The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1907-05-21
Constitutional Debate.

CONSTITUTIONAL DcDate.
The magazine debate between Mr..
Bryan and Senator Beverage on the
constitutional question of the reserved
rights of the states and incidentally of
the Beverage bill to regulate labor in
factories, known as the child labor
bill, has been generally read. To Demo-
Gratis the discussion is OF transcendent
interests, for it foreshadows much
more important debate within the
Democratic party On the issues of
State Rights and Home Rule. The
first installment comes from Senator
Rayne,r of Maryland, in the Baltimore
Sun OF May Is, in which he sum-
marizes the policies advocated 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 re-
ferendum.
Third Congress to have the right
to arbitrarily fix the total product of
all interstate corporations, quasi public
and private, and to distroy their bust
ness lift hey transgress the congression-
al 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 dominant
party conceives it to be against
public policy, it shall have the right
absolutely to prohibit commercial
intercourse between the States upon
the interdicted article (as is fully ex-
empllfied in the provisions of the Child
Labor bilD.
my own deliberate judgement is
that if we embody these doctrines m
democratic platform the next step
that it will be necessary to take will
be to change the name of the party
and receive the name of 'Federalist'
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-
cessoin to accompany the remains of
democracy to their resting place; and
when we are engaged in performing
the last sad rites and obseques, and
are commemorating her departed
virtues, do not let US forget to re-
count the tragic manner of her DEATH
so that posterity 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 self-inflicted wound.
Democratic voters will have to de-
cied these issues before they elect and
instruct delegations to the next national
convention and to do so must investi-
gate the arguments on both sides to
arrive at just conclusion. Mr.. Bryan
has so clearly stated his case that it
is not necessary to repeat it. Sena-
tor Raynor's summary has led theBa.-
timore Sun to say
The discussion of all these theories
of government; the suggestion of
Secretary Root that the Constitution
be changed by construction so as to de-
prive the States of their reserved
rights; the Beverage bill and Mr.
Bryan's doctrines all these things
have tended to direct public attention
to questions of policy and constitution
al law which have been dormant al
most during this generation. Such
mastery exposition as that of Sena-
tor Rayner,b by SO profound a student of
the Constitution as he is, will do much
to bring people back to the old paths. .