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Newspaper Article by David Lawrence, Repeal of Two-Year Ban Would Bring About Party Dictatorship
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174679830
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Newspaper Article by David Lawrence, Repeal of Two-Year Ban Would Bring About Party Dictatorship
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Records of the National Committee Against Limiting the Presidency
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DAVID LAW RENCE
Repeal of Two-Year Ban Would
Bring About Party Dictatorship
The "dictatorship amend-
tenure but only when it is
to keep a good president but
as desired and would re-
ment"- the proposal to
also provided that the peo-
to turn one out of office at
quire an election only at a
to remove all limits from
ple may at any time remove
any time if he isn't satisfac-
fixed date every four years.
the tenure of a president is
a president or the Congress
tory.
-would permit political dic-
now being called - hasn't
which would elect him. This
The current proposal -
tatorship. This is one reason
much chance as yet to be
is what is known as the par-
which would give a presi-
why the conservatives in
passed by Congress. But it il-
liamentary system, which
dent the right to succeed
both parties in Congress will
1 u S trates a
affords the people a chance
himself for as many terms
fight it.
S g n i ficant
and danger-
ous tendency
- the desire
of a political
group to per-
petuate itself
in office
through t h e
use of gov-
Lawrence
ernmental
machinery.
On the surface, the pro-
posed amendment - which
would repeal the present
constitutional provision lim-
iting a president to two
terms - appears to remove
a discrimination because, as
President Eisenhower said
in an offhand remark at a
press conference, any citi-
zen should be eligible at any
time to the presidency.
But the reasons for the
present limitation had little
to do with the right of some
individual citizen to be a
candidate. Rather, the pur-
pose was to prevent any po-
litical group or clique from
getting a permanent or at
least indefinite hold on the
White House and the execu-
tive branch of the govern-
ment.
THUS, THE PATRONAGE
and favors which an incum-
bent administration can be-
stow are so far-reaching in
an electorate, where tens of
billions of dollars a year are
being spent by the federal
government, that it would
be easier now than ever be-
fore to get a stranglehold on
local political organizations
and to align pressure groups
behind a continuing admin-
istration.
It seems odd, of course,
to read that a Democratic
Party congressman W h o
sponsors the amendment is
terribly sorry that Mr. Ei-
senhower is what is called a
"lame duck" President. The
lament is that Mr. Eisen-
hower cannot wield White
House power effectively be-
cause he is not permitted to
be a candidate to succeed
himself.
Just why any Democrat
(
should be worried over the
fact that Mr. Eisenhower is
1
supposedly losing influence
in his second term isn't too
clear. For logically the pres-
ent constitutional amend-
ment should be working in
favor of the Democratic
Party, since Mr. Eisenhower,
it is claimed, can't be po-
litically as strong as he
might have been without the
third-term prohibition.
Theoretically, t h e refore,
the present provision is ac-
tually helping to elect a
Democrat president in 1960.
DIGGING A BIT deeper
into the mystery, it would
seem that the Democratic
Party, which has become
the majority party, has
much to gain by lifting the
ban on presidential tenure
and giving the Chief Execu-
tive an indefinite lease on
the White House, subject
only to one election every
four years.
This correspondent has al-
ways been opposed to any
limitation of presidential