of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 433

Yet in this period of great upheaval, our Country has carried on under
essentially the same political system that it had in 1787. The United States of
America is living "today, and girding its loins for what may come, under es-
sentially the same instrument that it adopted in the Constitutional Convention
of that year.

If we should look at a map of the world of that time we would find all
of South America under control of the Spanish and Portuguese nations, which
themselves were in the hands of the Spanish. Today all this land is independent
and self-governing under forms of constitutional systems. Then Canada. was
a British colony; today it governs itself under what is virtually a Constitution,
the British-North America Act of 1867.

Looking towards Europe the change is more striking. The only govern-
mental form which has survived the period is the British government, but even
here the similarity is more apparent than real. For who could compare the
personal monarchy of George III with the system in that country today?
During 150 years France has seen three monarchies, two empires, three re-
publics, a Directory, a Consulate, a number of successive constitutions and now
a system of apparent collaboration with and subservience to the German Reich.
Spain has gone through the metamorphosis of despotisms, republics, foreign
interventions, dynastic wars and constitutions, down to its present system of
apparent dictatorship.

In 1787 Italy was only a name and a collection of duchies and papal states.
So was Germany only a group of small principalities; in sixty-five years it has
been an empire, republic and Nazi state. Russia has shown the greatest change,
from complete autocracy to a communistic society.

The Ottoman Empire has crumbled. The control of India has passed
largely from the hands of its native princes to a British administration. China
then had the Manchu Empire. Japan had an absolute Emperor.

Only Switzerland has remained a republic during these 154 years, but
Switzerland's present constitution, it is significant to note, dates only from 1874.

In 1787 the ruling groups of Europe looked down their noses at our new
little government. They were utterly contemptuous of any system based "on
the consent of the governed; " yet throughout the years this system based "on
in the vital task to be the most durable. I am reminded of a French curate
who lived to be a very old man. His longevity spanned the French Revolution,
the Napoleonic era, the coming of King Philip and the Third Republic. One of
his associates once asked of him: "In all of your lifetime what would you say
has been your chief accomplishment?" The curate mused a moment and replied
"I have survived. "

Doubtless the greatest tribute that can be paid to our American Constitu-
tion, to its inherent soundness and to its tremendous adaptability to changing
conditions is that, like the curate, it has survived to this day. If we have
contributed anything, worth preserving at any cost it is this immortal docu-
ment, representing a permanent endowment to the science of government and
orderly living of men among men.

In this great work of building and safeguarding our constitutional form of