European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 22, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes James j. Kilpatrick forgotten amendment picking up momentum James Madison is in his grave but a constitutional amendment he sponsored in 1789 goes marching on. The event went almost wholly unreported in the news but on feb. 7, Iowa became the 26th state to ratify the put off the pay raise amendment. This is beginning to get exciting. To recapitulate a Story that most of the country knows nothing about Congress in september 1789 approved 12 pro posed amendments to the Constitution. By 1791, 10 of them had been ratified by the states we know them As the Bill of rights. Two of the proposals failed of ratification at that time. One dealt with apportionment of the House of representatives and is of no current interest. This was the forgotten 12th no Law varying the compensation for the serv ices of the senators and representatives shall take effect until an election of representatives shall have  it is marvellously simple is it not thirty states have similar provisions affecting their own state Legislatures. If the amendment had been part of the Constitution a few weeks ago members of con Gress might have voted a substantial raise in their compensation but they could not have received it until after the congressional elections of 1990. All but one constitutional Amend ment since the 18th amendment of 1919 has carried a kind of statute of limitation the amendment would be inoperative unless it were ratified within seven years of submission to the states. Mad Ison s proposed amendment of 1789 car ried no such limitation. It is a Nice constitutional question if the 200-year-old proposal is still validly before the states. In what is known As the Dillon Case of 1921, the supreme court approved the Power of Congress to fix a seven year period for ratification. In the process the court threw cold water on the idea that resolutions of amendment could stay alive forever. That View said Justice Van Devanter for a unanimous Anthony Lewis a Jill so much Roc the old scam court is quite  these com ments were dicta not relevant to the question before the court which had to do with the 18th amendment. The matter came up again in 1939 in the Case of Coleman is. Miller. The Case involved an open ended amendment to prohibit child labor submitted to the states by Congress in 1924. Was it still subject to ratification in 1937? this time the court backed away from the digressive pronouncements in Dillon. The viability of a constitutional amendment. Al 1 pc w to svs v. A a 4tj v t11avsvv Ull said Hughes for the majority is a Pohtio intervening election and thank you or. Cal question not a judicial question. Madison. Thus the constitutional very much alive. My thought is that the amendment itself is also alive. Six states Maryland North Carolina South Caro Lina Delaware Vermont and Virginia ratified Between december 1789 and de Cember 1791. Ohio suddenly came to life and ratified in 1873. Wyoming came along in 1978. Then the forgotten amendment picked up steam. Maine ratified in 1983, Colo Rado in 1984. Five states joined the Parade in 1985 South Dakota new Hamp Shire Arizona Tennessee and Oklahoma. The following year saw three More new Mexico Utah and Indiana. The movement toward ratification now is rolling steadily along. Arkansas Montana Connecticut and Wisconsin Rati fied in 1987 Georgia West Virginia and Louisiana gave their consent in 1988. And on feb. 7 Iowa shouted its approval by 44 0 in the state Senate 86-2 in the House of representatives. Thirty eight states must ratify an amendment in order for it to become part of the Constitution. Iowa is no. 26.idaho is virtually certain to make the count 27 the proposition was approve Din a state referendum last november. If the magic number of 38 is attained it will be up to someone or some body to declare the amendment officially promulgated. That could be the archivist of the United states on advice of the attorney general. Congress itself apparently has no More say so in the matter. My own thought is to whoop it up for the necessary 38. Madison in 1789 de fended the measure there is a seeming impropriety in leaving any set of men without control to put their hand into the Public coffers to take out Money to put in their pockets. There is a seeming i decorum in such Power which leads me to propose a  a seeming impropriety a seeming i decorum in the past month the Ameri can people have spoken in unmistakable language to the Point. No raise without an question is Universal press Syndicate s. Africa must Hove political system open to All it was a Milestone in the bitter history of South Africa. A hunger strike by hundreds of prisoners held without trial moved the government. After Days of talks with lawyers and Church leaders the minister of Law and order Adriaan Vlok indicated last week that he would soon free most of about 1,000 people detained under emergency regulations some for More than two years. When the prisoners ended their strike a spokesman for Vlok said this is a Victory for  the government of South Africa in past years had not negotiated about its detention of political prison ers. It did not worry about the effect of their dying in prison. Now it must. The Structure of White Power is still there the state the army the police the bureaucracy. But As this dra Matic episode shows it is no longer in total control. It has to take account of realities. And one of those is a profound change in the mental Outlook the psychology of the Black majority. More and More Blacks Are unwilling to accept subjection and exploitation As their Fate. These rumblings from below in the apartheid Struc Ture were the implicit theme of a remarkable Confer ence recently at Duke University in Durham . It was called to discuss a new Book uprooting poverty the South african  it is the report of a decade Long study sponsored by the Carnegie corp. Of new York. The Book by professor Francis Wilson and or. Mam Phela ramp Hele of the University of Cape town is not a dry academic study. It describes in gripping human terms As Wilson put it the scandalous particularity of what it Means to be poor in South  in a country that exports food 2 million children Are growing up hungry and stunted Black children. Black infant mortality is five times higher than that of Whites higher than in some much poorer african countries. South Africa generates 60 percent of the electricity produced on the african continent but two thirds of its Black households have no Access to electricity. Poverty in South Africa is not an Accident ram Pele said. It is the result of deliberate policies going Back Long before the National party took Over in 1948 with the formal ideology of apartheid. The africans of South Africa were conquered and treated As a conquered people. Their land was taken 86 percent of it is still declared White Al though 75 percent of the population is Black. They were forcibly moved by the millions from their Homes to Barren homelands and Are still being moved. Men were made to work As migrant labourers apart from their families. Blacks were excluded fro the political system. History and present realities teach the report concludes that poverty in South Africa is a matter of Power. Blacks Are poor because they Are weak be cause they have no vote. The report does not discuss the larger issues of Polit ical change but it works on the realistic premise that fundamental change is not going to come quickly. If poverty is a function of powerlessness and the White rulers Are not about to open the political system How then can the desperate extremes of poverty be attacked Here the report connects with the rumblings from below in the apartheid Structure. Its argument is that the weak can begin to empower themselves in groups and in their own minds even As the state says no to political change. Trade unions Are an important example their voice matters now in South Africa. In Remote Rural areas there Are self help projects that have raised the level of Pride and courage. That May sound theoretical but there was a South african villager at the Duke conference who was impressively practical and eloquent. And there Are the Black alternative political organizations the United democratic front and Community groups. They have been banned their leaders detained. But they have not been destroyed. When the Black Community came reluctantly last week to distance itself from Winnie Mandela it was the uhf and other anti apartheid organizations that spoke out. Only they had the legitimacy to do so. South Africa can really work As a society Only when its state institutions have legitimacy when its political system is open to All. No one should be deluded into thinking that palliative can bring stability or economic Takeoff. But something is happening and can happen while the state says no. That has deeper reverberations. For South Africa confronts in the most intense form prob lems of race and class and Power that Burden Many societies including ours. New York times the opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on this Page represent those of the authors and Are in no Way to be considered As representing the views of the stars and stripes or the United states government