The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-12-13

are no longer capable of adequately per-
forming. The federal antitrust law. the
anti-rebate law, the railroad rate law, the
meat inspection law, the oleomargarine
law, the pure food law are examples of
the purpose of the President of the
United States to direct through the
agency of the national government the
things which the separate state govern
ments formerly did adequately, but no
longer do adequately.
'"The end is not yet. The process that
interweaves the life and action of the
people in every section of our country
with the people in every other section,
continues, and will continue with increas-
ing force and effect; we are urging for
ward in a development of business and
social life which tends more and more
to obliteration of state lines. and the de-
crease of state power as compared With
national power; the relations Of the bus
mess over which the federal government
is assuming control; of interstate trans
portation with state transportation; of
interstate commerce with state commerce
are so intimate and the separation of the
two is so impracticable. that the tend
ency is plainly towards the practical
control of the national government over
both.
New projects of national control are
mooted: control of insurance, uniform
divorce laws. child labor laws, and many
others affecting matters formerly en-
tirely with the cognizance of the state,
are proposed.
Duties of States.
"I submit to your judgment and / de-
sire to press upon you with all the
earnestness | possess that there is but
one way in which the states of the union
can maintain their power and authority
under the conditions which are now be-
fore you. and that way is by an awaken
ing on the part of the states to a realiza-
ton of their own duties to the country
at large. Under conditions which now
exist no state can live unto itself alone,
and regulate its affairs with sole ref
erence to it's own treasury. its own con-
venience. it's own special interests. Every
state is bound to frame it's legislation and
its administration with reference not
only to it's own special affairs. but with
reference to the effect upon all its sister
states
''If any state is maintaining laws which
afford opportunity and authority for prac-
tees condemned by the public sense of
the whole country or laws which through
the operation of our modern system Of
communications and business are injuri-
Gus to the interests of the whole country
that state Is violating the conditions upon
which alone can its power be preserved
If any state maintains laws which pro-
talzation of corporations condemned by
the people of the country generally. II
any state maintains laws designated to
make easy the formation of trusts and
the creation of monopolies. If any state
maintains laws which permit conditions OF
child labor violating the sense of man
kind; If any state maintains laws of mar
riage and divorce, so far inconsistent with
the general standard of the nation to
violently derange the domestic relations
which the majority of the states desire to
preserve. that state is promoting the ten
dency OF the people of the country to
seek relief to the national government and
10 press forward the movement for ma
tional control. and the extinction of local
control
Alive to Obligations.
"The intervention of the national gov
ernment in many of the matters in which
II has recently undertaken. would have
been wholly unnecessary If the states
themselves had been alive to their duty
towards the general body of the country.
IT Is useless for the advocates of states
rights to inveigh against the supremacy
of the constitutional laws of the United
States, or against the extension of ma
tional authority in the fields Of national