The Brunswick news. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 1906-2016, 1921-08-21
CHICKENS COME HOME TO
ROOST.

i WOODROW wilson ana MS admins
4 tration were the subject of severe
denunciation during the presidential
campaign of last year 1t came like
poison gas from the batteries of the
! Republican organization and much
Of it came unfortunately, from Dem.
ocratic guns. In all of this bitter
criticism of the Wilson sadministra.
| ton none was more severe than the
charge that the then President of the
United States had established in
Washington a! "one-man government. /"
In the Senate, on the stump, in the
Republican press and in that party
campaign literature the statement
was made time after time that Presi-
dent Wilson had sought to centralize
the government in his own hands, and
had overridden the Constitution by
setting aside Congress and all those
departments of the government in
which a large measure of initiative
and authority is supposed to repose.
The Wilson methods were charac-
terized as "high-handed.' They were
bitterly attacked by Lodge, Knox,
Johnson, Borah and other Republican
Senate leaders. The fact that the
country had a war to win, and that
Congress had delegated to the Pres
ident large powers not conferred on
him by the Constitution, did not save
him from unsparing denunciation in
one of the bitterest national cam.
paigns in the history of the country.
But is the present administration
showing any Improvement over what
1t denounced SO enthusiastically in
the administration it succeeded? Not
if those are to be believed who think
President Harding is beginning to see
his duties through Woodrow Wilson's
eyes.
Here, COR instance, lis something
which Forbes Magazine says on the
subject in the course of protest itl
makes against what 1t calls the Sub
stitution of men for laws" 1t says:
The American people should
squelch the insidious tendency Of
substituting men for laws. Pres
ident Harding, under the tariff
bill, asks for studendous power to
raise or lower tariff schedules as
he might see fit Secretary Of
the Treasury Mellon asked Con
gress to give him an entirely free
hand in handling everything con-
nected with the $10,000,000,000
owed us by foreign countries.
American importers under the
tariff bill. as drafted, were to be
placed at the mercy of apprais-
ers in this country, who were to
decide market value of certain
classes of imported goods, thus
preventing the American buyers
from being able to know what the
goods would actually cost him.
The method of enforcing prohibit
ton appears TO be left to the
judgment of each individual reve-
nue. official, with the result that
certain practices are held legiti-
mate in one district and illegiti.
mate in another district.
The United States should be
governed by clearly defined laws.
The delegation of unfettered pow
ers to individuals, no matter how
exalted. must be guarded against.
The citizen should know what his
rights mre under the law and
should not be subjected 10 the
caprice of any individual outside
the regular courts of justice. II
is bad enough to have the country
overrun with commission" OF
more variety than there were col
ors in Joseph's coat. To delegate
untrammeled power 10 any one
individual is not in accordance
with the American system of gov.
eminent and certainly not in ae-
cordance with the desires CT our
citizens