The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-06-04

preserving this function, this priv- lege, this right. can we preserve our free institutions. our honorable devel- opment-and here in the south, our civilization itself
 Let me point out where this amend ment mutilates the American pro- sramme, wherein it violates the one principle of our constitutional system. which is essential to our development and happiness
 I will not remind you of the views of the founders of this republic They were carried into the constitution and have Justified themselves by 150 years of phe- nomenal evolution and progress We do not stand solely upon the prophecies of the past although they have been full filled We subject our position to the tests of today and to the tasks of the tuture. That the rigid constitutional prohibition to the whole people of na- ton upon any subject of social hygiene is unsclentific, dangerous and undemo- cratic and that the state system cannot be carved down without menace to lib- erty and progress are demonstrable not only by the experience and fulfilled prophecies of the past, but by the best opinion and experience of today
 VIEWS OF PRESIDENT
 The commander-in-c chief of the Ameri- can army and navy. the twice elected President of the American people and the foremost statesman of his time may we'll be quoted. You may differ with his views on political strategy in the matter of federal suffrage, compelled by appreciation of it's necessity in keep ing the democratic party in power and a responsive and cooperative Congress behind the administration during the war, but you cannot deny that his ma ture and repeated convictions on the resation Of the states to the national government are authoritative and ex- pressive of the living thought of today
 'The states are not administrative di- visions, but constituent members of the union, coordinate with the union in their powers, in no sense subject to it in their appropriate spheres. Their functions arc exercised, on the contrary, upon the completed principles of self-direction. They stand nearest the people in the reg ulation of all their racial and legal rela- tionships. They are the chief creators of law among us. They are not only the chief constitutional units of our political system, but are also self-directive units Upon the character of the state govern ments depends the character of the na- tion.
 "All the civil and religious rights of our citizens depend upon the state legis- lation; the education of the people is in the care of the states: with them rests the regulation of the suffrage: they pre- scribe the rules of marriage, and the legal relationship of husband and wife, of parent and child; they determine the powers of masters over servants and the whole law of principal and agent, which is so vital a matter in all busl- ness transactions; they regulate partner ship, debt and credit and insurance; they constitute all corporations, both private and municipal, except such as specially fulfill the financial or other specific functions of the federal government: they control the possession, distribution and use of property, the exercise of trades and all contract relations they formu- late and administer all criminal law. ex- cept only that which concerns crimes committed against the United States, on the high seas or against the law of na- tions. Only two out of the dozen great est subjects which have engaged the public mind in England during the nine teenth century would have come within the power of the federal government under the constitution as it stands
 FOR WHOLE COUNTRY
 'The federal government can make but one rule. and that rule for the whole country, in each act of it's legislation and yet it's chief powers touch just those subjects of economic interest in which the several sections of the country feel themselves most unlike.
 We believe in the exercise of the federal powers to the utmost extent wherever it Is necessary that they should be brought into action for the common benefit. But We do not believe the in- vention of federal powers either neces- sary or desirable. l object to anything that weakens the essential government units. It is not going to further repre- sentative government to weaken state functions by loading on the federal gov ernment powers which do not properly belong to 1t. Nor is that necessary
 And mark, finally, this great century, old truth. restated by the President: Liberty has never come from the gov- ernment. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of lib- erty is history of resistance. The his- tory of liberty is a history of the limita- ton of governmental power, not the in crease of it. When we resist, therefore when I. as a democrat resist--the con- centration of power, I am resisting the procaSsea If death hecar9a coneanfra