The Washington herald., 1916-01-18
Justice Hughes, Reactionary.

Justice Hughes, in address before the New
York State Bar Association, last Friday night,
sounded note which may do more to discourage
the Progressves who have announced him as their
candidate for the Republican Presidential nomina-
tion than all his protests against conseription for
the place The justice took rather old-fashioned
conservative position, which when taken by other
public men in recent years. has brought down upon
them the charge of being reactionaries. 1t may
be that we have progressed enough to allow Justice
Hughes to put the brakes without losing his
standing with the Western Progressives, but he
is either taking risk or deliberately placing a
strong barrier between himself and Presidential
nomination.
The justice suggested that we have been going
too fast toward Capitalization and that we ought
TO have greater restrictions against special and
private legislation. He urged the development in
local communities of a sense of civic response
bility which will lead to entrusting each munich
pality with the of its purely local affairs
under rules OF its own making. Could anything
be more old-fashioned or reactonary than that
suggestion at a time when many good people
look to Congress to regulate all the affairs of the
universe, both church and state?
But the justice went farther, saying that our
dual system of government is being subjected to
a new and severe strain, with Congress constantly
defining its scope of legislation by reference the
commerce clause of the Constitution. He declared
that IAN overcentralized government would break
down of its weight" and, 'if we did not have
the States, should speedily have to create
them" He made an old-fashioned plea for the
preservation of dual system of government
which sounded strangely in this progressive era.
In fact it reads like Thomas Jefcrson's warning
in his old age. After his satiaton of public life
he sat down to write his autobiography. In that
Democratic Bible, Jefferson warned against the
same dangers, saying: 1T is not by the conso-
daton or concentration of powers, but by their
distribution that good government is effected.
Were not this country already divided into States,
that division must be made that each might do
for itself what concerns it chiefly and what it
State is again divided into counties, each to take
care OF what lies within its local bounds; each
county again into townships or wards, to manage
minute details; and every ward into farms, to be
governed by its individual proprietor Were we
directed from Washington when to SOW and when
to reap should soon want bread. 1t is by
this partition of cares descending from general to
particular that the OF human affairs may be
best managed for the good and prosperity of all /"
We had almost forgotten Jefferson's warning
but few years ago Uncle Joe Cannon, in his old
fashioned way, sounded the warning anew only
to be denounced as a mossback reactionary wholly
out of touch with the spirit of progress which was
then travelling with the speed of tornado and
the gyratons of whirwind, demanding more law
and more power to the President and less liberty
to the citizens. Senator Elihu Root fell under the
same ban when he courageous enough to fol-
low in the wake of Uncle Joe and warn the States
not to surrender their functions to the Federal
government under the seduction of appropriations
the local authorities
The experience Of Uncle Joe and Senator Root
discouraged further expressions of old-fashioned
notions Of government by statesmen who desired
to be popular, and have been running riot to-
ward Capitalization, not only in regulation and
Appropriation, but in the of taxing power, un-
til there appears to be awakening to the danger
of the national government invading the revenue
preserves of the States. Gov. Mccall, Of Massa-
chusetts, last week in his address to the legis-
lature sounded warning, and now comes
Justice Hughes-Ining himself up with the reac-
tionares just when the progressive wing OF the
Republican party and the real Progressives are
insisting that he is the only Republican who is
progressive enough to defeat President Wilson
Has Justice Hughes deliberately and with malice
punctured his Presidential boom?