Arizona republican., 1907-10-04
PHOENIX ARIZ., OCT. 4. 1907.
GOVERNMENT vACUUMs.

The American people, said President Roosevelt in his speech at Cairo yes terday. abhor a vacuum. That is self evident truth if that dictum of scientists is true, that nature abhors a vacuum But the scientists were talking about one thing and MT. Roose- welt about another. The latter had reference to that great field of author ity of indefinite boundary which lies between the states and the national government, the powers of each of which were definitely circumscribed by the makers of the United States consti- tuition. That uncircumscribed field lying between is what Mir. Roosevelt calls a vacuum and in which, he an- nounced in some of his earlier speeches, when he first began to feel that the constitution was throttnng him, the federal government had an inherent right because the rights of the states within it had not been definitely fixed by the constitution.
 While the American people MT. Roosevelt says. abhor a vacuum, some of the American people among them the United States, do not believe that the constitution provided for the aboli- tion of the vacuum in that way,-by the assumption by the federal govern
 
 been expressly lodged in the states.
 Justice Brewer in his late opinion in the Kansas Colorado case went some what out of the way to explode that recently promulgated theory, by de- claring that the national government was one of enumerated powers. and ferred upon it by the constitution could be exercised by it.
 Mir Roosevelt, We believe has not since urged that doctrine of the in herent authority of the national gov ernment within this indefinite terri tory, but in his speeches at Keokuk.
 
 address at Provincetown he believed that the constitution, in the interstate commerce clause clothes the congress and the executive department of the government with the power to regulate certain matters which the states have been attempting to regulate. In ad d-acGaG fn no speech, the president was strongly and rather eagerly inclined to a startling doctrine set forth by Judge Farrar of New Orleans that the post roads clause of the constitution gave the federal government the power it de- sired within the states. Lawyers gen erally did not take Judge Farrar seri- ously and did not receive his doctrine with that degree of courtesy to which the presidents endorsement of 1t seemed to ntitle it. It has been laughed to scorn and to death.
 But the presidents latest theory that a liberal and proper construction of the interstate commerce clause of the con- stitution confers upon the government power to regulate within the state, railroads and corporations engaged in interstate commerce, is one which may be received seriously and which must ultimately be passed upon as to its cor rectness. if congress should act upon it. by the supreme court of the United States.
 In the meantime, the subject Is one of interesting though fruitless conjec ture However abhorrent to the Amer ican people this vacuum" may be, un- less the highest court decides that it may be filled in the manner suggested by the president, they must grin and bear it or fill it in the manner pre- scribed by the constitution itself for its own amendment.