The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1921-02-25
DANGEROUS TENDENCY.

ers of the states, it's assumption of
control over highways, public health
and education, to ultimately destroy
our form of government and make it
4 pure paternalismv or bureaucracy
rather than that union OF sovereign
Itates designed bv the founders of the
'epublic? 1t would seem that this is to
be the fate of our great structure of
free government. Instead of a con.
federacy Of Independent states, reserv.
ing to themselves all powers not ex.
pressly granted to the general govern
Inent, each competing with the other
n the arts of civilization and the ways
Of progress, the state lines are to be
,bliterated and everything is to be
lone according to orders from Wash.
'ngton.
Already the federal government is
thriving for uniformity and absolute
control of the federal highways, brib
ing the states into acquiescence by lib
sral subsidies conditioned on the sur
render of all authority to the central
power. AS a result we have witnessed
in this and other counties a wild, mad
scramble. to get share of the bounty
Of the federal government and slav-
ish willingness to submit to any terms
that favored ones might be assured a
share in the prodigal liberality of the
federal bureau. Formerly we did
these things through private and COM
munity initiative and enterprise, now
our whole reliance is on the central
authority at Washington. No matter
what we may desire we rush to Wash
ington to get it.
Only recently the senate passed a
bill that will ultimately meana stand
ard health policy and the central.z-
ing in the powers at Washington of all
control over the private habits of free
citizens. Now it is proposed through
IN education bill to have standards
Ind uniformity of thought and speech
and education. Every one believes il
public education, certainly no one
more than The Herald. but it is un-
alterably opposed to the German sys-
tenn, which up to the great war was
the admiration of scholars all over the
world, but which in the end proved to
be genuine hells broth.
Senator King, of Utah, democrat
of the old school, recently made these
very striking and forceful observa-
tions on the socalled Smith-Towner
bill which must find hearty approval
in the mind of every democrat who be,
lieves in the fundamental principles
upon which our republic was founded
and without which it cannot survive.
Said Senator King;
"The senator from North Carolina
knows that If we establish this federal
agency to aid in education, those
safeguards in time will be thrown
off and there will be established in
washington an autocrat.c power that
will standardize and bureaucratize and
reduce to dead-level uniformity the
educational system of the states of
the union. Not only that; it will not
be content with standardizing educa-
ton, of securing uniformity in edu-
cational activities, but it will stand
ardize the thoughts in people, and If
the people in the senator's state are
not in harmony with the federal sys-
tenn of thought, then they will be de-
MED appropriations, or pressure will
be brought by the federal government
to compel the people of the state to
renounce views which are regarded
as heretical. We are to have an or.
thodox educational system and eel.
lular uniformity in the social and po-
pitical structure. Germany standard.
lied everything her phi ;losophy final
" produced uniformity and pernicious
policies.
"a paternalistic government cannot
survive when individuality and free
dom abound. A bureaucratic govern
ment is impossible WITHOUT uniformity
in administrative as well as in the
substantive matters. We standardize
our public buildings. our ships, our
federal policies, and shall we do as
Prussia did The German conferation
destroyed the. power and vitality Of
the German states; but 1t built up a
military autocracy that sought to
crush the world.
THE progress of the world comes
from heterogeneity. rather than from
homogeneity. What is needed is not
protoplasmic masses. but active con-
testing units. The civilizing force of
Christianity is found in the doctrine
that each individual holds his destiny