and "nothing spoken in the house be printed or otherwise
published or communicated without leave." The yeas and nays should not
be recorded. The rule of secrecy was enlarged by an unwritten
understanding that, even when the convention had adjourned, no
disclosure should be made of its proceedings during the life of its
members. When after nearly four months, the convention adjourned, the
secret had been kept, and no one knew even the concrete result of its
deliberations until the Constitution itself, and nothing else, was
offered to the approval of the people. The high-way, upon which the
State House fronted, was covered with earth, to deaden the noise of
traffic, and sentries were posted at every means of ingress and egress,
to prevent any intrusion upon the privacy of the convention. The members
were not photographed daily for the pictorial Press, nor did any cinema
register their entrance into the simple colonial hall where they were to
meet. Notwithstanding this limitation--for no present-day conference or
assembly can proceed with its labours until its members are photographed
for the curiosity of the public--these simple-minded gentlemen--less
intent upon their appearance than their task--were to accomplish a work
of enduring importance.

The extreme care which was taken to preserve this secrecy inviolate, and
its purpose, were indicated in an incident handed down by tradition.

One of the members dropped a copy of a proposition then before the
convention for consideration, and it was found by another of the
delegates and handed to General Washington. At the conclusion of the
session, Washington arose and sternly reprimanded the member for his
carelessness by saying:

"I must entreat gentlemen to be more careful, lest our transactions
get into the newspapers and disturb the public repose by premature
speculations. I know not whose paper it is, but there it is
[_throwing it down on the table_]. Let him who owns it, take it."

He then bowed, picked up his hat and left the room with such evidences
of annoyance that, like school-children, no delegate was willing to
admit the ownership of the paper.

The thought suggests itself: How different the result at Versailles and
Genoa might have been had there been the same reasonable provisions for
discussion and action uninfluenced by too premature public comment of
the day! In these days, when representative government has degenerated
into government b