The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-12-12
WATTERSON TALKS
TO NEW WORKERS
Addresses Kentucky Society at
Farewell Banquet
WORDS CHARACTERISTIC
Tells Message He Will Take to Spain
to His Catholic Majesty From
the Famous Old Blue
Grass State.
WORDS CHARACTERISTIC

New York, December 1L-Henry Wat
terson Of the Louisville Courier-Journal
was the guest of honor at the annual din
ner tonight at the Waldorf-Astoria of the
Kentucky society of New York.
Mr. Wattersons topic was Kentucky
i'm Gotham" He said in part:
Z come to fetch you message from
Gods country, and, as the walking lady
in Proctor Knott's delightful story de-
clared, 1 mean to fulfill NEE promise to
the people of this village at the risk OF
NEE life. Don't forget the old folks at
home Don't forget the homely, the home
spun sources from which we draw our
inspiration and our life. Don't forget Aunt
Betsys Christian preachments' nor
Cousin Polly's complacent and wise rus
ITCHY; for the buttress and the believer
of Kentuckys fame, the cerdure and the
bloom of KentuclSy's manhood and wo-
manhood, were, and are, and Will ever
remain, the Holy Bible, the Old Field
school, the patriots call to battle and the
Song of the Greenwood tree
"Shall also say the Resolutions of '9SY
Well, gentlemen-whether you call your
selves republicans or democrats, you
may as the good priest observed in
maintaining the doctrine of purgatory,
YOU may go farther and fare worse.
Under the hand of a President, whose per-
sonality is so attractive, whose motives
are so unchallenged, whose public ser
vice is so eminent and brilliant that most
men are 10th to question anything he
saws or does-under the head of such
President the pendulum of Capitalization
has swung much too far to leeward and
will need to be swung back again IL we
are to recover the poise and balance winch
the fathers and founders of our great re-
public designed for the federal govern
ment and the states.
Go Slower, Theodore.
1--WE have already the splendid govern
ment' they dreaded. Modern invention by
its humiliation of time and space has
well nigh oblterated the old Landmarks.
1t has actually flung the geography INTO
the sea. Happily some things we could
we'll afford to spare are gone, sectional
ism among them. But, shall we stand list
less by and see home-rule go with it?
If Alexander Hamilton could come to life
again. could revisit the glimpses OF the
moon which shines over the White House
with its big stick and the capitol with
its supreme tribunal and its Houses OF
Congress, l am perfectly sure that he
would say, Go triflle slower, Ineo-
dore my son.
81 confess that ] am so old-fashioned
as still to believe in the constitution of
the United States. The other night be-
fore company of -kentuck1ans
who, to bid me good bye and wish me
God-speed upon a journey I am about to
make had assembled in their hunting
shirts and linsey-woolsey under the roof
of a log cabin in Louisville long known
to you and dear to you all, / mean the
Gait house, | described myself as "a Lin
coin democrat, crossed on a Jeffersonian
republican That ought to catch truth
both ways 'a-coming and a-going.' Lin
coin was a conscience whig. Jefferson
wrote the Declaration of Independence.
Each revered the constitution.
Constitution Supreme.
planting myself upon that declaration
and that constitution, eXpansonist that
/ am, even lingo that 1 am, loving to
hear the eagle scream and to see Old
Glory wave, fully conceiving the import
ance and portent of the advancing great
ness of my country and rejoicing that it
is at length a Vertable world power-I
yet cling to the belief that wherever the
flag goes, the law must co. that there
must be uniformity of freedom every
where beneath that flag; to quote from a
noble opinion of Mr.. Justice Harlan-there
tuckians besides Carlisle and Lindsay
the constitution is supreme over every
foot of territory. wherever situated, un-
der the jurisdiction of the United States,
and it's full operation cannot be stayed
by any branch of the government in or
der to meet what some may suppose eX-
traordinary emergencies.
I'm other words the constitution is n
written, clearly defined chart of limited
and enumerated powers, meant to check
the encroachment of one department of
the government upon another and to make
the exercise of arbitrary power impos-
sibe, leaving as Justice Harlan proceeds
! tI,N
| states, or the people, the powers not dele
gated to the national government, nor
prohibited to the states
IF more power Is needed, additional
powers are required the constitution it.
| self specifies how they shall be obtained.
| The meaning of the constitution I am
| still quoting Justice Harlan, can not de-
| pend upon accidental circumstances, The
people who ordained it never supposed
| that a change could be made in our sys-
| tenn of government by mere judicial in
| depreciation If they had they would not
| have adopted it, We cannot violate the
constitution'-how clear and masterful
| this great contemporary follower of Mar
| shall and Story is. we cannot violate
| the constitution in order to serve par
ticular interests in our own or in for
/ eign lands Even this court, with its tre-
mendous power must heed the mandate
| of the constitution No one in official sta
| ton, TO whatever department of the gov
eminent he belongs. can disobey it's COM
mands without violating the obligation
of the oath he has taken
Formative Times.
"rhese are formative times. Let us
read them by the light of the organic
law of the land construe them by the
wisdom of the fathers, improve and APP