The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1921-02-09
BACK TO THE CONSTITUTION

Governor Hadec told the state editors at Tampa
H., cbcr day Thai a big field awaited their efforts in
masking statewide the slogan back to the constitution,
with the aim OF eliminating the costly commissions and
inspection departments which have attempted to usurp
the powers of the legislature.
So far as the Telegram IS concerned it gladly well
comes the leadership of the governor in this fight If
he can reverse the tendency and federal govern
ments to delegate legislative authority 10 commissions he
will perform service to the world second only that
rendered by the first constitutional convention.
Fortunately The south has in a large measure escaped
the commission mania Governor Harding can still refer
tic the situation as an attempt to usup legislative func-
items In other staies Oregon, Kansas, Wisconsin, for
example, they have carried beyond the attempt"
stage. They have cut the Gordan knot of constitutional
lmiation--thrown into the discard the good old MAXIM
deegatus potes delegare- created special gov
ernag bodies which exercise all the functions of egis
ative. executive and judicial authority.
This system, heraded as the Wisconsin Idea or
the Oregon Idea" and labeled reform" is frankly
German in its origin. 1t differs from the American, or
AngoSaxon, system of government in this particular:
1t substitutes government by personal order for govern
ment by written law.
IN Wisconsin any one or a dozen commissions can
issue orders which have all the force of legislative en-
actmen he idea took in the federal government
long before the late war; the argument of its advocates al
ways being its superior efficiency, and the shining ex-
ample the Imperial German government, where it
aoushed in all its native wgor. War legislation was
based largely upon that principle
he idea is still in the ascendcncy in the nation and
scarcely state Is exempt from its influence. Florida,
however, though threatened and in danger still on the
safe side An act of the Florida legislature comforting
any extra constitutional body the authorities conferred
by Wisconsin its labor or railroad commission would
undoubtedly be declared unconstitutional by the supreme
court.
But in the progressive states the courts have been
commissioned we'll the legislatures In the state
of Wisconsin there not less than forty five commits
sions all acting under judicial sanction.
hese commissions are making legislatures obsolete
hey placing the executive power under score of
different heads They putting the financial resources
CT the states and the nation at the disposition of boards
in the creation and control of which the public has no
voice They setting up a bureaucratic despotism
modelled after that most efficient example of modern
tines, the regime established by Prince Bismarck in Ger
many, which made that nation the most efficient
TIC most tyIannica and the most dangerous power on
ce'ih. They are poisoning The spring of Ango-Saxon~
liberty which otha inspiration of the fathers of the
country, and the only genuine hope of its future Let
the hit this imported as hard as he can
and his support this paper prepared to go as far as
who gees farthest.'