The evening star and Newark advertiser., 1907-10-02
ROOSEVELTO ON CANALS And CONSTITUTION

WI NAS = \ \ ~ n 1OA
Atlantic The best place for a naval off,
Ger to learn his duties is at sea, by per-
forming them, and only by actually put
ting through q voyage of this nature,
voyage longer than any ever before under
taken by as large a fleet of any nation,
can we find out just exactly what is neces
sary for us to know as to our naval needs
and practise our officers and enlisted mcA
| in the highest duties of their profession.
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
/ of the army and navy of the United States.
and | bespeak from you the fullest and
heartiest support, in the name of our ma
| ton and of our flag, for the services TO
which these men belong.
I'm conclusion l wish to say a word to
| this body, containing as it does so many
| business men, upon what is prominently
| a business proposition, and that is the
proper national supervision and control of
corporations. At the meeting of the Ameri-
can Bar Association in this last August,
Judge Charles f. Amidon, of North
Dakota, read paper on the nation and
| the constitution SO admirable that it Is
| deserving of very wide study; for what he
said was, as all studies of law In It's
highest form ought to be, a contribution
| to constructive Jurisprudence 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 1t and who administer or execute it.
He quoted from the late Justice Miller, of
| the Supreme Court, to show that even in
| the Interpretation of the constitution by
this. the highest authority of the land,
| the courts successive decisions must be
| tested by the way they work in actual ap--
| plication 10 the national life; the court
| adding to its thought and study the re-
| suits of experience and observation until
| the true solution is evolved by a process
| both of inclusion and exclusion. Said JUS
| flee Miller: The meaning Of the constitu-
1 Al fey 10 4,
| tional life as In the dictlonary; for, as
| has been well said, government purely out
! of law library can never be really good
| government.
| Now that the questions of government
are becoming so largely economic, the ma
ljority of our so-called constitutional cases
really turn out upon the Interpretation of
the instrument itself, but upon the con-
struction, the right apprehension Of the
living conditions to which 1t is to be ap-
piled. The Constitution is now and must
remain what It always has been; but it
can only be interpreted as the interests
of the whole people demand II Interpreted
as living organism, designed to meet the
conditions OF life and not of death; in
other words, If interpreted as Marshall In
terpreted It, as Wilson declared it should
be interpreted. The Marshall theory the
theory of life and not of DEATH allows to
the nation. that is to the people as a whole.
when once It finds a subject within the
national cognizance, the widest and freest
choice of methods for national control, and
sustains every exercise of national power
which has any reasonable relation to ma
tional objects The negation Of this theory
means, for instance that the nation-that
we, the ninety millions of people in this
country-will he left helpless to control the
huge corporations which now domincer In
our industrial life, and that they will have
The authority of the courts to work their
desires unchecked; and such a decision
would in the end be as disastrous for them
as for us. If the theory of the Marshall
lE on f1ald faf
national power, now unused, will be de-
lveoped. which will be adequate for deal
ing with many, II not all, of the economic
problems which vex us; and we shall be
saved from the ominous threat of n con-
stant oscillation between economic tyranny
and economic chaos. Our Industrial, and
therefore our social, future as a nation
depends upon settling Alright this urgent
question.
p "The Constitution is unchanged and un-
| changeable save by amendment in due
/ form. But the conditions to which 1t is to
be applied have undergone change which
ls almost transformation, with the result
that many subjects formerly under the
control OF the States have come under the
control of the nation. As one of the JUS
| tiees of the Supreme Court has recently
| said: The growth of national powers,
under our Constitution, which marks mere
ly the great outlines and designates only
the great objects of national concern, is
to be compared to the growth of a country
/ not by the geographical enlargement of its
boundaries, but by The increase of its
population A hundred years ago there
was, except the commerce which crawled
along our seacoast or up and down our
interior waterways. practically no inter-
state commerce. Now by the railroad the
malls the telegraph and the telephone an
immense part Of our commerce, is inter-
state. By the transformation It has es-
capped from the power of the State and
come under the power of the nation. There
1ore there has been great practical
change in the exercise of the national
power, under the acts of Congress, over
/ interstate commerce; while on the other
hand there has been no noticeable change
In the exercise of the national power to
regulate commerce with foreign nations
and with the Indian tribes The change
rs regards interstate commerce has been.
not in the Constitution, but in the busl-
ness of the people to which 1t is to be ap-
Piled. Our economic and social future de-
pends IN very large part upon how the
Interstate commerce power of the nation
Is Interpreted
Il believe that the nation has the whole
governmental power over interstate COM
merce and the widest discretion in dealing
with that subject; Of course under the ex-
press limits prescribed in the Constitution
t lor the exercise OF an powers, such for in
stance as the condition that due process
OF law shall not be denied The nation
has no direct power over purely jntrastate
commerce even where it is conducted by
The same agencies which conduct inters "a to
commerce The courts must determine
what Is national and what is State COM
merce. The same reasoning which sus-
tained the power OF Congress- to incor-
porate the United States bank tends 10
sustain the power to incorporate an inter-
state railroad. or any other corporation con-
ducting an interstate business.
There are difficulties arising from our
dual form of government Il they prove
to be insuperable resort must be had 10
the power of amendment. Let us first try
| TO meet them by an exercise of all the
powers of the national government which
in the Marshall spirit of broad interpreta-
tion can be found in the Constitution as
it is. They are OF vast extent The chief
economic question of the day in this coun-
try is to provide a sovereign for the great
corporations engaged in interstate busi-
ness that is. for the railroads and the
interstate industrial corporations At the
] moment our prime concern is with the
railroads. When railroads were first built
they were purely local in character. Their
boundaries were not coeXtensive even with
the boundaries of one State. They usually
| covered but two or three counties All thfs
| has now changed. A present five great
systems embody nearly four-ffths of the
| total mileage of the country. All the most
important railroads are no longer State
roads, but instruments of interstate COM
merce. Probably So per cent. of their busi-
ness is interstate business. 1t is the ma
tion alone which can with wisdom Justice