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Newspaper Article, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Two-Term Amendment
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174679838
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Newspaper Article, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Two-Term Amendment
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Records of the National Committee Against Limiting the Presidency
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The Two-Term Amendment
STNGE
THE Twenty-second Amendment
born at the start of the Repub-
lican Eightieth Congress and was nursed
along by so many GOP state legislatures,
it can quite properly be regarded as the
Republicans' belated answer to Franklin
Delano Roosevelt.
This week Nevada became the thirty-
sixth state to ratify the amendment, thus
making it the law of the land. Hereafter,
no President can serve more than two
elected terms. And save for Mr. Truman,
who isn't covered by the amendment, no
man can hold highest office for more than
nine years, 11 months, and 364 days. That,
to Republicans, must seem like an
eternity, what with their exile from the
White House now rounding out its
eighteenth year.
On the whole, the amendment should
benefit the two-party system in this coun-
try. Not that we place much stock in the
calculated wail that a third term is a cer-
tain step to dictatorship. It's true that
with the two-term limit broken twice by
Mr. Roosevelt the way was open for a man
who captured the public imagination a la
F. D. R. to stay in office the rest of his
life. But the danger in that would not
necessarily rise so much from the man
himself, who after all would be elected by
the people, as from the fact that his
party could wax too fat in office.
It is not good for one party to build
up for a vested interest in government-
for contented parties, like contented men,
grow stale and uninspired. And while the
amendment does not mean one party
can't still enjoy Executive control indefi-
nitely, said party at least every 10 years
would now have to stand more on a pro-
gram than a personality.
One immediate effect of the Twenty-
second Amendment is to raise specula-
tion about Mr. Truman's future. Although
he is exempted from its provisions, some
Republicans are quick to claim that three-
quarters of the states have served moral
notice on him not to run again. The law
says that a man who has held the presi-
dency for more than two years of a term
to which another was elected, as is the
case with Mr. Truman, can only have one
term on his own, as Mr. Truman is now
having.
So far, the President's only comment
on the amendment is a blunt "It doesn't
affect me." However, there are a lot of
Democrats, particularly from the South,
who would incline to the GOP's broad
view of the amendment's significance if
Harry should want to carry his party's
standard again in 1952.