Yet nearly every attempt to meet those demands for social and economic betterment has been jeopardized or actually forbidden by those who have sought to read into the Constitution language which the framers refused to write into the Constitution.

No one cherishes more deeply than I the civil and religious liberties achieved by so much blood and anguish through the many centuries of Anglo-American history. But the Constitution guarantees liberty, not license masquerading as liberty.

Let me put the real situation in the simplest terms. The present government of the United States has never taken away and never will take away any liberty from any minority, unless it be a minority which so abuses its liberty as to do positive and definite harm to its neighbors constituting the majority. But the government of the United States refuses to forget that the Bill of Rights was put into the Constitution not only to protect minorities against intolerance of majorities, but to protect majorities against the enthronement of minorities.

Nothing would so surely destroy the substance of what the Bill of Rights protects than its perversion to prevent social progress. The surest protection of the individual and of minorities is that fundamental tolerance and feeling for fair play which the Bill of Rights assumes. But tolerance and fair play would disappear here as it has in some other lands if the great mass of people were denied confidence in their justice, their security, and their self-respect. Desperate people in other lands surrendered their liberties when freedom came merely to mean humiliation and starvation. The crisis of 1933 should make us understand that.

On this solemn anniversary I ask that the American people rejoice in the wisdom of their Constitution.

I ask that they guarantee the effectiveness of each of its parts by living by the Constitution as a whole.

I ask that they have faith in its ultimate capacity to work out the problems of democracy, but that they justify that faith by making it work now rather than twenty years from now.

I ask that they give their fealty to the Constitution itself and not to its misinterpreters.

I ask that they exalt the glorious simplicity of its purposes rather than a century of complicated legalism.

I ask that majorities and minorities subordinate intolerance and

power alike to the common good of all.

For us the Constitution is a common bond, without bitterness, for those who see America as Lincoln saw it "the last, best hope of earth."

So we revere it--not because it is old but because it is ever newnot in the worship of its past alone but in the faith of the living who keep it young, now and in the years to come.

ADDRESS OF HONORABLE WILLIAM E. BORAH

UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM IDAHO, ON CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT, CONSTITUTION HALL, WASHINGTON, D. C., SEPTEMBER 16, 1937, UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE GRAND LODGE, F. A. A. M., OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION SESQUICENTENNIAL COMMISSION

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It sometimes seems to make but little difference to those so fortunate as to possess influence or to enjoy power, economical or political, what kind of a government you have. It may be a matter of some importance to them, but it is not vital. They fare reasonably well under any kind of government. The industrial leaders in two of the most despotic governments of Europe are said to be entirely content with their security and satisfied with their profits.

But no kind of government has yet been devised and both reason and experience teach none can be devised-which offers opportunity and insures liberty to the average man or woman, which preserves and protects the rights and privileges of those whom Lincoln called the common people, except a government of law with independent tribunals of justice. There is no such thing as security for the masses or protection for minority groups, political, racial, or religious, never has been-and in the nature of things never can be under any form of government, save government where the people through their representatives make the laws and uncontrolled courts construe them.

This is the kind of government for which the Declaration of Independence declared and for which American patriots waged a seven years war. This is the kind of government which on September 17, 1787, was submitted to the people for approval.

The story of the writing of the Constitution, its submission and its adoption, and finally, the launching of a free nation, needs to be reread and retold again and again. The boldness of that enterprise, the over-mastering spirit with which it was carried forward, the unselfish devotion of the leaders to the cause of human liberty, and above all, the comforts and the blessings which this plan of government has brought to the average man or woman, lifts the story into the realm of sacred history. Perhaps you would expect me to retell that story tonight, but I have other things which it seems I ought to

SIGNING OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

Painting by Howard Chandler Christy

This painting, originally suggested to Mr. Christy by the Honorable Sol Bloom, Director General of the Commission, was authorized by a joint resolution of Congress on April 20, 1939, and was unveiled in the Rotunda of the Capitol on May 29, 1940. It will be hung in the Capitol. It is of great size (20' x 30'), and depicts the moment when the delegates of North Carolina were signing and those of South Carolina were to follow. It is an inspirational rendition of the dramatic scene, exact as to portraiture and surroundings.

discuss.

Before doing so, however, let me pause for one observation which seems relevant in connection with the adoption of the Constitution and relevant to the happenings and duties of our own immediate time.

It is often said in recent years that the Constitution of the United States is not a sacred document. This is one of the assumptions constantly advanced by those who would change the Constitution as you would change a statute, bend it or twist it to every political breeze, or tear it up altogether. Of course, the Constitution, as it exists at any particular time, is not sacred as against the right and power of the people to amend it in the manner provided in the Constitution. The people may make over our government in any manner which seems to the people proper and wise. The means and the method are always at hand to adjust the powers of government to the tasks of government, not the powers which individuals or groups may insist the government should have, but the powers which all the people may determine the government shall have. And therein lies the whole difference between democracy and autocracy.

But until the people speak, until the people make known their desire, the Constitution is sacredly binding upon the people, upon officials, upon the Congress, the Executive, and the courts. In the language of the father of our country: "The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government-But the Constitution which at any time exists, 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all."

Certainly, it must be so regarded by all who take a solemn oath to maintain and support it. It is sacred against the right or power of Congress or the Executive or the courts, or of all combined, to change or modify it through unwarranted, forced or strained constructions. Such changes are usurpations-none the less vicious because not openly avowed. If that were not true, constitutional government would be a mere trap with which to ensnare the peoples' support to accomplish their own enslavement.

Will those who contend that the Constitution is not sacred go so far as to say that the right of the people to determine the form of government under which they live is not sacred, that liberty is not sacred, that to be free from arbitrary arrests and the torture chamber is not sacred, that the right to live your faith and worship your God unmolested is not sacred? If they will not go so far as to say these things are not sacred, then let us remember that upon the exclusive power of the people to make their Constitution and to keep it as they