Life — January 3, 1907 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“While there is Life there's Hope.” VOL. XLIX. 17 Wasr JANUARY 3, 1907. No. 126 Turery-Finst Street, New York. TATES’ RIGHTS is a sleeping dog that prudent states- men will not ck too hard. It is undoubt- edly necessary to nudge him from time to \ ) time, and make him e) change his position 4 enough to leave the way clear for such novel- ties as the development of the country render indis pensable to the nation’s well-being. But if the creature is too rudely or completely roused, he is liable to howl like mad and show his teeth—for he still has teeth—and make a painful and alarming rumpus. It is right that he should. He is by no means to be regarded as an ornery beast who has outlived his usefulness, He is a watch-dog, somewhat crabbed in his dis position and liable to show excess of zeal toward intruders who do not smell just right to him, but he is the guardian of interests of supreme importance to our form of government, and it will be an ominous day for this Republic when his. tecth are drawn and his bark silenced. President Roosevelt sometimes seems to forget that the old dog is alive at all. In his zeal to get things done he wal over him as though he were so much dead mutton, but so far the old dog has only growled at him. Itis Mr. Root that has made him howl. We guess he did it inad- vertently; that he stumbled in the speech that he made on December rz in New York, and was himself surprised at the force with which his toe found the dozing mastiff in the ribs. The injured animal got up and yelped with a dolorous energy that brought the neighbors to the win- dows. He has not bitten anybody yet, but he is alert and anxious, and likely, one may surmise, to stay broad awake for a couple of years to come. Mr. Root is not a man given to say: ing foolish things, and there was nothing at all foolish in what he said at the -LIFE: Pennsylvania dinner. What he said about things present seems to us to be true, and what he said of things to be is in the way of coming true unless the pres- ent current is stayed. He discussed the future of the States of the Union under our dual system of constitutional govern- ment. What with the rapid growth of national sentiment since the Civil War, the working of free trade between the States and the development of railroads, telegraphs and telephones, there has been, he said, a reorganization of the business and social life of the American people which, for the most part, ignores the boundaries of the States.” These changes in the life of the people have produced political changes, urtil the people now conclude that State laws which are adequate for State business are not adequate for business which extends throughout all the States, regulation and control of which is now passing into the hands of the National Government. “The end,” said Mr. Root, “is not yet.” We are urging forward in a development of business and social life which tends more and more to the obliteration of State lines and the decrease of State power as com- pared with national power; the relations of the business over which the Federal Govern- ment is assuming control, of interstate trans- pertation with State transportation, of inte state commerce with State commerce, are so intimate and the separation of the two is so impracticable that the tendency is plainly toward the practical control of the National Government over both. ‘That is all gospel truth. The facts are as he gives them, the tendency is as he says. would He went on to say that the people have the government control which they deemed just and necessary, and that the only way to preserve State authority was for the States to wake up, show a higher standard of responsibility to the general public and use their powers effectively in legislation conforming to the general moral sense of the country. T THAT the old dog, States’ Rights, got up and howled. There is abundant wisdom in all that Mr. Root said. Taking his.speech line by line and word by word, it is hard to challenge anything he said. It was the general weight and direction of his sug- gestions that made the disturbance. It is a bold man, who, speaking in public for himself and another bold man, ven tures to tell the States of the Union that they have already forfeited by non user a good part of the governmental powers left in them by the Constitution, and that un- less they look sharp, show a quickened sense of solidarity, and take action that is satisfactory to some one beside them- selves, they will lose what authority they have got left. No wonder the old dog howled. — BELIEVE Mr. Root’s speech will do good. There is ample ground for his reflections on the efficiency of State governments, and in their failure to realize and live up to their family ob- ligations as members of the family of States, the States may profit by his warn- ing. But, in our judgment, the main profit is likely to come from increased jealousy of encroachments on the reserved powers of the States by the National Gov- ernment, and especially by the Adminis- tration of which Mr. Root is the leading lieutenant. There seems to be no power, executive, judicial, legislative or State, which President Roosevelt is not eager to wield if he can get his hands on it. He seems to have such absolute confidence in his ability to do good work (and he does do good work) that he is ready to seize anybody’s tools to do it with. He wants to run the schools in San Francisco, to tell the railroads when to buy cars and where to send them, to dismiss military officers without trial, to medicate our or- thography and regulate the size of our families. He scolds us, coddles us, and patronizes us and all creation. He makes us proud, he makes us swear, and squirm and laugh and feel foolish, all by turn. Heaven bless the man, but we don’t want so much paternal government. It is bet- ter that we should get hurt now and then than that we should lose the capacity for self-help and self-control. Howl away, venerable watch-dog! A good many things that you won't like are doing, and have got to be done. But a lot more things that are neither constitu- tional nor necessary, and that ought not to be done, may be prevented if you can rouse enough folks by your timely clamor.