in 1953, the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been in effect. It limits any man to a maximum of 10 years in the White House.
Until this amendment was ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures in 1951, there were no legal restrictions on how long a man could serve as President.
THE ARCHITECTS OF THE U.S. Constitution gave serious thought to a clause limiting each President's tenure to two terms, but they did nothing. Possibly they hoped that George Washington would be willing and that the people would want him to serve as President until he died.
The framers were wrong. By the end of Washington's second term, the lure of Mount Vernon and Washington's unhappiness over fractionalism made the Father of our Country decline a third term.
A precedent had been started, but it took the double terms of Washington's fellow Virginians, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, to firmly establish the precedent of a maximum of two terms in the White House.
The idea became so well entrenched that not even the people's choice, Andrew Jackson, tried for a third term. He settled for hand picking Martin Van Buren.
Not only was the idea of two terms ingrained in the Presidential mind, but in the minds of the people. To the people, the tradition was sacred and only an extraor- dinary circumstance could suspend the unwritten law.
TIHEN IN 1940, the extraordinary happened. There was nothing ordinary about Nazi Germany's military inundation of her neighbors; there was nothing ordinary about the bombs falling on Britain; there was nothing ordinary about Japan's conquest in China; and there was nothing ordinary about President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
He had come in 1932 to lead the country out of an economic depression; he had won a monumental mandate from the people in 1936; he was the man who decided to smash tradition and accept the 1940 nomination of the Democratic Convention and aim at an unprecedented third term.
Roosevelt had played a shrewd game prior to the Democratic show in Chicago. In no way had he committed himself to wanting a third term.
Roosevelt went so far as to have the following statement read at the opening of the convention: "The President never had, and does not have today, any desire or purpose to continue in the office of President, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated by the Convention for that office."
HOWEVER. BEHIND THE scenes, cabinet member Harry Hopkins pulled the strings and the Convention drafted Roosevelt on the first ballot.
Would Roosevelt accept? A breathless nation and Democratic Convention waited for Roosevelt's answer. From the White House, where he had remained to keep tabs on the world situation, F.D.R. accepted. He said it had been his intention to turn the presidency over to a successor, but "thinking solely of the national good and the international scene, I came to the conclusion that such a declaration should not be made before the National Convention. It was accordingly made to you (the Convention) within an hour after the permanent organization of the Convention."
His reasons for accepting were tied to the military draft which he had ordered. From this he questioned whether he had "the right, as commander in chief of the Army and Navy, to call on men and women to serve their country or to train themselves to serve and, at the same time, decline to serve my country in my own personal capacity if I am called upon to do so by the people of my country."
WITH THAT THE PRECEDENT was smashed and so were Republi-cans Wendell L. Willkie, in 1940, and Thomas E. Dewey, in 1944. What could stop Roosevelt? The Republicians couldn't, but a worm-out body did. Just into his fourth term, Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his winter home at Warm Springs, Ga., on April 12, 1945.
Into the tremendous void stepped Harry Truman, a man who had never really been counted on by the Democrats, but a man who played a small but significant role in re-establishing the two-term rule.
Thus ended the longest one-man rule in the nation's history. The thought of another such Democratic tenure struck fear into the hearts of the Republican Party, and they went to work. Almost immediately after the war ended came talk of legislation to guard against the possible establishment of a dictator in the U.S.
THE END RESULT, whether it came from a real concern for protecting democracy or from political considerations, came the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. It was a product of the Republican-dominated 80th Congress.
From Congress it went to the state legislatures for ratification, finally becoming law in 1951, when Nevada, the 36th state in the Union, became the 36th state to ratify the amendment.
The amendment says, "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative, from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term."
THUS THE AMENDMENT RESTestablished the maxim of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, while exempting Harry Truman from its restrictions.
Although entitled to hold office as long as the voters would have him, Harry Truman declined to run for a second elected term in 1952. In early April of that year,
he announced, "I shall not be a candidate for re-election." He continued, "I have served my country long and I think efficiently and honestly. I shall not accept a renomination."
Why did Truman decline to run again? Perhaps it was because he was none too popular with portions of the Democratic Party. He may have feared the Eisenhower boom. And he may have felt bound by the spirit of the 22nd Amendment.
THE 22ND AMENDMENT HAS its critics. Amang him is the noted scholar on the presidency, Clinton Rossiter. In his book, "The American Presidency," Rossiter says the amendment indicates a "shocking lack of faith in the common sense and good judgment of the people." He says that someday we will face an emergency when we will be forced to put aside the man whom we otherwise would choose to lead our destiny.
Despite the apparent sense of these arguments, Rossiter places too much faith in one indispensable man. If our belief in democracy is valid, there must be more than one man capable of leading the country in a time of crisis.
The good in the amendment seems to outweigh the bad. Despite the intelligence of the American people, it is conceivable that we could be duped by a demagogic President who could create a dictatorship. It is not likely to happen, but the chance is there, and safeguards against such a possibility are to be commended.
THE SIGNIFICANCE of the 22nd Amendment is hard to determine, but following are some possibilities:
Truman's decision in 1952 probably was influenced by the amendment. His retirement opened the gates for Dwight Eisenhower and the Republican party to end 20 years of Democratic control. Had Truman run in 1952 there is no telling what might have happened. Perhaps Eisenhower would have won anyway, but remember 1948, when Truman didn't have a chance against Thomas Dewey.
THE EIGHT EISENHOWER years did not serve to really strengthen the Republican Party. Democrats and independents merely crossed over into the Republican camp to vote for the national hero. This gave the GOP a false sense of security.
When in 1960 the magic of "Ike" was gone, the voters started the return to their normal roles and the Democrats won in a squeaker. Thus we might conjecture that if Eisenhower had had stronger opposition, the Republican Party might have been able to avoid the complete collapse it suffered in 1964 at the polls.
ONE FINAL SIGNIFICANCE of the 22nd Amendment: it would follow that a President in his second term probably would not be as effective as in his first term. He could not run again, and he thus would be a "lame duck" president.
—Bob Henry
Dailij Mänsan
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Jim Langford and Rick Mabbutt Co-Editorial Editors
Managing Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Jim Langford and Rick Mabbutt
Roy Miller Managing Editor Don Black, Leta Catheart, Bob Jones, Greg Swartz, Assistant Managing Editors; Linda Ellis, Feature-Society Editor; Russ Corbitt, Sports Editor.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bob Phinney Business Manager
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HERBLOCK
"Me Afraid? This Time I'm Going Right In There"
The People Say...
Dear Sir:
I would suggest you check the factual content of the editorials you publish. In the "U.N. Crisis" (Wed, Dec. 2) T. S. Moore errs in stating "Russia has not paid contributions for the two previous years . . ."
Russia is a fully paid up member of the U.N. The current issue is over the peace keeping assessment for activities in the Congo. Please see page 1 of Wednesday's Kansan
Historical data may be interesting on such international attempts as the Quadruple Alliance and the League. But is not current, accurate information more important? As a weekend assignment I suggest that Mr. Moore also check how many countries are behind in their due payments to the U.N.
where the appropriate information is given.
Eric Haughton
Graduate student
I'm tired of puppets
Instead of people,
Of people who drop
Silloquies
Carefully labeled intelligence,
Of crew-cuts and tweed coats,
Of pipes and Picasso buttons.
I'm tired of seeing
People used
Because it's only a game,
Of watching cynics who
Call themselves
Realists,
Of people bored because they're
Afraid to care,
Of intellectual games of ring-around-the-rosy.
I'm tired of sophisticated snobs,
Of people whose understanding
Goes as deep as "neat."
I'm tired of people who scream
They hate it
But won't leave it because they're
Crazy.
Of people with nothing better to do
Than glue their days together
With self-pity.
I'm tired of people embarrassed
At honesty ...
At love ...
At knowledge.
I'm tired, ves—tired.
(Anonymous)
BOOK REVIEWS
ONE LITTLE BOY, by Dorothy W. Baruch (Delta, $1.65).
This book, first published a decade ago, is a moving examination into the mind of a child that will recall, for some readers (and some filmgoers), "Lisa and David." Dorothy Baruch was a consulting psychologist in Beverly Hills, Calif., and has written two books on psychology. Her husband, Hyman Miller, was a medical collaborator on the book.
The author learns about the emotional life of Kenneth, 8. and his parents. In so doing she reveals not only his secret world but the inner worlds of other children as well.
It is for parents, and it is not loaded with medical or psychological jargon. The author contends that her young hero is quite typical, that his thoughts and feelings are like those of other children.