works accordingly, with a strength borrowed from all past ages. And while the citizen in these days stands in the midst of all kinds of questions calling for greater and graver responsibility, what reason have we to suppose that the American citizen will not be equal to the task? Certainly, there has been no evidence either of incompetency or unreliability in these frightful years through which we have just passed.

There seems to me something me something decidedly un-American in these doubts and fears touching the inability of democracy to cope with the problems of modern life. Let's leave these doubts and fears to those who openly decry our system of free government and who hate the very principles upon which it rests. Why should we doubt that system of government which has brought so much of happiness to the individual and so much of power to the nation? If fate should be against democracy, it will be time enough to grapple with that tragedy when it comes, but let's not commit the crime of encouraging it. Under that self-discipline which national exigencies always suggest and which a great people always accepts, there is no reason why the achievements of our government and the success of our people in the past should be anything more than the prelude to still greater achievements in the future.

And may I say to the youth of this country, those who will have most to do in directing the affairs of the nation in the near future, that the more they study the history of our country, the more they will realize that success in public affairs, as in all other things, comes, not to those who doubt but to those who believe. Those whom this republic has placed among her immortals were not those who staggered through in unbelief, but those who believed that what constitutional government had promised constitutional government would perform.

The best illustration of this pessimistic political philosophy is the theory so often advanced that personal liberty has become incompatible with economic security, that the time has come when if the masses would make sure of shelter and food they must surrender freedom. The things to be done, it is argued, are so big, so vast, that they must be done by the government and the citizen must yield up all discretion, all judgment, together with most of his ancient privileges and his personal liberty. If that is true, of course we began wrong one hundred fifty years ago. If that is true. Washington and Jefferson were wrong and Mussolini and Hitler are right. This theory would write lie across the Declaration of Independence and obsolete across the Federal Constitution. But the theory itself is false, and

DEMOCRATIC HOPE

647 has been proven to be false by all human experience. Personal liberty and the discretion and judgment of the citizens are not incompatible with, but are essential factors in, economic security. In those countries where the people have been induced to give up their rights as free men and free women under the promise of economic security, they have lost both. There has been greater advancement since the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Federal Constitution in all those things which contribute to the moral and physical well being, to the happiness and dignity of the man in the factory, in the store, on the farm and in the mine, to make it possible to own homes and to dwell in them in security, than in the three thousand years preceding. Our work is by no means complete. But that which has been accomplished demonstrates we are on the right road. No! No! Liberty in its full and true sense is an indispensable part of economic security. Political liberty and economic freedom are allies, not enemies.

In considering these gloomy theories and the reason why these views are among us, we must keep in mind the experience of the last twenty-five years the Gethsemane through which humanity has passed. They have been mad, confusing, discouraging years. They spread far and wide the seeds of distrust and despair. The Great War and the worldwide depression which followed naturally left their wounds upon the body politic and exacted their toll of human suffering, but as this long night of agony draws to a close and the dawn of a new day breaks, this outstanding, inspiring fact remains it is in those countries, and those countries alone, where men and women are still free, free to choose their own calling or profession, free to live their own lives, free to worship their God as they conceive their God, that material recovery has been greatest and economic security most pronounced. The exacting years of the war, the devastating years of the depression, have demonstrated that constitutional government is the only government which, in restoring the economic welfare of the people, at the same time preserves their rights and their liberty. While caring for the material interests of the citizen, it does not barter away his spiritual freedom.

This government and what it stands for, this Constitution and what it means to the happiness and to the advancement of the people, not only to those so fortunate as to find shelter under its terms, but as a steadying, stabilizing force for all humanity, is the priceless heritage which has been entrusted for a brief time to our keeping, and, as a people, we know its worth and, as a people, we

will preserve it and pass it on unimpaired to our children and our children's children.

In conclusion, this anniversary will call forth many words of praise for our great charter of government; but after all is said that may be said about our Constitution, it all seems inadequate and vain compared with the irrefutable facts and the living truths which testify to its worth. Its measure of worth is revealed and confirmed, not by words, but by experience. We cherish and value it, not because of what may be said of it, but because of what it has done for us as a people. It has given us peace among ourselves and between forty-eight sovereign states. It has guaranteed alike the welfare of the individual and of the public. Beyond any frame of government yet devised, it leaves room for that individual initiative which is the crowning characteristic of our people, while it affords complete opportunity for unity in all that concerns the nation as a whole. While mindful of human infirmities and of individual wants, its ultimate objective is national power and national glory. Finally, the strongest assurance of its perpetuity is the fact that it affords perfect machinery for gathering up, as it were, and formulating into laws and policies the reserve common sense of a great people. And it is common sense that rules the world.

We have not lived, we are not to live, in the Republic of Plato, but in the Republic of Washington and Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln, fitted for the storm as well as the calm. We shall have our differences, our contentions, and our controversies, even our seasons of bitterness and discord. We shall make mistakes and some times grope long for the right way. At times we shall fight harder for party than for country, for political power rather than public welfare. But such is the nature, such the glory of democracy that ultimately all such things are lost in the depth of devotion for that constitutional system which, in a world all but terrified with intolerance and oppression, keeps us independent, united, and free.

Commemoration of the Ratification

of the Constitution

RADIO ADDRESS OF HONORABLE SOL BLOOM

DIRECTOR GENERAL, UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION SESQUICENTENNIAL COMMISSION, DELIVERED OVER NETWORK OF COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM, 4:15 P. M., JUNE 21, 1938, FROM INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

THE TWENTY-FIRST day of June is a milestone on the long and rough road of human liberty. It marks the hour when Americans, after suffering many disappointments and dangers, found the secret of "more perfect Union." From that hour the United States of America has grown more and more powerful among nations, armed as it is with the breastplate of peace, the shield of liberty and the sword of justice.

Almighty Providence has ordained that the United States shall stand as a lighthouse, immovable by any storm, to throw the beam of hope to all mankind. Thanks to the American spirit as manifested on June 21, 1788, human liberty is a reality-a perpetual fact and the right of a human being to pursue happiness is not a dream. On that day the Constitution of the United States came into being. Eight states having previously voted ratification, the vote of New Hampshire on that day consummated the Union.

No pages of history are more inspiring than those which tell of the beginnings of American independence, the struggles and partial failures in the search for the secret of Union, and the final success of the people in establishing upon everlasting foundations a government of their own choosing. Although brave, other peoples were equally brave; and Americans did not succeed by bravery alone. Although patriotic and intelligent, Americans made mistakes which baffled their hopes. Their courage was shaken by reverses in the field, and their fortitude was sapped by long-continued disappointments in statecraft. But they profited by their bitter experiences,

and worked their way patiently through errors to perfect the Constitution. On this day, 150 years ago, they triumphed.

Many students of history regard the victory of the Revolution as a miracle. The financial resources of the Americans were meager to the point of beggary. Their political system was in effect a lack of system a hodgepodge, an improvised arrangement which could have been expected to insure defeat instead of victory. There was no central government. The only agency of common action was a convention of delegates from the colonies a convention that sprang from the universal protest against the injustice of the British government. Calling itself the Continental Congress, this convention had no constitution or standard of precedents. It made its rules as it went along gradually enlarging its powers of government mental rule was that each colony should have one vote.

Its funda

It assembled first in September, 1774, adopted a petition to the king asking for redress of grievances, took steps to remind England that commercial retaliations were on foot and adjourned after recommending another congress or convention to be held in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775.

Although active in the struggle for righting of the wrongs then suffered by the colonists, the Continental Congress continued to lack the powers essential to efficient government.

June 10 and June 11, 1776, are important dates in American history. On June 10 it was resolved that a committee should be appointed to draw up a Declaration of Independence. On the next day a resolution was passed to appoint a committee to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be entered into between the colonies.

The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, and the war went on. The committee charged with preparation of a form of Confederation brought in a draft on July 12. This report was debated until November 15, 1777, before it was agreed to. The Congress directed that the Articles of Confederation be submitted to the legislatures of the states with the recommendation that, if approved, their delegates in Congress be authorized to ratify them. A form of ratification was drawn up, and on July 9, 1778, the Articles of Confederation were ratified by the delegates of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. But the confederation could not go into effect until all states concurred. So, with stumbling and inadequate powers, the Congress did its best to support Washington in his discouraging campaign.