Delightful and inspiring as it would doubtless be, we can’t quite trust the government to the counsels of the ouija-board. The seats of the cabinet or of the supreme bench will hardly be filled with table-rapping experts until more of us are satisfied of the authenticity of the communications that purport to be postmarked oblivion. We quote the great spirits of the past only when we need them to give weight and dignity to our own views. (Incidentally, a ouija-board opinion from John Marshall as to the propriety of tacking a police regulation like the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution would be first-page stuff for the newspapers.) Monroe was luckier than most of our patriarchs. The doctrine associated with his name is jealously treasured by many patriotic Americans who haven’t the slightest idea of the circumstances that called it forth; but to mention it in a discussion of international affairs is to stamp the speaker as a person of breeding, endowed with intellectual gifts of the highest order. If by some post-mortem referendum we could “call up” Monroe to explain just how far America might safely go in the defense of his doctrine, and whether it could be advantageously extended beyond the baths of all the western stars to keep pace with such an expansion as that represented by the Philippines, we might profit by his answer--and again, we might not. We can’t shirk our responsibilities. One generation can’t do the work of another. In the last analysis we’ve got to stand on our own feet and do our own thinking. The Constitution itself has to be interpreted over and over again, and even amended occasionally; for the world does, in spite of all efforts to stop it, continue to move right along. This is not a year in which either of the major parties can safely harp upon its “traditional policy.” There are skeletons in both closets that would run like frightened rabbits if dragged into the light and ordered to solve the riddles of 1920. The critics of President Wilson have dwelt much on the vision of the founders, without conceding that he too may be blessed with a seer’s vision and the tongue of prophecy. To his weaknesses as a leader I shall revert later; but his high-mindedness and earnest desire to serve the nation and the world are questioned only by the most buckramed hostile partisan, or by those who view the present only through the eyes of dead men. IV