The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1914-01-29
CENTRALIZING POWER


the Nation at the present time, is not
trust control, the money power lurid
newspaper scribes or undertaking
magazine writer's, in exaggerated Ian
guage call to the attention of the poo
pie, but it. is the taking away of the
law-making power from the repre-
sentatives elected by the people for
that purpose and centralizing it into
hands of executive and judicial Off
Gals and appointive commissions.
Yellow newspapers and sensation
creating magazines have rallied at our
Legislative bodies so persistently and
viciously, have hailed their converting
as a calamity and their adjournment
as blessing so long that reputable
publications have fallen in line and
the people, who always follow the
lead of. the press, have come to regard
Legislators and legislation enacted by
them as a menace to, rather than a
protector of their rights and privil-
eyes.
Legislators are but human, and like
all humans they are not fond of re-
sponsibility and finding it popular,
have more and more surrendered their
legislative powers to the executive
and judiciary, and to appointed COM
missions until at the present time we
have much more executive, judicial
and commission made law than we do
law enacted by the legislators elected
by the people for the purpose of en-
acting their laws.
The powers of the executive and
judicial officials are fixed by the con-
stitutions of the states and the nation.
The constitutional idea was that the
executive was purely law enforcing
department, and the judicial purely
law interpreting department and the
thousand and one commissions that
have been created by modern legisla-
ton, suggested by, interests, who de
sired to remove the lawmahng power
as far as possible from the people and
centralize it in the hands of few,
and supinely adopted by legislative
bodies DESTROYS of stunning response
bility and avoiding work, are legisla-
tive creations purely and have no con-
stitutional authorization whatever.
The President of the United States
can today put every appointive Off
cial in the nation under the civil ser
vice, withdraw them all, transform
every foot of the public domain into
forest reservations and perform var
ious other purely legislative acts en-
trey Independent of Congress and all
modern Presidents have exercised
this power to greater or less extent,
performing legislative functions
which if they had been attempted by
the earlier Presidents, would have
produced revolution or brought about
impeachment proceedings.
The present postal laws authorize
the Postmaster General to increase
the weight of packages that can be
carried by the parcels post up to TWEEN
ty tons or more if he should deem it
desirable, and the Congress, who were
elected by the people, have voluntarily
tied their hands so that they are pow
erless to Interfere. The only re-
course they have is to repeal the law.
One might study the tariff laws
until he is blue in the face, and be
able to repeat the entire tariff statues
as accurately as an Episcopalian rect
or can the Lords prayer and yet, let
him import a lot Of goods, and ten
chances to one when he enters them
at the customs, he will run up against
a Treasury regulation" promulgated
by the Secretary of the Treasury, on
his own authority, Of which he never
heard Of before and which the legis-
lative body Of the nation never
authorized.
In fact legislative bodies have de-