THE THIRD TERM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11679, 14 June 1901, Page 4

THE THIRD TERM.

' President McKinley has felt it necessary to announce that he will not become a candidate for a third term. By one of the customs which grow up even amid their hardwritten constitutions, and exhibit the ineradicable national tendencies i which produced our own unwritten i British Constitution, our American friends limit each President to two terms. Since it is popularly supposed that deviation from Republican methods would first be shown in the person of a life-long President and the consequent establishment of family influences wnich might confirm the succession in a dynasty, the American people regard a third term ! with very general disfavour. Wash- ; ington and his great successors set j them the example, and the attempt : to secure a third-term candidature for General Grant only increased the popular feeling. That part of the | English-speaking race which is not i afraid of monarchy but sees it to be ; the most advantageous form of government will wonder at the exclu- | sion of one of the ablest and cer- ! tainly the most popular of American statesmen from the service of his ! country for no better reason than j that he has filled its Presidential j chair as long as "Washington did.