The Archbishop and the Constitution.
An intimation that the Constitution of the United States might properly be amended so as to be less liberal in its provisions touching the liberties of the people, was made by Archbishop Ireland before the Merchants’ Club of Chicago, February 14. The topic before the club was the “Limitations of Liberty,” and the archbishop was the principal speaker. He condemned the doctrines of Tolstoi, the noted Russian opponent of the Greek Church and militarism, as being very dangerous to good government. “The drumming of wild socialism into the ears of the people that wealth is unfairly distributed,” said the archbishop, “and that the weak are oppressed by the strong,—these are some of the things that create anarchists.” And then he added: “We need laws, and if the government has not the power to enact them, the Constitution should be amended.” The significance of this statement lies in the fact that the national Constitution was framed with the express view of safeguarding the liberties and rights of the people. It was framed by men who well understood the evils of monarchical government, and of that European system into which had been woven so many of the principles and methods of the papacy. It was framed by men before whose eyes anarchy—the result of long curtailment of the people’s rights—was then rampant in France and other countries of the Old World. Rome now hopes, and apparently not without reason, that the Constitution may be so amended that it will read more like a papal document.