Semi-weekly herald., 1907-10-03


Il concern OF every good American VIII
!. knows what the meaning of the wor
e patriotism is. This country is def
8 nitely committed to certain funds
q trine, for instance, and to the dut
o not only of building. but. when IL /
$ built, of policing and defending th
: Panama canal. We have definitel,
, taken our place amoung the grea
, world powers. and it would be a sigi
. OF ignoble weakness, having taker
such place to shirk its response
bilities. Therefore, unless we are
willing to abandon this place, to aban
don our insistence upon the Monroe
doctrine. to give up the Panama ca,
nal, and to be content to acknowledge
ourselves weak and timid nation.
we must steadily build up and main
tain great fighting navy. Our navy
Is already SO efficient as TO be a
matter of pride to every American.
Sc long as our navy Is no larger than
at present. it must be considered aa
an elementary principle that the b.ll1
| of our battle fleet must always be
| kept together. When the Panama ca
nal is built II can be transferred with.
| out difficulty from one part If our
| coast to the other; but even before
that canal is built 1t ought to be thus
transferred to and fro from time to
time. In couple of months our fleet
of great armored ships starts for the
Pacific. California, Oregon and Wash
ington have a coast line which is our
coast line Just as emphatlcally as the
coast line OF New York and Maine.
going to its own home waters In the
Pacific. and after a stay there 1t will
return to its own home waters in the
Atlantic. The best place for naval
officer to learn his duties is at sea. by
performing them, and only by actual
iy putting through a voyage of this
nature, voyage longer than any
ever before undertaken by as large a
fleet of any nation, can We find ont
inst exactly what is necessary for US
tc know as to our naval needs and
practice our officers and enlisted men
in the highest duties of their pro
fessioD. Among all our citizens there
is no body of equal size to whom we
owe quite as much as to the officers
and enlisted men in the army and
speak from you the fullest and hearth
est support. in the name Of our ma.
ton and of our flag, for the services
To which these men belong.
In conclusion / wish to say a word
to this body. containing as it does so
many business men, upon what is pre-
eminently a business proposition. and
that is the proper national supervision
and control of corporations. At the
meeting of the American Bar asso
citation in this last August, Judge
Charles F. Amidon, OF North Dakota,
read a paper on the nation and the
constitution so admirable that 1t Is
deserving of very wide study; for
what he said was, as all studies OF
law in its highest form ought to be,
prudence as 1t should be understood
not only by judges but by Legislators,
not only by those who interpret and
decide the law, but by those who make
ii and who administer or execute 1t.
He quoted from the late Justice Miller,
of the supreme court. to show that
even in the Interpretation OF the con-
stitution by this, the highest author
| ity of the land, the courts successive
decisions must be tested by the way
they work in actual application to the
national life; the court adding TO its
thought and study the results OF ex-
| perience and observation until the
| true solution is evolved by a process
both of inclusion and exclusion. Said
Justice Miller: The meaning OF the
constitution is to be sought as much
ia the national life as in the diction-
ary," for, as as been well said, gov
ernment purely out of law library
can never be really good government
| Now that the questions OF govern
ment are becoming SO largely econ
omic, the majority of our so-called
constitutional cases really turn moi
upon the Interpretation of the instru
ment itself, but upon the construc
tion. the right apprehension of th'
living conditions to which II is to b,
applied. The constitution is now anC
must remain what 1t always has been
but II can only be interpreted as thu
interests Of the whole people demand
X interpreted as a living organism
designed to meet the conditions o
life and not of death; in other words
IL interpreted as Marshall interpreted
\ it. as Wilson declared II should b.
A interpreted. The arshall theory of lif