Shrewd and Earnest

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer will names be withheld.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

It has been my pleasure of late to have had need to read "The English Constitution" by Walter Bagehot. These famous essays, it may be noted, first appeared in 1867; and most of the contrasts which the author made were to things American. In the essay entitled "Its Supposed Checks and Balances" I find the following words: "The Americans now extol their institutions, and so defraud themselves of their due praise. But if they had not a genius for politics; if they had not a moderation in action singularly curious where superficial speech is so violent; if they had not a regard for law, such as no great people have yet evinced, and infinitely surpassing ours,--the multiplicity of authorities in the American Constitution would long ago have brought it to a bad end. Sensible shareholders, I have heard a shrewd attorney say, can work any deed of settlement; and so the men of Massachusetts could, I believe, work and Constitution."

Bagehot was a shrewd and earnest commentator, not given to irony.

Sic transit gloria! M. Fred Loewenstein '32.