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To some extent, the faults of the system can be blamed on the men charged with operating it. And perhaps their biggest failure lately has been the inability to formulate a coherent set of national priorities. The result: enactment of muddled programs because there are no clear objectives. Democratic Congressman Richard Boiling of Missouri, who hopes to establish later this year a bipartisan blue-ribbon committee on reorganization of the Government, believes that a new national consensus has been needed ever since the basic objectives and priorities began to blur about 15 years ago. That was the time, at the height of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society flourishes, when the polls began showing that increase in public alienation. "Lyndon Johnson forgot to ask for a tax increase to pay for the Viet Nam War," Boiling says wryly, "and that was the breaking point. In the absence of a broad overall concept, people retreated to their own interests. Society became fractionalized, and the interest groups exacerbated that. No President and no Congress can reorganize the Government now without a great deal of support from concerned citizens. Big Business and Big Labor also have to come together."
But even though some of the nation's problems derive from the questionable competence of its elected leaders, and even though some derive from the general uncertainty about where the U.S. should be heading, the fundamental question remains: If a first-class leader managed to reach the White House, and if he had a clear and persuasive view of the course he wanted to set, could he provide an effective Government? Or would "the system" doom him, as it doomed more than one of his predecessors, to a single term ending in bitterness and frustration?
CONSTITUTIONAL CURES
The creators of the Constitution never claimed that the document they drafted in Philadelphia in 1787 was immune to change. Not only did Article V authorize amendments by Congress and the states, but it also promised that whenever two-thirds of the state legislatures wanted to summon a new convention, they could rewrite the whole Constitution. Thomas Jefferson thought some such revision was needed once in every generation. "Alterations may at any time be effected ..." added Alexander Hamilton in the 85th and last of the commentaries and cajolings that make up The Federalist. "The will of the requisite number would at once bring the matter to a decisive issue."
Alterations have indeed been effected, from the Bill of Rights (adopted in 1791) to the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery (1865) to the 26th and most recent Amendment (1971) lowering the voting age to 18.* The possibility of a new convention, however, has never been fulfilled. There have been attempts made—scores of them. In the early years of this century, 26 states petitioned for a constitutional convention to outlaw polygamy. In the past few years, 30 of the necessary 34 states have petitioned for a convention to require balanced budgets.