The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1924-09-18

les and the complete and final sep.
aration of the colonies from the mo.
Their country-a period of suspicious
of riots, of disorders; period when
anarchy stalked through the new
country, when chaos threatened and
the confederation of colonies was on
the verge of collapse and complete
dissolution, when a fate worse than
the iron hand of autocracy was i'm
minent, because of the lack of sta
BILE, a rational, workable form Of
government. -. .-..
Muskets and the Declaration of In
dependence gave the colonies indie
pendence but it did not give them
government. The Declaration of In
dependence with its splendid enum-
Grafton of the inalienable rights Of
man, with its denunciation of auto
cracy and its pronouncement of the
broad principle that government
should derive its just powers from
the consent of the governed, would
have been nothing more than an emp
ty document of lofty and high-sound-
ing sentiments had not those rights
been protected and those principles
been given direction and application
in that greater document, the Con-
stitution of the United States of
America.
The writer's of the Declaration Of
Independence struck the hand of au-
tocrocy from America but it remain
ed for the trainers of the Constitu-
tion to determine what form of gov
eminent should take its place. This
determination was not reached hasti-
ly nor haphazzardly. The Constitu-
tion did not come into existence by
chance or accident. The best, the big
gest, the brainiest men of their time
labored day after day behind locked
doors. They wrote and they rewrote.
They worked, they planned, they ouc-
lined as they considered every con-
ceivable plan and form of govern
ment. There were differences of.
opinion, and debates, and disputes
which at times grew bitter and &C
rimonious. Following the draft of
the Constitution it's provisions were.
again studied and debated by the as
semblies of the several colonies.
Most, if not all, of the governmental
nostrums and isms which are being
urged today We're considered then
and discarded as unsafe and unsound
and incompatible with what the franz
ers of the Constitution conceived to
be the only workable and enduring
plan of self government.
The result was that the foundation
of this nation was laid down midway
between the perils of autocracy on
the one hand and the weaknesses of
pure democracy with its inherent
dangers of mobocracy, on the other.
The founders of the nation never in
tended that ours should be pure
democracy any more than they in
tended that it should be an autocracy.
They realized that it is impracticable
that the people should administer the
government directly. They provided
that the people should govern thru
and to that end the
Constitution was framed.
Every attempt to set aside repre-
sentative government and to substi-
tute pure democracy is in fact an
attempt to change the fundamentals
of the American plan of government.
In their wisdom the trainers of the
Constitution foresaw that if the con-
stitution were to stand as the safe
guard of American liberties it must
set up some agency for its own safe
guarding and preservation, and as
the Constitution was made the guar
antee of American liberty the Su-
preme Court of the United States
was made the guarantor of the con-
stitution. For one hundred and thir-
ty seven years the Constitution, safe
guarded by the Supreme Court, has
safeguarded the rights of the indivi-
dual citizen and protected him in the
practice of representative self gov
eminent. The proposal of the new
La Toilette party to divest the Su-
preme Court of its authority is the
beginning of political civil revo-
luton which will mean the abolition
of our constitutional form of gov
eminent and the destruction of the
principles of freedom declared by the
fathers who framed the Constitution
and founded this great republic.