The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1921-04-29
NATION IS ONCE
MORE REPUBLIC
Executive and Legislative Branches
Will Remain Separate According
to Presidents Ruling.

Washington, April 26.--"A recent
one more impressive and encouraging
demonstration of the restoration Of
constitutional government" asserts
the Republican Publicity Association
in a statement issued today through
the President, of tina organization
Hon. Jonathan Bourne, Jr. The state
ment continues,
Senator Mccormick and Represen-
tative Good recently engaged in a
friendly dispute as to whether the
budget bureau to be provided for by
Congress should be directly under the
President or located in the Treasury
Department. Thinking to avoid a
more general controversy when their
bills came before congress-, they de-
cided to put the question up to Mr..
Harding. But President Harding
courteously declined to act as arbiter
and requested the two solons to reach
an agreement between themselves,
which they proceed to do, and the in
dications are that the new bill will
provide that the budget bureau shall
be located in the Treasury Depart
ment, both its director and assistant
director to be appointed by the Presi-
dent and confirmed by the Senate. The
Secretary of the Treasury will have
little connection with the work of the
budget bureau, according to the present
plan.
"The incident shows Mr.. Harding's
adherence to the policy of hands off
so far as the legislative branch of
the Government is concerned. There
is to be no coercion of the legisla-
tive by the executive into ~prostesting
acquiescence in its demands. That
was gently, but forcibly, intimated by
Mr.. Harding in his first address to
Congress, when he said, in suggesting
a resolution which should undertake
to do no more than thus to declare
the state of peace
ut would be unwise to undertake
to make a statement of future policy
with respect to European affairs in
such a declaration of a state of peace.
In correcting the failure of the eXecu-
tive, in negotiating the most import
ant treaty in the history of the ma
ton, to recognize the constitutional
powers of the Senate, we would go
to the other extreme, equally objec-
tionaI, if Congress or the Senate
should ssum the function Of the eX-
ecutive. Our highest duty is the pre-
%servation of the constituted powers of
each, and the promotion of the spirit
of cooperation so essential to our
common welfare
ITO the younger generation of
Americans such language may seem
strange, such an attitude constrained.
Within the period Of their political
consciousness they are unable to recall
anything like these manifestations of
regard for one of the great basic
principles underlying American Con-
stitutional Government, namely, the
separation of it's three branches-eX-
ecutive, legislative, and judicial-a
trinity of function with of
purpose-the liberty of the individual.
Yet that principle has been %contended
for since organized government mark
ed the first step in civilization; and
since that day, over 700 years ago,
when the Tyrant John bowed to the
barons at Runnymede, and guaran-
iced the principle in Magma Charta,
it has found it's highest development
in the governmental evolution of the
Anglo-Saxon race. The three branches
have frequently contended for SUI
premacy but the principle has never
been forgotten.
GIN recent years in America the
struggle for supremacy has been wag-
ed between the Legislative and the ex-
ecutive, with the vast powers of pa
tronage of the latter ever weakening
the moral fiber of the former, until
by 1918 Congress was but the stink
ing vassal of the dictator. All this
is to be changed, not by reaction, but
by the restoration to each branch of
its constitutional dignity. We are a
Republic once more"