The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-02-21
A CHAKltK OF
 DEK OCRACY.
ROGSeVeIt'S Address Before the Ohio Constitutional Convention
FGVCRS RECALL OF JUDGES.


 Election of Senators.
 MT President and Members of the
 Ohio Constitutional Convention:
 I am profoundly sensible of the hon. or you have done me in asking me to address you. You are engaged in the fundamental work Of self government. / You are engaged in framing consti- tuition under and in accordance with which the people are to get and to do justice and absolutely to rule them selves. No representative body can have higher task. To carry 1t through successfully there is need to combine practical common sense of the most bard headed kind with a spirit of lofty idealism.
 believe in pure democracy. With Lincoln hold that i-'thi seeountry. with its institutions. belongs to the people who inhabit it Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing govern ment they can exercise their constitu- tional right of amending it." We pro gressives believe that the people have the right the power and the duty to protect thenIselv and their own wei fare; that human rights are supreme over all other rights: that wealth should be the servant, not the master, of the people. We believe that unless representative government does abso- lutely represent the people it is not representative government at all. We test the worth of all men and all meas ures by asking how they contribute to the welfare of the men, women and children of whom this nation is com posed We are engaged in one. of the hot NF ,oe-E waged against privilege on behalf of the common welfare. We hold it a prime duty of the people to free our government from the control of money in politics.
 This country, as Lincoln said, be- longs to the people. So do the natural resources which make it rich They supply the basis of our prosperity now and hereafter. In preserving them. which Is national duty, we must not forget that monopoly is based on the control of natural resources and nat uraI advantages and that 1t will hell the people little to conserve our nat uraI wealth unless the benefits whicI 1t can yield are secured to the people Let us remember also that conserva tion deas. not stop with the natural TO sources, but that the principle of mak ing the best uss of all we have re qbifes with equal OF greater lnsisteDcC that we shall stop the waste Of human life in industry and prevent the waste of human welfare which flows from the unfair use of concentrated power and wealth in the hands of men whose eage~.ess for profit blinds them to the cost of what they do. We have no higher duty than to promote the eff ciency of the individual There is no surer road to the efficiency of the na- ton
 Power Is the Peoples.
 am emphatically a believer in con stitutionalisTu, and because of this fact I no-tess emphaticaIly- protest against any theory that would make of the constitution a means of thwarting in stead of securing the absolute right of the people to rule themselves and to provide for the;r own social and in- dustrial well being. All constitutions. those of the states no less than that of the nation. are designed and must be interpreted and administered so as to fit human rights. Lincoln so in terp. eted and administered the na- tionsl constitution. Buchanan at tempted the reverse, attempted to fit human rights to and limit them by the constitution. It was Buchanan who treated thei courts as a fetish. ws1o protested against and condemned all criticism of the judges for unjust and unrighteous decisions and upheld the constitution as an instrument for the protection of privilege and of vest ed wrong It was Lincoln who ap- pealed to the people against the judges when the judges went wrong, who ad- vocated and secured what was prac- tically the recall of the Dred Scott de- cision and who treated the constitu- tion as living force for righteous ness We stand for applying the con stitution to the issues of today as Lin coin applied it to the issues of his day. Lincoln. mind you, and not Buchanan, was the zeal upholdeT and preserver of the constitution, for the true pro- gressive, the progressive of the Lin coin stamp, is the only true constitu- tionalist. the only real conservative. If the constitution is successfully in voked to nullify the effort to remedy injustice it is proof positive either that the constitution needs immediate amendment or else that it is being wrongfully and improperly construed. I therefore very earnestly ask you clearly to provide in this constitution means which will enable the people readily to amend it if at any point it works injustice and also means which will permit the people themselves by popular vote. after due deliberatioI and discussion, but finally and with put appeal, to settle what the prope construction of any constitutions point Is. It Is often said that ours government of checks and balance 1 But this should only mean that the : checks and balances obtain as arnor the several different kinds of repr sentatives of the people-judicial, e ecutive and legislative-to whom Il people have delegated certain portion of their power It does not mean tn. the people have parted with their pow CT or cannot resume It. The ''divisiol Of naMers, Is merely the division