The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1922-11-24

cy is becoming one Of the great is
sues of the hour.
CENTURY OLD ISSUE.
The century-old controversy over
State sovereignty, which our fathers
and grandfathers thought settled by
war in which the nation was born
again, now rcappears to trouble the
present generation. But the old bat
tie lines have given way to new ones
our forehears would not recognize.
| Now Northerners call to Southern
ers to rise again in defense of State
rights from federal encroachments,
while Southerners join with NOT h
erners in justifying greater cGn-
tralization of government IN the
name Of progress.
Party lines have gone down COM
pletely before the issue in it's new
guise. There are Republicans who
stand forth IS more rampant State
Fighters than any Democrats nur-
tured in the tradition of John G.
Calhoun. There are Democrats who,
in consigning State rights to the OBJ
liVion of outworn theories, yiel
nothing to Republicans reared in the
school of Daniel Webster
Some there are who think the is
sue destined to figure prominently in
the 1924 Presidential election, while
others conjure forth vision of the
new State rights question splitting
the old parties and forming new
ones.
Looking backward they note the
prohibition, negro enfranchisement
and and woman suffrage amendments
to the constitution, the Mann White
Slave, public health, anti-lottery,
pure food, anti-narcotic drug, trade
commission, oleomargarine, meat in
spection, packing house control, farm
loan, grain exchange regulation and
Adamson railway labor acts, and de-
clare that we already have gone far
along the road leading away from
the division of authority between the
National and State governments con-
ceived by the fathers.
INDIRECT ENCOURAGEMENT.
They see indirect, but insidious
Federal encroachment in laws pro-
viding for national participation in
the construction of highways, for
protection of children, for co-opera-
tive vocational education and re-
of persons disabled in
industry, for aids to agriculture, for |
and infancy care, for pro-
motion of social hygiene, for protec-
ton of women in industry, and for
other local purposes.
They perceive with apprehension,
efforts to obtain national legislation
to suppress child labor, to promote
to compel local enforce
ment of anti-lynching laws, to regu-
late marriage and divorce, to censor
moving pictures, books and news
papers, to suppress gun-toting, to en-
force observance of the Sabbath day,
to suppress gambling and to achieve
other purposes, falling
within the province of State regula-
ton.
How far, they ask, do we intend
to go in the direction Of the central
ization of government. If we keep
on, the fundamental principle of the
will be destroyed, the
between Federal AMI
State powers will be wiped out, the
State governments will grow weak
and fiabby through disuse of their
powers and ct last the States will
fade from the picture"
"a government from Washington,
by commission, says Senator Borah
(Idaho), reduced to its last analy-
lis, is no different from a government
oy satrapies from Rome And simply
because the people of the States do
lot see fit at any particular time to
exercise the powers reserved for
hem, that is in itself nc justification
or the general government to exer-
Use these powers :