It will be sufficient, in case our practical proposals seek to accomplish some small measure both of political and economic reconstruction, and in case they occupy some sort of a family relation to plans of the same kind with which American public opinion is already more or less familiar.
In considering this matter of institutional reform, I shall be guided chiefly by the extent to which certain specific reforms have already become living questions.

From this point of view it would be a sheer waste of time just at present to discuss seriously any radical modification, say, of the Federal Constitution.

Certain transformations of the Constitution either by insidious effect of practice, by deliberate judicial construction, or by amendment are, of course, an inevitable aspect of the contemporary American political problem; but all such possible and proposed changes must be confined to specific details.

They should not raise any question as to the fundamental desirability of a system of checks and balances or of the other principles upon which the Federal political organization is based.

Much, consequently, as a political theorist may be interested in some ideal plan of American national organization, it will be of little benefit under existing conditions to enter into such a discussion.