Senator HATCH. We appreciate everyone's participation today. We think these have been excellent hearings. Hopefully, we can push through a bill on the bicentennial and get it out, either before the end of this year or sometime next year. We will, of course, have to see what the House is inclined to do.

We will recess this committee until further notice.

[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]

I am writing to express my support for S. 477, a bill to establish a commission for the commemoration of the Bicentennial of the Federal Constitution.

The Institute of Early American History and Culture is the only organization of national scope devoted exclusively to the encouragement of scholarly study of early American history from the beginning of the English colonization of America through the era of the Founding Fathers. Consequently I think we are in an especially favorable position to know what individuals and other scholarly organizations intend to do to recognize what well may be the most signal event in our entire national history. Our preliminary inquiries have suggested that so far not a great deal has been undertaken, and I suspect something of the same thing is also true at the level of a more popular observance of the bicentennial of the Constitution.

Certainly we and other comparable groups will attempt to do something worthwhile and appropriate. I think that there are others, including many agencies of local and state government and private organizations with the ability to reach a wide public, who need to be encouraged to join in the commemoration far more extensively than they have so far planned to do. An effective observance badly needs the coordination that a small, effective commission at the national level could provide. It strikes me, for one thing, that there are simply fewer local events connected with the formation of the Constitution, at least until the state-by-state debate over ratification began after 1787, than was true of the American Revolution. As a consequence, various state and local agencies, both public and private, will need greater stimulus to plan and carry out an effective observance than was true in 1976, when the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission nonetheless played a critical part. This present effort need not, and probably ought not, involve large federal expenditures. It is a matter, as the enabling legislation itself says, of providing coordination and encouragement, of giving a proper sense of direction to the observance.

Other nations have, of course, staged successful revolutions and wars of national independence, even if we may be pardoned for being particularly proud of our own, but no other nation has ever achieved the difficult task of political reconstruction after the inevitable dislocation of revolution and war in such a remarkable and immediately constructive manner, or against any greater obstacles, than did the struggling American nation of 1787. Twentieth-century Americans can profit immensely from a better understanding of events connected with the formation of the Constitution and the influence that their successful outcome still exerts on us. The proposed commission could play an unusually significant role in achieving a bicentennial observance that would further such an end.

Not a great deal of time remains to plan such a commemoration adequately. I very much hope the subcommittee will report S. 447 out favorably after the hearings it has scheduled this month.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT E. REDDING, DIRECTOR

JUVENILE JUSTICE AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION PROGRAM

PHI ALPHA DELTA LAW FRATERNITY, INTERNATIONAL

Mr. Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee, I am Robert E. Redding and wish to present this statement on behalf of the Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity, International regarding the approaching bicentennial of the United States Constitution and the preliminary planning necessary for the appropriate commemoration of this auspicious anniversary. I am a past International Justice of the Fraternity and also serve as the current Director of the Fraternity's National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Program.

The purpose of this statement is to indicate the support of Phi Alpha Delta for the establishment of a Commission for the Commemoration of the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution. It is also our wish to become active participants in the planning and commemoration processes.

On July 11, 1981, the International Executive Board of the Fraternity unanimously approved a resolution to this effect, a copy of which is added to this statement.

I.

Phi Alpha Delta is an international professional law fraternity whose purpose is to serve the law student, the law school and the legal profession of the nation. It has carried out this program for almost 80 years as a non-profit organization.

The Fraternity has become the second largest organization in the legal profession, second only to the American Bar Association. With a membership exceeding 100,000 lawyers, judges, government leaders, law school faculty, and law students, more than 3,000 persons become members each year without restriction due to sex, age, color, creed, religion or national origin. The Fraternity has more than 160 law school chapters, chartered at American Bar Association accredited law schools throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada and Mexico. Alumni chapters have been chartered in 77 North American cities, metropolitan areas and Puerto Rico. We are committed to equal justice under law, to the maintenance of an effective legal sys