Study the powers granted to the head of the U.S. executive branch and how to avoid falling into a dictatorship
Study the powers granted to the head of the U.S. executive branch and how to avoid falling into a dictatorship
After losing the 1968 race, Hubert Humphrey shared his thoughts on whether American presidents have too much power.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Transcript
[Sound of demonstrators]
NARRATOR: Many today question whether the President of the United States has not been granted too much power.
FIRST STUDENT: The Commander in Chief clause gives the President so much power that the limits of the Constitution have been swallowed up by it.
SECOND STUDENT: For the past few decades the President has been able to sell anything he wants to the American people by saying he doesn't have time to consult Congress.
THIRD STUDENT: I used to believe that a President could go only so far. I don't believe that anymore.
FIRST STUDENT: Where does the President get all this uncontrolled power that seems to be able to take us into wars without our having any vote or say in the matter and may even lead us into some sort of nuclear catastrophe?
HUMPHREY: Well, I--I think there's more to it, really, than that. . .
[Music in]
NARRATOR: Hubert Humphrey has probably come closer to the presidency than any other human being except the Presidents themselves. His public career encompasses service of mayor of a large city, then in the United States Senate, then as Vice-President. After his defeat for the nation's highest office in 1968, he returned to the classroom from which he had emerged in 1945--this time to learn, as much as to teach.
[Music out]
HUMPHREY: Their concern is real . . .
because they have studied history, and history has demonstrated that power in the hands of men who abuse it [music in], and use it excessively, leads to dictatorship and totalitarianism. On March 4, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich in Germany, and Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States. Hitler was the inheritor of a philosophy of authoritarianism, Prussian militarism. Franklin Roosevelt was the inheritor of the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, of the whole heritage of American freedom. And, while both [music out] countries were ravaged with depression and political collapse, one--Germany--turned to dictatorship to find its way out. We turned to an expanded democracy, both political and economic, to find our way out. And I think the answer is in the heritage of the nation, in the traditions of the nation.
NARRATOR: Many today question whether the President of the United States has not been granted too much power.
FIRST STUDENT: The Commander in Chief clause gives the President so much power that the limits of the Constitution have been swallowed up by it.
SECOND STUDENT: For the past few decades the President has been able to sell anything he wants to the American people by saying he doesn't have time to consult Congress.
THIRD STUDENT: I used to believe that a President could go only so far. I don't believe that anymore.
FIRST STUDENT: Where does the President get all this uncontrolled power that seems to be able to take us into wars without our having any vote or say in the matter and may even lead us into some sort of nuclear catastrophe?
HUMPHREY: Well, I--I think there's more to it, really, than that. . .
[Music in]
NARRATOR: Hubert Humphrey has probably come closer to the presidency than any other human being except the Presidents themselves. His public career encompasses service of mayor of a large city, then in the United States Senate, then as Vice-President. After his defeat for the nation's highest office in 1968, he returned to the classroom from which he had emerged in 1945--this time to learn, as much as to teach.
[Music out]
HUMPHREY: Their concern is real . . .
because they have studied history, and history has demonstrated that power in the hands of men who abuse it [music in], and use it excessively, leads to dictatorship and totalitarianism. On March 4, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich in Germany, and Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States. Hitler was the inheritor of a philosophy of authoritarianism, Prussian militarism. Franklin Roosevelt was the inheritor of the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, of the whole heritage of American freedom. And, while both [music out] countries were ravaged with depression and political collapse, one--Germany--turned to dictatorship to find its way out. We turned to an expanded democracy, both political and economic, to find our way out. And I think the answer is in the heritage of the nation, in the traditions of the nation.