New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-02-24
THE STATE RIGHTS STALKING HORSE.

THE STATE RIGHTS STALKING HORSE.
In his speech yesterday before the Harvard
Union President Roosevelt described with some
bluntness the motive underlying the insistence
in many quarters on state rights as opposed 10
national rights He said among other things:
There has been a curious revival Of the doc
trne Of state rights in connection win l lese
questions Questions which group lneIiiSea, 90
round the control Of cOrpOTatonsI oy lne peoPIe
who know that the states cannot with J justice
to both sides practically control the corpoL GUMS
and who therefore advocate such control because
they do not venture to express their real WISH
which Is that there shall be no control al all
Those who invoke the doctrine Of state
rights to protect state corporate creations IN
predatory activities extended through other
states are : shortsighted as those who once IN
vOked the same doctrine to protect the special
slaveholding interest. The states have shown
that they have nos the ability 10 curb the power
OF syndicated wealth. and, therefore, In the In
terest Of the people, it must be done by national
action.
We are accustomed to think tina, the strug-
gle between state rights and national sover-
eignty-as old our history as nation-Is
struggle largely between abstract principles.
Yet the fact is that the struggle has become
acute only when important material interests
have sought TO protect themselves behind the
state rights dogma The Virginia and Ken
lucky resolutions would have been forgotten
had the cotton gin not been invented to give
a new lease of life to the institution of slavery.
The South embraced and enlarged the state
rights and strict construction dOgmas not so
much because il held them TO be abstractly
valid as because they furnished bulwark be
hind which the slave system could be devel-
oped. Slave labor and free trade with Europe
We're the South's primary aims The exalta-
ton of state prerogatives was only means TO
those ends and probably no clash at arms
wit fha
would ever have occurred had the South's ma
teTial interests not been challenged by the
North's system of free labor and its iuSistenre
on policy of industrial independence and ma
tional development.
1t seems clear now that other material In
terests are trying 10 revive the doctrine of
strict construction for their own protection.
No recent expression OF the state rights theory
was perhaps so bold and radical as that con-
tanned in the Albany platform constructed for
the uses of the Hon. Alton B. Parker in his
canvass three years ago for the Democratic
Presidential nomination. That platform advO-
Gated a return TO Observation-Disclosures Jeffer-
sonianisn of the Virginia and Kentucky reso-
lutiOns. 1t was a protest-and understood to
be a protest-aganst the decision of the United
States Supreme Court in the Northern Securi-
ties case. 1t wanted to deny TO the federal
government any control OF corporations char
tered Dy 8 STATE. AS the champion OF THIS doc
trine Judge Parker appealed to the South and
won its support In the Democratic convention
He was eulogized by Southern Jeffersonians
like John Sharp Williams as "a fundamental
Democrat an anti-Federalist by nature"
Judge Parker's venture politically dlsas-
trous. He himself complained that the cor
poratons which he was trying to protect de
serted him. "Anti-Federallsm' went into re-
tIrement after the election OF 1904. Since then
Congress has passed by an almost unanimous
vote a measure regulating railroad rates and
President Roosevelt has been urging other leg
iSlatiOn looking TO the national regulation of
the interstate activities of corporations. If the
state rights doctrine is being again invoked
it is mainly in the hope that that doctrine can
be used as buffer by state chartered corpora
tons which do not wish TO have their inter
state activities subjected to restraint and regu-
lation. The Presidents analysis cannot be dis
puted. and ne is right In frankly calling atten-
ton 10 The purpose which the projected re
vival Of the state rights dogma is TO serve