Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1912-02-24


Approves Initiative and Referendum,
Direct Nominations and Popular
Election of Senators.
Columbus, O.. Feb. 21.--Col. Roose-
velt this morning spoke by invitation
before the constitutional convention
now assembled here. In his address
ne spoke as follows
Mr.. President ana Members Of til
Ohio Constitutional Convention:
/ 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 a 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 a higher task To carry 1t through
successfully there is need to combine
practical common sense of the most
hard headed kind with a spirit of lofty
idealism.
/ believe in pure democracy. With
Lincoln / hold that this country, 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 themselves and their own well
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 1t 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 one of the
great battles of the age long contest
waged against privilege on behalf of
the common welfare We hold 4 O
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
ural advantages and that 1t will help
the people little to conserve our nat
'ural wealth unless the benefits which
1t can yield are secured to the people.
Let US remember also that conserva-
ton does not stop with the natural re-
sources, but that the principle of max
ing the best use of all we have re-
quires with equal or greater insistence
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
eagerness for profit blinds them to the
cost of what they do. We have no
higher duty than to promote the eff
cheney of the individual. There is no
'surer road to the efficiency of the ma
ton.
Power Is the Peoples.
] am emphatically believer In con-
stitutionalism, and because of this fact
no less emphatically protest against
any theory that would make of the
constitution a means of thwartlng in
stead of securing the absolute right of
the people to rule themselves and to
provide for their own social and In
dustrial Wei being. All constitutions,
those Of tie 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
terpreted and administered the ma
tional constitution. Buchanan at
tempted the reverse, attempted to fiji
human rights to and limit them by
the constitution. 1t was Buchanan
who treated the courts as q fetish,
who 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 adj
vocated and secured what was prac-
tically the recall Of the bred Scott de-
clsion and who treated the constitu-
ii as a living force for righteous
mes. We stand for applying the con-
81 trtion % the i7eces OF today as Lin
c, applied = ~ the Issues Of his day.