Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1907-03-21
NATION AND STATE
SENATOR BEVERiDGE DEFINES
REPUBLICAN POSITION.
Nations Power Above That of State
to Right Evil or Secure Bene-
fit for the Whole Ameri-
can People.

In a printed debate on the subject
of states rights between Senator
Beveridge and William Jennings
Bryan, appearing in the Reader Mag
azine, Senator Beyeridge refers to the
recent contests waged by advocates
of states rights against certain fed
cral legislation; the Louisiana State
. lottery; the sending Of obscene liter
ature through the mails, the meat bill,
etc. etc, and defines the position of
the Republican party on future meas
ures as follows:
when an evil or a benefit is so
widespread that it affects so much of
the country as to be called national,
the nations power should be equal to
end that evil or secure that benefit to
the American people.
"When an evil or benefit is purely
local and affects none of the American
people except that part of them who
live in the state where the evil exists
or the benefit can be applied, and
nowhere else, the state should end
that evil or secure that benefit.
THE storm raised by the beef trust
scandal caused the passage OF the
pure food bill; and states rights,
I though sorely wounded, made little
cutlery because it would have been
most unpopular. You will observe that
states rights is a very polite creature
and seldom becomes excited for lib
erty,' except when some financial in
/ terest is endangered by the assertion
of nationality. States rights is not
often heard of, unless financial inter
ests are threatened; and not even
/ then, if the people happen to be suf-
/ ficiently aroused against an evil
which nationality will end.
AN example Immediately at hand:
! Child slavery exists in the mining re-
gions and in the silk mills OF Pennsyl-
vania, the cotton factories of the
south, the glass works of New Jer-
! sey and West Virginia, and, indeed, at
| numerous points throughout the whole
! republic. Scores of thousands of lit
! tie children, from five to ii years of
age, are compelled to work from ten
to u hours a day to their physical
mental and moral ruin and the de-
ecneracy of the race Il And now.
/ behind the mask of states rights
! the interests profting by child labor
are frantic against the proposed law
/ prohibiting interstate commerce in
the products of child labor-this, too,
/ although states rights is not tech
nically touched by the bill. The states
do not and can not stop it.
Powerful interests which exploit
the people and the nations resources
can more easily handle a smaller pOr-
ton of the American people for their
/ purposes than they can handle the en-
tire S0,0O0,O00 of the people for their
/ purposes And if they are defeated in
one state-one small subdivision of
the American people-they always
have 10 other chances.
The extent to which the Ameri-
can people are divided Unto states)
precisely measures the extent to
which their power to end abuses is
the republics motto, United we
stand, divided we fall
This does not mean destruction of
the states in their natural spheres of
| action. And their natural spheres of
action are described by the phrase
local government.
''All this (the growth in population
woven into a unit by railroad, tele-
graph and telephone) creates new
problems which the old theory of
states rights never contemplated, and
new necessities on the part of the peo-
pie which states rights can not sup
ply. Eut the peoples problems must
be solved, the peoples necessities sup
piled. Each day makes it clearer that
only tie nation can do this. That is
why the nation is doing it, If the
states could do that work better,
nothing could prevent them from do
ing it. 1t is because the nation is the
only force equal to the daily develop
ing needs Of the people that national
ity is developing, and for no other
reason. In all of this there is no
harm, but only the welfare of the
people; for it is merely the people
themselves acting in common for
their common good"
1t is understood that in the senti-
ments expressed, Senator Beveridge
speaks for the administration.
Where the Farmer Comes In.