The short Constitution ... being a consideration of the Constitution of the United States, with particular reference to the guarantees of life, liberty, and property contained therein, sometimes designated the Bill of rights

Front matter

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Preface

The "Short Constitution" is one of a series of volumes entitled "Elementary Americanism, ' ' intended for use in the home, the club, and the school and in general Americanization work.

It is our hope that regular courses in "Americanism" will soon be established in all schools, colleges and universities.

We use the term "Americanism" because we feel that it signifies something broader, deeper and more appealing than any title now used in the schools in the teaching of American Government, or citizenship, or the rights and duties of the citizens of the United States.

We like the term "America" better than "The boundaries, codes and constitutions. "America" suggests all these and then it suggests spirit. There is such a thing as "Americanism." It includes all there is of information relating to our country; but it also has a soul. " Americanism" relates to democracy, into which enter all the elements, all the impulses and emotions of men, women and children. "Americanism" teaches not only the relation of the states to the national government, and the relation of citizens to both the state and the national government, but it also teaches the relation of men, women and children toward each other.

This is a Government by the people, and therefore we must understand the people in order that we, the people, may govern.

To arouse patriotism and loyalty we must do more

THE PREFACE 11

than develop the powers of the mind, do more than expand the field of knowledge. We must inspire in the heart, faith, confidence and love. Men must not only learn how to govern, but they must learn how to be governed. We must not only learn to command, but also to obey. Our spirits must be so molded that we can submit to duly constituted authority, submission to which is the most lofty expression of American patriotism.

Submission to authority in America is submission to law, for no man in this country has any authority to command or direct a fellow man, except as the law made by the people vests him with such authority.

To inspire devotion to our country, we must arouse in the hearts of our people a sense of gratitude for the blessings which come to us because we live in free America, gratitude for the rights and liberties which we possess, which are protected by the guarantees of a written constitution adopted by the people themselves.

There is only one way in which the average person may be brought to see what America has done for him, and that is by contrasting the rights, privileges and opportunities which he has with those possessed by others in the same walk of life before the Constitution became the bulwark of the people against injustice and wrong.

The aim of the " Short Constitution" is to present in a form as simple as possible, a definite knowledge of all the personal guarantees of the Constitution, with an explanation of what they mean, and what they have done in the advancement of human happiness.

Everyone who understands human nature will admit that to mold the spirit, to inspire faith, and to excite gratitude training must begin in childhood. The child must learn :

(a) What authority means.

(b) The source of authority.

(c) In whom authority rests; in the parent, in the teacher, and in public officers selected by the people to enforce the authority of the community, of the state, and of the nation.

(d) How the authority of the people, the community, the state and the nation is expressed through laws which are nothing but rules of human conduct.

(e) How we should respect authority and submit to authority.

(f ) How and by whom those who will not yield obedience to authority out of respect, will be compelled to obey by punishment.

We have adopted a new method of presenting this subject. In this country authority is largely administrated through the courts. Judges of the Courts construe the Constitution and the laws, and, generally with the aid of a jury, determine rights and wrongs and enforce justice through their judgments and decrees.

We therefore feel that the subject "Americanism' ' presented through the spoken word of the Judge, will better gain and hold the attention of the pupil than in any other way. We have the teacher invite Judge Garland to deliver a series of "Talks" to the pupils, which are herein presented. By this direct method greater freedom of expression is permitted and with the aid of notes greater brevity is possible. In these " Talks' ' considerable apparent repetition will appear. This is essential to thorough understanding. Without reiteration it is impossible to accomplish our purpose which is not only to enlighten, but to inspire.

THE PREFACE 13

Our endeavor is to present the subject not from the standpoint of the government, but from the standpoint of the people. The rights of the people, are of first importance in a nation where men, women, and children are free. The state and the Nation have no rights except those given them by the people. Strictly speaking the Nation and the state have no ' i rights ' ' but only the duty to exercise certain powers in the protection of the liberties of the people.

In America the rights of the people are supreme. The state exists for man, not man for state.

To gain substantial results we must rely largely upon the industry and enthusiasm of the instructors. We are sure they will realize that in the "upbuilding of the spirit" a proper atmosphere must be created and maintained. Doctor Steiner wisely said, "Religion cannot be taught, it must be caught." In other words religion is of the spirit; so is patriotism. Always bear in mind that in presenting the Constitution ive are teaching human rights under the Constitution,

It is more than 100 years since the Constitution was ratified and, so far as we have knowledge, this is the first direct attempt to translate its guarantees into the language of the ordinary man, woman and child. We demand respect for, and loyalty to the Constitution, but the truth is that the ordinary citizen has no knowledge of the relation of the Constitution to his life or to the life of his children.

The Authors

REASONS FOR THE STUDY OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

For several days there had been an air of expectancy about the school. At Monday's assembly, the teacher had announced that she had persuaded Judge Garland to come to talk to the teachers and pupils about the constitution of their country and about the law, the rights, the powers and duties of the people. A real live judge was coming ! Most of the children had never seen a judge. The word inspired a sort of dread. They had read of men being sentenced to prison. They expected to see a fierce, hard hearted man. Some of the younger children had wondered if it would be possible to stay away from assembly room when the judge was there. But the teacher said that everyone should be present. So important was the subject that the teachers were to be there, too; and many fathers and mothers that could spare the time were also invited. The principal had said that he would not miss a meeting.

So when Friday came the assembly room was crowded. All the pupils and teachers were there, and in the rear of the room were a few of the parents. The door opened and the principal of the school entered. By his side was a man whose gray hair and serious countenance told of years of responsibility. He did not appear "fierce." Rather his face was kind and his eyes twinkled as he ascended the platform and stood looking out over the faces before him.

The principal introduced Judge Garland who bowed and said :

Well my friends, I am glad to see you. I am delighted to be back in a school room again. It is many years ago, though it seems but a short time, since as a schoolboy I sat in a school room like this, among boys and girls like you. I suppose that I studied about as you study, and did not recite any better than you recite. I thought I had to work very hard, and I remember that I often looked out of the open windtfw of the school room when the summer sun was warm, and I thought I could hear the trees and the grass, and the stream, even the fish, calling me to quit study and come out to joy and freedom. I know it was a real temptation. I could have had a good time, but I have often been glad since, that I obeyed my teacher, my parents, and the law, and continued my studies in school. I am glad, because I now realize how much easier, how much happier, and how much more useful my life has been because I did not listen to the voice of temptation which called me from work to play. 1

Since those pleasant school days I have seen much of human life. On the bench now over twenty-five years, I have been compelled to deal with all sorts of people, even the little children who early in life sometimes drift from the path of right to ways of wickedness. I have served as Judge of the Juvenile Court, and Judge of the Court in which the worst criminals are tried. I have heard the cases of thousands of persons on trial for crimes, men and women, young and old. I have sent hundreds to prison, and I have been compelled to sentence some to death.

In this experience, I have learned something of how easy it is, unless we are on our guard, to sin against

16 THE SHOKT CONSTITUTION

the laws of our country, and against the laws of God. I have observed that the average person does not fully appreciate the value of liberty until he is about to lose it. 2

I also know that most people do not know the worth of the protection which our Constitution gives to each one of us, until someone is about to take away their right to life, or to liberty, or to property; and then they cry out for help. If they are right in their appeal, they always find help in the constitution and in the law of the land. Yet it is true that there is much real ignorance about our country, our Constitution, and our laws. There is even much ignorance of these things among people who are supposed to be well educated.

So I was pleased when your teacher came to me the other day asking me to come to your school a couple of times a week, to talk to you about our country, our Constitution, and our laws. I am happy to be able to comply with her request. It is a difficult subject for children, and yet children must study these things, and learn them. There is no more important subject/

One of the chief objects of furnishing free education to children, rich and poor, is to make of them good law-abiding citizens ; citizens who know what authority is ; citizens who will obey the voice of authority; citizens who realize that authority in this country rests in the people themselves ; citizens, men and women, who realize that they owe a duty to their country and their fellow men, to do all they can to keep America the most free and the most just country in the world. 4

No American child should leave school without a full knowledge of the government of our country; nor until he has in his heart, loyal devotion to America, and to the Stars and Stripes, the emblem of the free.

Of course I do not expect you to learn all there is to be known about your government. However I do expect you to know the great fundamental truths which after all are very simple and easily understood.

I am not endeavoring to make lawyers. I am not trying to train you to become lawyers. You know nearly all the children in the American schools have to learn something about physiology and hygiene, but not in order to become doctors. They study physiology and hygiene in order to understand the ordinary rules of health, so that they may protect themselves as far as possible against disease and take care of their bodies intelligently. Of course sickness will come. Then you must call the doctor.

"Well, so it is in this course. I want you to know enough about your government, your Constitution and your laws, (because these things are yours) so that you, as members of this great society called America, will be able to understand your rights and duties, your privileges, your opportunities and your obligations. Sometime in your life your problem may become so difficult, or your rights may become so endangered, that you will have to call upon a lawyer, just as when illness comes you call upon your physician. 5

No one knows anything of real worth about his country until he knows its Constitution. No one can have in his heart a full measure of gratitude for the blessings of living in a free country, until he knows of how fully the Constitution guards everything, every right and privilege which we hold dear. So we shall enter upon the study of the Constitution of our country.

But in order that you may better understand the Constitution of your country, in order that you may better study the problems which will be presented to you in this course, it is necessary for you to understand something in a general way at least, of four separate things — Government, Liberty, Authority and Law. So before talking to you of the Constitution, I shall talk to you on these subjects. 6

I know it isn't going to be easy for you at first to understand some of the words and expressions which it is necessary for me to use. It will be necessary for me to repeat to some extent, from time to time, but I feel satisfied that if we will work together in the right spirit, you will find the matter interesting; and I am sure that the great truths, the great principles of life, conduct and action, will soon become clear to your minds.

The important thing to realize at all times is that we are not talking about something away off in which we have slight interest, but that we are talking of things which are ours, which affect every one of us, not in the future, but now.

I can recall a number of faces of men who have been before my Court charged with crimes, who in childhood were sitting where you are sitting to-day. I have sentenced some of them to long terms of years in the penitentiary. I was compelled to take away from them their liberty, because they had shown themselves unworthy, and had shown themselves rebels against the authority of their country.

On the other hand, I recall those who came into Court, seeking protection of their rights against wrong doers — against those who would take away their property, the earnings perhaps of a life time ; and in Court they found protection, justice, and right. But in administering justice and right, the Court was only applying the principles of the Constitution of our country, which we are about to study.

So let us enter upon this work with a determination to succeed in our undertaking. You know that has a great deal to do with our success in life — a determination to succeed.

When you boys take your baseball team to play the team of some other school, you start for the baseball park determined to win the game, and if you keep up this spirit, you probably will win the game. In any event, you play a real game of which your friends are proud. That is the way to meet all the problems of life, whether in the school room, or out in the world, after you have entered upon the great battles of life.

1. Boys and girls often do not realize the value of an education as a preparation for success in life. The following figures from an educational authority, show what education does for a boy or a girl.

(a) Less than three per cent of the people of the United States have a college education, but this three per cent furnishes 59 per cent of the men and women called successful. Fourteen per cent come from those having had some college training. This shows that nearly three-fourths of all men and women in the United States called successful have had some college training.

(b) During the past ten years Massachusetts has given all her children a minimum of seven years of schooling, while Tennessee has given her children but three years. The Massachusetts citizens produce per capita $260 per year, while the Tennessee citizens produce per capita $116 per year.

(c) Of the 55 members attending the Federal Convention that made the Constitution of the United States in 1787 > thirty had attended college and twenty-six had college degrees. Of the forty state officers in Iowa in 1918, thirty were college graduates, seven were graduates of high schools and only three had less than a high school education.

(d) The child with no schooling has one chance in 150,000 of performing distinguished services; with elementary education he has four times the chance; with high school education he has eighty-seven times the chance; with college education he has eight hundred times the chance.

(e) Every boy and every girl should stick to his school work until he at least graduates from a fully accredited high school.

2. "Law can do nothing without morals." — Franklin. "Through the whole of life and the whole system of duties,

much the strongest moral obligations are such as were never the results of our option." — Edmund Burke.

"To do evil that good may come of it, is for the bungler in politics as well as in morals." — Franklin.

"Duty is not collective; it is personal." — Calvin Coolidge.

3. "Ignorance of the law excuses no man." — Selected. "Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness." — George Washington.

4. "The thorough education of all classes of people is the most efficacious means of promoting the prosperity of the Nation. The material interests of its citizens, as well as their moral and intellectual culture, depend upon its accomplishment." — Robert E. Lee.

"In a Republic education is indispensable. A Republic without education is like the creature of imagination, a human being without a soul, living and moving blindly, with no just sense of the present or the future." — Charles Sumner.

"Without popular education, no government which rests upon popular action can long endure. The people must be schooled in the knowledge, and if possible in the virtues, upon which the maintenance and success of free institutions depend." — Woodrow Wilson.

5. "Where the State has bestowed education, the man who accepts it must be content to accept it merely as charity, unless he returns it to the State in full in the shape of good citizenship." — Theodore Roosevelt.

6. "Government-Liberty-Authority-Law — the man or the woman who fails to appreciate the true meaning of these terms, lacks the training necessary to be a good citizen in a Republic." — Abraham Lincoln.

"We need more of the office desk and less of the show-window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the lime-light." — Calvin Coolidge.

1. Did you ever see a judge? Would you be afraid of a judge? Why?

2. What are the duties of a judge?

3. Why did the judge say "But I have often been glad since, that I obeyed my teacher, my parents, and the law, and continued my studies in school." Why do boys and girls go to school? Why is the public willing to pay large sums of money to pay teachers, buy books, build school buildings, and keep them open?

4. What law was it that the judge said he was glad that he had obeyed?

5. Why did the judge send hundreds to prison? Why was he compelled to sentence some to death?

6. What are the advantages of staying in school? What more do you know when you graduate from elementary school than those who quit earlier? Should one try to graduate from high school? Why?

7. The judge says that one of the chief purposes of school is to make good, law-abiding citizens. Think of some person you know who is a "good, law-abiding citizen"; think of some one who is not; name five ways in which they are different.

8. Have you read the Constitution of the United States? Should a good, law-abiding citizen know what is in the Constitution of the United States?

9. The judge says that we owe a duty to our country. List five duties that a school pupil owes to his father and mother, five that he owes to his teacher, and, if you can, list five duties that all of us owe to our country.

10. The judge says that the Constitution guards every right and privilege that we hold dear. Can you name any rights or privileges that you hold dear?

A. Why do we say that the United States is the "land of the free"? Why does the judge say that it is the most free and just country in the world?

B. How are judges selected? To whom are they responsible? What are their duties?

C. What are likely to be the results of poor schools?

D . Should a parent have a right to give a child a& poor an education or as little schooling as he may desire?

E. Why do some States require children to study physiology and hygiene? Is there as good an argument for a study of the Constitution?

F . Why does the judge say "No one knows anything of real worth about his country until he knows its Constitution?"

G.The judge says that good citizens know what authority is. Give an illustration of a child, a student, and a citizen who knows what authority is. Define authority. Give an illustration of a man who does not respect authority.

H. When is a country a "free country"? What is a "just country"? How can a judge justify himself in a free country when he sends some men to prison, thereby taking away their freedom?

I . How can an American protect his liberties? What steps must he take?

J. Prepare a paper on one of the following subjects: The Advantages of Staying in School One Law-abiding Citizen That I Know

What One Man I Know Knows About the Rights and Privileges of the American Citizen Under the Constitution Why Everyone Should Study the Constitution What a Law is, Where It Comes From, and Its Value

II The Purpose And Origin Of Government Among Men— In The United States

It is a little difficult even for grown people to understand clearly what is meant by "the government. ' ' They have so many absurd notions about what the government is, and where it is, that I do not wonder that children do not understand. If I could look into the mind of each child here this morning, I am sure I would find many that picture the capitol at Washington, the President or some other officer as being the government. Now the capitol and the President and the Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States and all other national officers are part of the government, but they are not the government. 1

The government of the United States is merely the agency by which and through which the people protect their own rights and liberties. Our government may be said to be the organized will of all the people. The people govern in this country, and the men and the means by which they govern all combined may be said to be the government. But do not ever forget this fact : the President is not a master, but a servant. The President, senators, congressmen and judges, in the nation; the governors, senators and members of the legislature in the states are only agents or servants of the people to carry out the people's will. Also do not forget that the power of government does not rest in Washington, the capital of the nation, nor at the capitals of the different states. The power of government exists all over these United States. The power of government exists right in the homes and hearts of the people. 2

The President has no power except that conferred upon him by the Constitution and the laws which the people have adopted. Neither have the senators, the congressmen nor the judges any power except that given by the people, and the people at any time can take away any part of the power given. When I say the people, I mean of course all the people. Not that all the people must agree to any law to have it enacted. The majority of the people make the laws as a rule. We shall take this up later and consider it fully. Government is power to exercise authority. Authority is in the people, and the authority of the people is expressed as they want it in laws which they make.

But what is government for? Why have any government?

Government is organized to protect human rights. 3 Perhaps if you were a giant possessed of wonderful wisdom you would not need any law to protect your rights because you would be big enough, powerful enough and wise enough to resist any person who might undertake to interfere with your rights ; but we are not all giants and we are not all wise. In fact there are very few giants in the world. It is true, however, that some are bigger and stronger than others; and sometimes these big, strong people are selfish, wicked or envious. They see that a weaker person has something which they want, and being big and strong, if there were no law to restrain them, they would take it.

Now if you have a bicycle and some full-grown, strong, brutal man were to come into your yard, take your bicycle and start away with it, what would you do ? You might protest. You might beg him not to take your property, but this would probably do no good. A thief does not stop when he is asked to by the owner of the property he is stealing, nor is a thief influenced by the fact that his act is wrong. In fact doing wrong is the business of a thief.

So there being many strong people in the world and many weak people ; there being many wise people in the world and many simple people ; there being the full grown and the children, and there being many, many people who are not guided by rules of right or morality or justice; you can see how necessary it is that someone shall provide rules and regulations under which the weak, the simple, and the young may be protected from the strong, the brutal, the wicked who would deprive their neighbors of their rights or their property, simply because they had the power to do it. This is what the government does.

There have been times in the world, hundreds and thousands of years, during which the strong governed the weak, made the weak their slaves, took from the weak the earnings of their toil; but our government exists for the very purpose of restraining the strong and protecting the weak, equalizing all so that their rights are equal. Every man is free and no man is a slave.

Therefore always keep in mind that the purpose of government is to protect the people of all classes and ages so that, so far as possible, all may be equal in their right to do the things they want to do, own the things they want to own so far as they are able to produce or procure them, think the things they want to think and speak the things they want to speak. In other words, government is to protect our freedom against the wrongs of others.

Now we must not have the notion in our mind that the government has anything to do with who shall work, or who shall play or who shall idle. Occupations in life are not selected by the government. Each person determines this for himself. That is one of the privileges which we have in a free country, to select our own occupations ; and as you go through life you will find that what appear to be the higher or better occupations are usually earned by industry, faithfulness and honesty. 4

I am going to talk to you some day about occupations in life so that you will understand that our place in life is selected by ourselves, determined by our efforts and our conduct. I want you to start out in life with such a knowledge of these things that you will never blame your country if you do not like your job.

But how did our government come into existence? What iv as the beginning? Well, it is all very simple if we only get right down to elementary principles, if we only " begin at the beginning." Perhaps your father is a Woodman, or an Odd Fellow, or a Knight of Columbus. Perhaps he is a member of the American Federation of Labor. Perhaps your mother belongs to the Eastern Star, or the P. E. O. Society. Perhaps you belong to some school fraternity, debating society, or neighborhood club, the Boy Scouts, or the Camp Fire Girls.