WHY THE "GATEWAY" AMENDMENT?
Why the "Gateway" Amendment? The Difficulty of Amending the Federal Constitution is the Strongest Barrier to Progress; We Must Open a Way Through This Barrier Before We May Arrive " at Fundamental...
...As William James said, simply to breathe or move our muscles should be a delight...
...The constitution was a shield and a safeguard...
...They grow...
...The public canning demonstration at which the Government agent was to teach the girls how to can their tomatoes for sale or home use, took place at Aiken...
...The Democratic and Progressive platforms were particularly explicit and emphatic, and all the candidates have emphasized health in speeches and in their record in public life...
...This is largely because literature has emanated from the privileged classes, whose interests all have seemed to lie in the direction of opposition to those changes which come from the conscious aspirations of the people...
...He re-joicelh like a strong man to run a race...
...These ideals should not stop with the mere uegation of disease, degeneracy, delinquency and dependency...
...The amendment of Article V. should become the demand of all real progressives—all real democrats—under the slogan "Give us the Gateway Amendment...
...In the nature of things the people wanted these to be unchangeable...
...The possibility of a bank account in her own name seemed too good to be true...
...The result has been that, while monarchies have been democratized by dint of the pressure of the human people on the human monarchs, our cold, unhuman constitution has refused to yield, and cannot yield...
...It had to be immutable in theory at least...
...The literature of the past, and largely of the present, is full of the assumption that change must be resisted...
...These and other indications augur well for better legislation, more energetic enforcement of the law and, above all, a more appreciative public sentiment as to the transcendent importance of the conservation of human life...
...When a drought came on, and it seemed inevitable that the plants must die, the girl trudged back and forth daily between spring and tomato patch in order to water her thirsty crop...
...But this is a false conservatism...
...Good constitutions have never been produced by single acts of any man or body of men...
...It has served astonishingly well—considering that it is a single-act document...
...Change Article V. so as to make future amendments easier...
...The young girl snatched eagerly at the suggestion...
...These fetters and manacles were adopted because at that time the nature of liberty was not very widely understood...
...When the agent explained his plan to her, Miss Gunter joined the Girls' Canning and Poultry Club, organised in her state by the Department of Agriculture, and agreed to cultivate one-tenth of an acre In tomatoes...
...but it may possibly be enlarged if we all join in au effort to make it into a real Gateway through which democracy may march to successful government...
...But Gladstone made no comparison between it and the constitutions which instead of being single-act tours de force have grown with the growth of the people...
...True conservatism—the conservation of life—will demand this...
...The bursting of fetters and the unlocking of manacles are demanded by true conservatism, because bonds destroy the man while they "govern" the body...
...Open a Way to Freedom THEY MADE their constitution practically unamendable...
...The Gateway Amendment will do it * * * A Girl and a Tomato ILIKE to tell the story of Katie Gunter...
...The name itself is important...
...three or four times during the canning week, she rose at one o'clock in the morning, filled her father's light spring wagon with tomatoes, and drove to Aiken City...
...City, twenty miles from Katie Gunter's home...
...This story begins with a tomato, and shows what every girl in the country, or in the small town may accomplish on a bit of ground no bigger than a garden plat...
...Let us take off the wrappages of 1787 and let ours grow...
...This is the only insurance against, violent revolution...
...Said Emerson: "Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous 1" Our health ideals should be nothing short of an abiding sense of the sweetness and beauty, the nobility and holiness of human life...
...The thoroughly healthy person Is full of joy and optimism...
...With superior knowledge, our health ideal should excel those of any other age...
...But how, she inquired of the Government agent, could a girl make money on a tomato patch...
...The very men who made our constitution were unable to act according to the new situation growing out of the great fact of self-government...
...This is the reason why "conservatism'' has become a synonym for '.'standpatism.'' As a matter of fact ordinary conservatism la a destructive thing...
...They had been used to the idea of fettering kings by means of constitutions...
...Let Us Be Free to Grow THE PREVAILING cant praise of the Constitution of the United States takes for its text the saying of Gladstone to the effect that it is the greatest document ever struck off in a single act by the brain of man...
...These people of the United States will not forever lie supine, governed by the notions of 1787...
...They should include muscular development, a sound mind in a sound body, integrity of moral fiber, a sense of the enjoyment of all life's proper functions...
...For the fetters rust be taken off and the manaclas unlocked, or they Will be burst...
...Constitutions prior to this time were instruments handed down to the people by monarchs for the purpose of allaying discontent...
...A Code of Fetters" THE CONSTITUTION of the United States is a code of fetters and manacles devised by a body of provincial gentlemen something more than a century ago for the "government" of the people...
...Nothing can stop its growth, though institutions may distort and stunt growth...
...For this remarkable record, the Legislature of South Carotins presented her with a four years' scholarship at the State Normal and Industrial School, Winthrop College, where she is now pursuing her studies...
...It destroys that priceless thing, growth...
...They will change our institutions peacefully if they can, but they will change them...
...Fetters and manacles are "conservative" things in that they keep in his present status the man who is bound...
...The theory of liberty had possessed itself of the public mind before and during the Revolution, but the constitution was adopted in the slump of a reaction against the principles of the Declaration of Independence...
...The story of Katie Gunter's achievement is, in large measure, the story of thousands of girls on farms and in small villages throughout the country to-day...
...It is just a crack through the wall...
...No greater blunder was ever perpetrated...
...We Must Open a Way Through This Barrier Before We May Arrive " at Fundamental Democracy By HERBERT QUICK ANATION is an organism...
...It is opposed to the very principle of life save as life is under restraint...
...She fertilized, planted, staked, and pruned under the supervision of the Department's agent, who made frequent visits to the homes of the club members...
...If Magna Carta had been subject to change at any time, the people would not have felt safe from kingly aggression...
...There is only one narrow, difficult opening through it, Article V., which offers the only plan for amendment which its trainers would consent to, or which the people at that time would have accepted...
...All three of the party platforms Included planks in behalf of public health...
...and we find the aston-ishing fact staring us in the face that the very monarchy from which we broke away is now vastly more domo-cratic than is this country...
...Gladstone told the truth—as a single-act document it is great...
...Two years ago, Katie Gunter, who lived on a big farm near Samaria, South Carolina, was asked by a Government agent if she didn't think it would be fun to plant a tomato patch, and earn some money of her own...
...It expresses the 'thing desired—a Gateway through the confining wall to the realm of freedom...
...They had now become their own kings—and they proceeded to tetter themselves...
...The unamendable constitution is a Chinese wall shutting out change...
...They should be positive and progressive...
...From her one-tenth acre of ground, Miss Gunter canned 512 quarts of tomatoes, which she later sold at $1.25 per doz'n quarts...
...They were generally eoutracts on the part of kings promising not to oppress the subjects...
...These girls are members of the Canning and Poultry Clubs organized by the Department of Agriculture in, the South, and now being extended throughout the North and Northwest—Selene Armstrong Harmon in the Farmer's Wife...
...An Encouraging Symptom of Progress By IRVING FISHER ONE OF the most encouraging symptoms of progress is the great attention which was paid to public health in the recent political campaign...
...It grows...
Vol. 5 • February 1913 • No. 7
