Gainesville daily sun. (Gainesville, Fla.) 190?-1938, 1907-05-25
CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATE.

me magazine DEBATE between Mr..
Bryan and Senator Beveridge on the
constitutionality question of the re-
served rights of the States and Incl.
dentally of the Beverage bill to regu-
late labor in factories, known as the
child labor bill. has been generally
read. To Democrats the discussion
is of transcendent interest, for it
foreshadows a much more important
debate within the Democratic party
on the issues of State rights and
home rule The first installment comes
from Senator Rayner of Maryland in
The Baltimore Sun of May 10, in
which he summarizes the policies ad-
vocated by Mr.. Bryan as follows:
"First-Ultimate ownership by the
Government of all the interstate rail.
roads of the United States.
"Second-The initiative and refer
endum.
"Third-Congress to have the right
to arbitrarily fix the total product of
all interstate corporations, quasi pub
lie and private, and to destroy their
business If they transgTess the con-
gressional limit.
"Fourth-The supreme power of
Congress to prescribe the terms upon
which all Interstate commerce shall
be conducted. and whenever Congress
(which, of course, means the domi-
nant parity conceives it to be against
public policy, it shall have the right
absolutely to prohibit commercial in
tercourse between the States upon the
interdicted article (as fully exempi.
fed in the provisions of the child
labor bill)
my own deliberate judgment is
that if we embody these doctrines in
a Democratic platform the next step
that it will be necessary to take will |
be to change the name of the party |
and revive the name of 'Federalists
or take some other title suitable TO
the occasion; and then, after we have
done this, the final step will be, with
our leaders in the van, in solemn pro-
cession to accompany the remains of
democracy to their resting place, and
when we are engaged in performing
the last sad rights and obseQuies, and
are commemorating her departed vir-
tues, do not let us forget to recount
the tragic manner of her death, so
that prosperity shall know that in the
hour of her brightest hopes and most
alluring prospects, determined to end
her great historic career, she threw
herself upon the poisoned weapon of
Federal Capitalization, and died of
4 self-inflicted wound"
Democratic voters will have to de-
eide these issues before they elect and
instruct delegates to the next national
and to do so must investi-
gate the arguments on both sides to
arrive at a just conclusion. Mr.. Bryan
has so clearly stated his case that 1t
IS not necessary to repeat IT, Senator
Rayners summary has led The Balti-
more Sun to say:
"The discussion of all these theories
IF government; the suggestion Of Sec
-etary Root that the constitution be
by construction so as to de-
Drlve the States Of their reserved
tights; the Beverage bill and Mr..
Bryan's doctrines-all these things
nave tended to direct public atten-
ion TO questions of policy and consti-
ntional law which have been dor
nant almost during this generation.
Such a mastery exposition as that
If Senator Rayner, by so profound
student of the constitution as he is,
sill do much 10 bring people back to
- ..ah