The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1933-06-07
Revolutionaries in WASHINGTON
Chicago Tribune)

The federal constitutional conven-
ton in 1857 decided not to include a
specific prohibition that congress was
not to "emit bills Of credit" Coinage
OF money meant the stamping Of
pieces OF metal of q stated value as
tokens. The constitution makers
wanted to prohibit the issuance of any
other kind of national money because
they had been through an experience
with continental scrip. They hesitat-
ed to prohibit, having q fear that
their vision Of the future might not
be complete, but they did not au-
thorize.
A proposal by Gouverneur Morris
that there should be a secretary of
domestic affairs with general powers
never got out Of committee. It con-
tanned the germ of the modern bu-
reauracy. but it did not get into the
constitution. In 1889 the germ found
a door open in the patent office. The
agricultural section" entered with an
appropriation of $1,000 to gather ag-
rtcultural statistics.
These were a few starting points.
Americans may now look back along
the road.
The coinage Of money" means that
the President of the United States
may declare it a criminal act to pos
sess the metal which Is the base Of
currency or any notes requiring pay
ment in gold. It means that gold may
not be used by private debtors to meet
their obligations which are for gold
and that the government will not pay
gold where it promised it would do so.
The coinage Of money Is now vested
IN the office of the President. He
may print money, diminish the metal
content or coin silver. Whatever the
administration declares is money is
money. All contracts are subject to
this authority and it knows no modi-
fication.
In this respect as in many others
there Is q spread Of idea between 1889
and the present which cannot be re-
garded as a part Of political evolution.
There Is growth and development, but
there is also forcible entry and vio-
lent intrusion. There are many secre-
tarieS Of domestic affairs and they
have ceased to be secretaries and are
commissars. The gathering Of agri-
cultural statistics has become the
control Of the affairs Of the country
at a cost which has made q mountain
OF the nations debts, debased its cur
rency and absorbed its incomes.
Mussolini did not do as much by
the march on Rome. Lenin did but
little more by selling Moscow.
The congressional right to delegate
control over the railroads to the In
terstate commerce commission IS now
construed as the precedent authoriz.
ing commissars to declare what Is fair
and unfair competition in industry, to
establish minimum wages and maxi
mum hours Of labor. and to tell this
man he may do business and that
man he may not. The right Of con.
gress to encourage agriculture Is used
as q warrant Of authority for the sec.
rotary Of agriculture to fix the price
Of the breakfast bacon and toast. II
Is used as authority for the lifting o.
mortgages, the public assumption o
private debts, and the impairment o
the obligation Of contract.
Out of the modest beginnings Of {
bureaucratic government to which
congress delegated administrative pow
ers, mostly Of minor or inconsequen
tial character. has come in 1888 tn
full fleshed figure Of the commissar
There has been no red. black or brown
shirted march on Washington benin,
any emblem of the hammer anc
sickle, of the fasces or the swastika
but the bespectacled professor has en-
tered by the sturdy door and tn
windy voiced friend of the people
whose mind also Is OF the wide opel
spaces. has arisen in congress to pro
pose that the government Of the Unit
ed States be that Of the soviet an
not of the constitution Evolution,
be expected in any government, sud
denly flares into revolution none tn
less violently because the men who ar
accomplishing it as ministers or ad
visers Of government seem perfectl
incapable Of doing the extraordinar
things which stampeded countr
finds are being done.