Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-11-10
constitutions being inadequate to meet
the wants of an adult state.

I VIC wants OI an duU1t 6t<1tc.
1t has often occurred to us, that if the
state garment became threadbare and
shrunken in five and twenty years, that
and hundred years OF wear and tear,
innumerable patches and constant ex-
posure demanded new dress for the
general government.
The growth of commerce in the west
has demonstrated that ''to regulate COM
merce among the states is an apparent
barrier to the regulation of commerce
within each state, viz: the methods of
the option dealer. Years ago this ques-
ton would have been answered that con-
gress has no such power, because the
option dealer was unknown. the evil to
result from such methods could not have
been anticipated. A man without the
itch gives no heed to its cure: he catches
the itch and becomes a student of the
most approved method of scratching.
because interested in the disease and
the remedy. The agricultural west has
the ''option dealing itch" We are
scratched sore and demand permanent
cure. not the specific remedy of the po-
| lltical Quack. We do not desire a local
remedy but constitutional treatment.
The option dealer has grown TO such
power that we must find a lawful means
not only to check, but to crush him.
Agriculture has warmed a vigorous
brood into life that must be throttied,
that the benefactOr may not only live
but prosper. The immensely of opera
tons in grain and stock, the formation
of trusts" the aggregation of wealth
and concentration of trade in few hands;
| the control of commerce, che fuctua-
ton without good cause of the markets,
have awakened the producing classes to
sense of danger, unless laws are en-
acted to counterfeit the evil.
The socalled business methods of the last
decade, that tend to enrich few and
humble, debase and pauperize thousands,
must end, by law if possible; peaceful
solutions are prayed on every hand,
but if laws are not enacted and the prob
lem solved by lawmakers, in the interest
of the agriculturists of the country,
there are precedents in history that fur
nish complete remedy, and the last
argument OF free people is not adj
dressed to the three constituent branches
of government but to the people them
selves.
We can no longer shut our eyes to the
| fact that the price of grain and stock is
controlled by factor above the law of
supply and demand, and that farm
products are worth but a trifie above
railway freight. The railways are inter-
ested in the producer obtaining profit
above freight. When products reach
descending scale, where there is
no margin after paying freight, then
will follow series of granger legisla-
lures. and the railroads will suffer.
Wisdom dictates that the railways of the
country come to the relief of the pro-
Queer that the produce may earn divi-
dends for them. The option dealers
methods, if carried to their legitimate
conclusions, will cripple the freight car
riers of the west.
Writers have claimed that America
has reached that state Of progress in
civilization where we must experience
the distresses of older nations ere we
solve the trust, labor and interstate
problems that are now uppermost in the
minds OF demagogues, politicians, states
men, philosophers, thinkers and moral
lists. When a bill is introduced in
congress looking to the regu-
lation of ''Option dealing"
and it expires with the session.
its constitutionality debated, questioned,
doubted, alleging that the power to
enact the law is not vested in congress:
when committee of the senate are try
ing to get at the root of evils affecting
stock markets, which is of some ques-
tionable power; when courts are an
nulling state legislation on beef in
spection because the power belongs to
the federal government, we must con-
clude that the duality of our forms of
state and federal government whilst
ample in scope for nation in swaddling
clothes is too crude and complex for
millions of people whose commerce out
runs the growth of its people.
The demand of the people and con-
seQuent desire in congress to regulate
those affairs that are claimed to be
purely domestic, the desire by state
lawmakers to intermeddle with
and seek to control things
which belong to federal authority,
If it tends to establish anything is indis-
putable evidence that the commerce of
the west has created demands that the
present federal constitution is too narrow
to meet, and state constitutions are not
broad enough to reach.
There must be friction if not clashing,
great Inconvenience if not positive hard
ships, unless the states relinquish to the
general government such needed power
as wisdom dictates, should be granted to
the general government in the matter of
commerce. Commerce, once supposed
to be purely domestic, internal, non-in-
terstate and of state concern alone, has
by reason of the gigantic systems of rail-
way and the manipulation of brokers,
arrived at commercial dignity that COM
pels us to admit and note that the gen.
eral government alone can deal with the
problem to the satisfaction of the
people and in the interest
of the producer whose future
is wra pped up in its solution. |
And it is honestly urged that without |
federal regulation, interference or con- |
troll that the grain and stock interests, |
the vitality and life Of the west, can not |
long endure the present depression.
The power ''to regulate commerce |
among the states" was in the interest Of |
the several states and to protect them |
from each other, and was gaanted at /
the time when domestic commerce was |
so trivial that it could not be foreSeen |
that methods praticed in one state could |
ruin the industry of other states. Yet |
we behold that the power to regulate, or
non-regulation of domestic commerce, |
being state power cotains within it the |
power TO crush the grain industry of the /
west and make mendicants in the midst |
of plenty. PROFESSIONALLY the
power TO control that commerce
which IN nature may become inter
state and which may be SO used as TO
cripple its producer, should be vested in |
ratr- xr-iar Cr,fr