The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1917-09-15
OUR FIGHTING CONSTITUTION.

rascals, crooks and marplots have hid
den in past days.
1t is not surprising, now that we
iir in a great war, to hear many kinds
,i nr'n opposing our Stand and all TAX
lnr piuge by barking back to the con-
tun!ion. The narrow partisan fears
W" are violating the constitution by
conlerring too much power upon the
president. The narrow lcgalist fears
we are smashing the constitution
when we draft an army and send it
to foreign soil. The pro-German yelps
we are breaking the provisions of the
constitution when we do not ask
drafted man whether he is willing to
20 out of the countrys confines.
These constitution idolators are to
be found in the halls of congress, and
in the forums, where pacifist, |. W..
w., proc erman and other seditious
agitators spout their platitudes.
1t is, therefore, refreshing to read
a speech like that which Charles
Evans Hughes delivered before the
American Bar association. Whatever
one may think of Hughes as prcsi-
dental candidate, there is no doubt
he is an able lawyer. AS member OF
the United States supreme court it
was his special province to scan every
letter in that famous document and
to ponder it's meaning But in this
wartime period Hughes looks upon
the constitution 18th the eyes of a
loyal American cilizen who is anxious
to help and not hinder his country
in its task of smashing Germany. He
looks at the document with plain,
hard, common sense.
He finds it Is "a fighting constitu-
ton" as we'll as a peace-time constitu-
ton. He emphatically finds the faith
ers of the republic did not simply sit
down and contrive "a spectacle Of
imposing impotency." They dreamed
of country that would grow to great
ness and they framed measure which
would allow for every expansion and
every function of great state. They
knew nation that could not fight
would be powerless to secure the
blessings of liberty for posterity So
in the words of Hughes, the constitu-
ton gave the power to wage war and
1.-The power to wage war is the pow
er to wage it successfully"
Self-preservation being the first law
of national life, the constitution was
so drawn as to give the president and
congress the broadcast powers in war
time.
Hughes holds that the document
backs up the selective service law,
gives the national authorities full
power to send troops abroad, deals
with treason and other seditious ef-
forts, and allows for every kind of
regulation Of business, of food and
fuel distribution-all with an eye to
waging war successfully.
He finds ample justification for ev.
cry grant of great power to President
Wilson. Tie has little patience with
those who think the command of
armed forces and the conduct of cam.
pairns should be in charge of a coun
eli or that there should be division
Of responsibility, such as is constantly
urged by those in congress who want
a shopping committee similar to that
which was one of the greatest and
gravcst nuisances of Lincoln's many
wartime trials.
Such speech to such an assem-
blage of American lawyers was need
ed. 1t cleared the air. 1t will put a
stop to much learned twaddle both in
and out of congress. 1t will reassure
the timid that we are not in the midst
of a revolution and we are not Mexi-
canizing the country.
Effective conduct of war means
much power has to be centralized in
the hands of few men. They must
be men the nation can and does trust
There is no man it trusts more than
it's patient, sober-thinking, far-seeing,
patriotic and democratic president
The power lodged in his hands will
not be misused and it has not been
placed there by illegal methods. The
trainers of the constitution arranged
that it should be in the presidents
hands when the defense of the coun-
try demanded he be commander-in-
chief of the armed forces on land and
on sea.
The fathers of the republic wanted
the country to win it's wars, not to
lose them. And they didn't frame a
document whose paragraphs would
lend aid and comfort to the enemy
by hampering the men who have to
carry on our battles.