The Manchester journal. [volume] (Manchester, Vt.) 1861-current, 1917-12-27

kind Of a liquor law Vermont sha
have, then Utah, Arizona, South Care
, lima, New Mexico, or Maine, alon
! with other states can join with the dc
, feated minority in Vermont and pass
prohibition law right over the heads 0
the majority at home. Would an
man, however friendly TO prohibitio
in principle, actually dare TO put tha
proposition to me in that way? o
course he would rot, and yet that
just the effect Of the proposition tha
is made in the argument that / shoul,
vote for the resolution.
! When Vermont wants to surTeade
her rights to make her own liquo
laws, and give that power over to tn
federal government entirely. there viii
be no doubt in the minds of the peopl,
of the First Congressional District a!
to their intention about it, and they
will be able to fird a way to express
that sentiment to their representa-
tives in Congress by their votes. And
if | understand Vermont character
they will begin it by adopting pro-
hibition law themselves. | am just
proud enough Of Vermont's sense of
fair play to believe that her people
will never try to force prohibition on
the whole nation until they have signi-
fled their willingness to live under the
same law themselves right at home.
Instead of that, their last official
message TO me and to the country was
that they approved the local option
principle as means of getting at
some solution of the admitted evils of
the liquor problem. Now, let me ask
this: If this state is willing that each
one of her towns shall settle the liquor
traffic question for itself, regardless Of
what any other town does about it, is
it not, then, the undeniable logic Of
the situation that the state intends to
assert as much right for herself as
she gives to any one of her towns, and
that Vermont claims the freedom to
exercise her own option among the
states and have their own liquor law
for herself regardless of what laws
each or any of them may have for
themselves?
| am not arguing whether Vermont
is going to change her mind about
this, or whether she ought to do so.
That is not a part Of nay business now
in this present issue. am called up
on to represent the ianirest viii Of
the First Congressional District as /
understand in and interpret it. And /
have TO take the last official returns Of
the vote of the citizens at the polls,
when, as in this case, the people al
home have all the machinery they need
to express their will on the subjec' |
any time they want to do so.
am opposed to the adoption of the
resolution at this time because it pro
poses to write a statute law into our
organic law where statute laws do not
belong. The Federal Constitution was
designed to establish and declare the
fundamental principles upon which
this government is founded and upon
which all statutes shall be passed and
by which they shall be tested and
proved by the courts. There is no leg
islation of this kind in the Constitu
tion and it was not meant that there
should be any. Once open the door OF
the Constitution to this practice, or
rather. once batter down the walls that
have stood against it for over a cen
tury and quarter, and let such laws
as this become part of the organic
law of the land and thus pass out from
popular control or change
and modification from tine TO time as
necessity arises, we shall see every
kind of theory and ism clamoring for
its place in the Constitution, too, and
making headway toward it through
this breach in the walls that prohibi
tion has made.
Do the voters Of the First Congress
sional District want me to help begin
The practice Of opening up the Consti-
lou to this kind of thing? Do they
want this precedent set now at this
lime and in this way, so that, after
he .sar, for instance, when the tumult
If the struggle for radical changes in
policy and laws is upon
is rs never before in the history Of the
and. we shall be ir danger of ultra
Socialism writing its dreams into the
,rgan:c law, we may see the Consti-
ution forbiddiag any mar anywhere
my time TO work more than eight
Iou-s 2 day, and nobody knows how
many other things of character that ,
nay be meritoricus in some degree as
statue for time, perhaps, but thai Z
re not fundamental principles Of !
uman liberty or the philosophy Of I
ivil government, ard cannot pretend {