“MY wife and I have lived happily together for twenty-five years.”
“Now, tell me, old fellow—in confidence, of course—which one of you has had the other bluffed all this time?”
The Constitution
BY FREDERICK UPHAM ADAMS
Author of “The Kidnapped Millionaires,” “Colonel Monroe’s Doctrine,” “President John Smith,” “Shades of the Fathers,” etc.
THE practical man values a house not by its antiquity, but by its conformability to modern standards of construction and equipment. If he purchases an ancient structure he is not required to pay an added price because of its lack of plumbing, its absence of gas and electric lighting fixtures, and he is not entranced that its roof leaks and that its cellar is damp and moldy.
This same man, if he gives the subject a passing thought, will likely assure you that the Constitution of the United States is a perfect document because it is more than one hundred years old. It also is likely that this is the extent of his information concerning that famous document.
The average lack of knowledge concerning our National Constitution is astounding. Like children who have been drilled to repeat the Lord’s Prayer without the faintest conception of what the petition means, we have mentally drilled ourselves to believe that our Constitution is perfect, that it was inspired by a superhuman wisdom, and that it is treason to criticize or even discuss its infallible precepts.
In this respect we are the most narrow, bigoted and prejudiced people who pretend to keep in alignment with progress. For more than one hundred years we have been proclaiming the perfection of our free governmental institutions, and calling on other nations to admire us and to follow our example.