The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-25
SENATOR KNOX ON
 FEDERAL POWER
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 the favored ones who enjoyed such un- fair and illegal advantages.
 Correct Evils.
 Like the Girondists in the French revo- lution American lawyers must submit to be condemned by the Bourbons as rad icals if they stand for rational and con- stitutional legislation to meet new conui- tions, and to be guillotined by the Reds as obstructionists if they fail to indorse the popular yagaries of the political ephemera who swarm about every great movement of reform, unappreciatiYe Of it's origin, it's tendency, and it's purpose. Such is the fate of the profession that studies, loves and defends the institutions of civilized government and has ever been their most powerful constructive and con- serving force.
 The preservation of our constitution is not committed to the federal judiciary alone. It is the oath-bound obligation of every legislative, judicial and executive officer of the states and nation, and is the highest duty of private citizenship. The constitution is not to perish at the hands of the impassioned phrase-maker, and it's defenders should not be deterred by mistaken or prejudiced elamor from performing their obligation to preserve and defend it.
 The constitution was founded upon the sacrifice of the lives and fortunes of our ancestors it is the solemnly expressed will of the people; 1t has been preserved by the people through the most gigantic and tragic war of modern times, and it must endure as written and expounded until altered by the people by the means they have prescribed.
 The power of the federal government cannot be increased except by new grants of power through amendment of the con stitution The efficiency, however, of the federal government will progressively in crease through the application = existing federal power to the growing complexities of social and commercial conditions.
 Social Readjustment.
 What changes in these conditions may be in store for us no man can foreteI. What social establishments may follow the application of the federal commercial pow CT to such changes is likewise unknown. The power is fixed and definite factor; no one has pretended to define the boun- daries of the subject upon which it oper- ates.
 Human government is a human neces- sity. It is all the stronger and more eff fective in times of dire need for not hav- ing been experimented with and it's fiber strained in times of tranquility.
 The way to make real progress In need ful legislation, and to permanently re- tain each advance is to move wisely along legitimate lines. This is a land of law as well as of liberty and the lib- erty of the law-maker Is subject to re- straints as well as the liberty of the individual. Congress can only do what it Is possible to do under the powers dele gated tc it by the body polite, which is the people. To do anything more would be futile usurpation, to do any less un- der those powers than the best inter- ests of the people demanded should be done would be neglect of duty.
 4t is beside the question to urge the desirability and popularity of measures if Congress has now power to enact them. Our heartiest sympathy may be enlisted in many movements and yet our judg- ment may be compelled to reject the means proposed for their accomplis shment. l remember and am impressed by the words of President Roosevelt in his first message to Congress, that "The men who demand the impossible or the un- desirable serve as the allies of the forces with which they are nomnally at war, for they hamper those who would en- deavoc to find out in rational fashion what the wrongs really are and to what extent and in what manner it is prac- ticagle to apply remedies
 Last Words of Washington.
 The last words of Washington and the first words of Lincoln contained a solemn admonition to us on the necessity of pre- serving our dual government intact
 In his farewell address to the Amer ican people. Washington said:
 If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the con- stitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let 1t be corrected by an amend ment IT, the way which the constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed The pre- cedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit. which the use can at any time yield"
 And in his first message to the Ameri- can Congress, Lincoln said
 'To maintain inviolate the rights of the states to order and control under the constitution their own affairs by their own judgment exclusively, is essential for the preservation of that balance of power on which our institutions rest"
 And, finally, Chief Justice Marshall, the great expounder of the constitution, said, in Gibbons vs. Ogden:
 'The genius and character of the whole government seem to be that it's action Is to be applied to all the external con
 
 concerns which affect the states general ly; but not to those which are completely within a particular state, which do not affect other states, and with which 1t is not necessary to interfere, for the purpose of executing some of the general powers of the government"
 Dean Henry Wade Rogers presided George P Whitman of Atlanta delivered an oration on, Character as a Factor in Politics and In Business
 Prizes and honors included:
 Jewel prize, for best examinations in second year studies, N. P. Sterne Annis- ton
 Honors, Cum Laude; second year. N. P. Sterne Anniston; w. P. Armstrong, Golf feyville, Miss.
 In the graduating class, of three honois, two were won by Filipinos Jose Escallr of Pampanga, P l.. takes a magma cum laude honor, and Mariana De Joya of Be- lanzas, P l., takes an honor cum laude.
 Presbyterian Evangelist III.