The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-12-27
THIS is A NATION

Long experience, clear vision, superb
mental and physical poise and the hab-
1t of high thought in the distinguished
speaker added impressiveness to the
rebuke given by Justice Harlan, at the
dinner of the Kentuckians, to those
fretful souls who fear dark days for
the Republic" says the New York
World.
Justice Harlan does not believe that
the present tendency is toward the
Capitalization of all governmental pow
er in the nation and the destruction of
the rights of the states. He sees that
the best friends of state rights .
are not those who habitually denounce
as illegal everything done by the gem
eral government, but those who recog-
nize the government of the Union as
possessing all the powers granted to
1t in the constitution, either expressly
or by necessary implication And the
best friends of the Union are those
who respect the rights of the states.
Nothing vital is ever finished; moth
ing but the Hfeless is unchanging. The
nation and it's constitution are living,
subject to the laws of growth and de-
velopment. The founders, as the su
preme court has said, 'unavoidably
dealt in general language The pow
ers of the constitution they framed
are expressed in general terms, leav-
ing to the legislature to mould
and model the exercise of its powers
as it's own wisdom and the public in
terest should require
80, as Justice Harlan says, Nation
al power covers a wider field of action
than it did in the early days Of the
Republic but the nation has not there
in 'usurped power 1t has from time
to time, as the public interests demand
ed, brought into active operation pow
ers which congress had not previously
chosen to exert The growth of area
and population and the greater divers
ity of interests must compel a more
intimate connection between the gov
eminent of the Union and the affairs
or business Of the people than perhaps
the fathers ever dreamed Of Hence:
IF modern problems +" are to be
solved in the interests and for the ben
eft of the people, and If the nation
is to keep abreast with advancing civ
ilization new fields of legislation must
be occupied . . We must not be
so unwise or suspicious or tinid as to
reject a new law simply because 1t is
new, or simply because 1T may cover
areas not consciously within the men
tai vision or the thoughts of the franz
ers of the constitution That wonderful
instrument, the supreme court has
said, was intended to be adapted to
the various crises of human affairs.
mo one better knows the stability
of the government ordained by the
people and established by the consti-
tuition than the dean of the supreme
court, who has for 80 years ably ex-
pounded that great basic law. This
Christmas message of steadfast COM
mon sense-like the address of Presi-
dent Eliot of Harvard enforcing before
the civic federation last week the same
lesson of the National Idea-will be
welcomed by men who think.
1.-The fathers laid down for us not an
and unyielding framework
within which the body polite must
shrivel for lack of freedom, but broad
principles suitable for the needs of all
time. This is a nation, a vital and
growing organism, not petrifactfon.
There is no need in 1t either of hyster-
icaI passion for sudden and ill-consid- |
cred changes or of blind adherence to
practice and precedents which no long |
er fit the times"