The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-11-25
Monday, November 25, 1907.
THE poWrR OF THE STATE. Ha

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 It is a distinctly gratifying thing that there are men in the country possessed of the requisite knowledge to defend and advocate the original the cries upon which this government was based Among them must be counted Dean Henry Wade Rogers of the Yale Law School If new conditions make it necessary to modify the views of the founders it is only by having all sides of the controversy presented that an intelligent conclusion will be reached. It does not necessarily follow, as MT. Rogers says that old instru- ments are to be abandoned because in the hands of unskilful political arti- sans they have failed to produce the results looked for. If that was a sound theory we should have to cling desper- ately to the golden rule lest it be thrown away as wise rule for the conduct of men. Dean Rogers is fully within the lines of simple statement when he declares that the country is threatened with a revival of federal doctrines, with a federalism which is more extreme and radical than the leaders of the old fed eral party ever countenanced or would have tolerated" We do not understand that Mir. Rogers fears the actual estab- lishment of that kind of federalism. It is more likely that he sees in the at- tempt to establish 1t the required op- position to defeat the movement. Things have been moving so fast in this growing country that old guides and landmarks have been overlooked and the notion encouraged that new guides and rules are necessary This is the att titude of those who would extend the power of the federal government over the States, especially in the case of corporations doing an interstate busi- ness It is not the attitude of men like Mir. Rogers who is firm believer in the original order of things political. He does not deny that the States have been at fault in permitting acts which should have been forbidden, but this recognition of an evil does not drive him to abandon original principles of government in favor of those neces- sarily of an experimental character. What he does is to admit the existence of the evil and in particular for the purpose of curing it by a revival of old ideas and not by the enforcement of new ideas. It is high time that view of the movement which is likely to in- volve the next presidential campaign was presented in the forcible manner MT. Rogers presented it at a Boston dinner Saturday evening.
 It is one thing to admit that given instruments of government have fail- ed to produce expected results and an entirely different thing to condemn the instruments as ineffective instead of the fumbling men who have undertak- en to use them. MT. Rogers can find no warrant for the more or less preva- lent notion that these instruments in the hands of federal officials would produce better results even if sharp ened by federal steel He calls atten. tion to the miserable failure the cen. tral government has made of it's at. tempt to rule the territories where i has all the independent powers grant. ed the States. "The laws of congress, he says, "have not secured publicity O. accounts or prevented overcapitaliza tion and stock waterings, and no sys tenn of federal inspection has been es tablished over federal corporations The Union Pacific railroad has a fed eral charter, but upon it's reorganiza tion in 1897 it had clear capital o $1S8, 8,000,000 which at market price was worth $54,OOO,OOO, showing an es timated overcapitalization of s81, 900, 0O0." Tn other words, wherever tn federal government has enjoyed tn power possessed by the sovereig States it has made no better use of than the largest offending State, Tn whole history of the care of the terri tories by the federal government show conclusively that there is nothing i'm mune about federal instruments whe they undertake to do State work. is in this connection what it is in othe human connections, the instrument
 of itself valueless until it is placed the hands of men wAo know how use it. And it is because it is alwal difficult to find the right man to C the right kind of work in republ that the founders believed, as M Rogers believes, that it is safer trust the men near at home with th