DEMOCRACY AND THE THIRD TERM

A brief and very pertinent analysis of the third term issue and the angles involved, by a man who succeeds in maintaining an objective viewpoint and presenting the arguments for both sides. Should a president achieve a third term in the face of the doubt as to long --run government morality? of immediate political expediency? of his own future? the nation's future? And what of the threat of dictatorship, of political patronage? Then again, if he happens to be the best man in the job and for the job, the pros and cons of switching horses in mid-stream. He presents the historical background and precedents. The ""Founding Fathers"" were all in favor of a third term; sheer exhaustion only stood in their way. Two great Democrats alone among them said No -- Jefferson and Jackson. Grant, Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt and Coolidge all might have been Third Term office holders, if the country had wished it. He pokes holes in the dictatorship argument and in the patronage argument. And he poses the question of domestic and foreign affairs as the real issue, and not the Third Term bogy when it comes to F.D.R. Here is the text book for controversy on the subject.