The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-09-07

AS the constitution was adopted,
States rights" were not mentioned.
Washington was elected president;
congress was in session and the ma
tional government under way. The
tenth amendment came to quiet those
who were preaching the paradox that
the general government of all the peo-
pie would Cypress the people. Noisiest
of these was Patrick Henry, then gov
ernor of Virginia, who refused to at
tend the constitutional convention and
opposed the ratification of our funda-
mental law. Upon the embers of pro-
vincialism he threw the iniammable
brushwood of his excited rhetoric.
States Rights.
Being in the constitution, the states
rights provision is as valid as any other
amendment But such IS its origin and
spirit; and its misinterpretation never
must be permitted to nullify the ma
TONS interests, waste the nations re-
sources, plunge the nation into war or
prevent the general welfare of the
whole people Now, as always, the
danger has been not 90 much that the
nation will interfere with the rights of
the states, as that the states will inter-
fere with the rights oe the nation.
After the national government was
started it's first conflict with provin-
cialism was in the whisky rebellion in
Pennsylvania; the special interests who
ereignty defied the execution of the ma
TONS laws; but Washington put down
that first states rights rebellion in the
name of the government of all the
people.
Then came the resistance of special
interests to the laws of all the people
in Andrew Jackson's day The voice
of Jackson in his day, like the voice
of Washington in his day, was the
voice of united people against spe-
S@1I
of provincialism, sought to exploit all
the people.
Then came the special interests that
thrived on slavery and under the pro-
vincial Interpretation of states rights
sought to destroy the nation they could
not control. But the national spirit
responded to Abraham Lincoln'S call
to arms: and in the mightiest war of
history million bayonets again wrote
across our constitution these words of
the American peoples immortality:
This is a nation
Special interests were robbing and
corrupting the whole people by lot
teries; special interests were poison
ing morals with the leprosy of OBJ
scene literature. They existed under
state protection. The nation alone
could stop them. They denied the ma
toms right to interfere. But the ma
ton did stop them and the supreme
court sustained the nations power.
1t was the same with special inter-
ests that were selling diseased meats,
poisoned foods and adulterated drugs
to the masses; these special interests
again fought the nations effort to pro-
tect the nations people. Yet today
national laws shield the health and
lives of the people. These evils -four
ished under the provincial idea of the
people divided; they persisted under
the national idea of the people united.
And again today we see these two
ideas arrayed in battle for and against
the national control of corporate capt.
talization upon which so largely de-
pend just rates and prices to the PEG
pie.
Not only the ending of evils which
injured the people, but most of the
peoples progress has been won by the
national idea over the resistance of the
provincial idea. For example, Madison
vetoed the first internal improvement
BILL declaring in his veto message that
congress had no power to build roads,
dredge harbors,. improve waterways.
But the people needed these things that
they might trade and mingle and win
that prosperous happiness which come
only from being one people under one
flag. And so congress passed the in
ternal improvement bill over MadiSon's
veto and today no one questions the
nations power to make internal i'm
provements; today the only question is
work.
Disease Knows No State Lines.
For a hundred years the provincial
idea kept the quarantine of the nations
ports exclusively in the hands of the
states; but if pestilence entered at
port within one state it attacked the
people of other states. The germs of
yellow fever neither knew nor respect
ed state lines. And so the death of the
people in the past and their peril in the
future called for national quarantine
and states now are cooperating with
the nation.
And so the history of the American
people has been the narrative of the
making of the nation, the record of the
compounding Of people, the chronicle
of the knitting together of one great
brotherhood. We have had to end our
evils by united action; and each evil
ended has bound us closer together. We
have had to provide our safety and con-
venience acting as one people; and ev-
cry such effort has strengthened our
nationality. 1t is an inevitable process.
And it is a safe process for all except
those special interests who wrong or ex-
plot the whole people.
For the American people as a mass
can be trusted. The composite intelli-
gence and combined conscience of the
American people is the mightfest force
for wisdom and righteousness on all the
globe Special interests by the Various
devices of politics can control groups
of the people when divided; they cannst
control all the people when united.
And so special interests are always on
the side Of the provincialism of the peo-
Pile; always against the unity of the
people.
Affairs that exclusively concern the
people within a state are the problem