The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-02-08
Liberal Viewpoint
-RY DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNEs.

T NcoLNs birthday and the decisions of the
IL Supreme Court upon the constitutionality
Of the New Deal make it relevant to point out
how the conservatives and the Constitution
mongers have thwarted the realization Of Lin
coins ideal of government 'of, by and for the
people"
1t is a fact very familiar to ap-to-date Amer
lean historians that the Constitution was really
designed by its trainers to check the progress OF
liberalism and democracy which had made star
ting advances during and Immediately after the
American Revolution.
The business classes had never really well
coined revolution as a principle. What they were
/ interested in was using revolution as means
of obtaining independence from British control.
They were alarmed by the radical trends during
the Revolution and by such evidences of unrest
Immediately thereafter as came to the surface
in Shay's rebellion
Accordingly. the more conservative property
owning classes and their representatives framed
Constitution designed to check what they
believed was the dangerous growth Of democracy.
Though the Preamble Of the CONSTITUTION starts
off with the phrase I'VE, the people,, not more
than per cent Of the people voted on the ratl-
fication Of the Constitution, and at the best only
~
THE Constitution itself contained many anti
L democratic principles and provisions. The
executive legislative and judicial branches were
set up with relatively independent powers to
check any dangerous tendencies in one Or the
other of these departments The President was
made a strong executive. For more than
hundred years the Senate was a conservative
and unpopular body and the Supreme Court
was given authority to destroy any radical move
ments through declaring dangerous" laws IN
constitutional.
The conservative business class was not,
however able to maintain for long any complete
control over the government and policies OF the
country There was a strange interlude" from
about 1900 to the Civil War during which the
agricultural classes first the followers OF Jetter-
son and then the Southern slavocracy doml-
mated the United States. But after the Civil War
the capitalstic group snapped back with VEN
geance, as DR.. Ernest Sutherland Bates points
out in the Modern Monthly.
1.-THE capitalists, however, could aHoru 10
wait. They had behind them the law, the courts
and the Constitution. The latter, before the
Civil War, was used with judicial importantly 10
support both the Northern manufacturers ana
the Southern lave-owners. The only people VINO
did not benefit by its provisions were the great
mass of American citizens.
a
N years went on bringing their steady in
crement of capitalist economic power, the Su-
preme Court in interpreting the ConstltuIlon
went even further in defense of its friends than
these could ever have anticipated. The hrst III
amendments in defense Of civil rights, were one
after another virtually nullified by judicial de-
cision and the Fourteenth Amendment, passed
in the interest of the freed Negroes, was con-
verified into a further means OF enSlavement OF
all workers regardless of race color or previous
condition.
Along with this has gone a strange perversionl
of the conception of liberty, which has come TO
mean in conservative circles little more than
the liberty to exploit. We witness such strange
spectacles as those of last summer in the Gre
alton of the American Liberty League to trus-
trate even Mr.. Roosevelt's feeble efforts to ad-
vance the cause Of social justice.
"The net result is that the very name OF lib
ertv has beer made odious in this country. Low
ers of that estimable thing originally denoted by
he word will soon have to take to speaking
Esperanto or to conducting their conversation
in the symbols of mathematical logic The Eng
lish language has been corrupted by many
rascals. in and out of the Supreme Court, that
today it is, at least when spoken by our cap
itast leaders, little more than thieves lingo"
WET, as Roger Baldwin points out in Common
/ Sense there is still chance to realize the
ideals of Lincoln if the ProgreSSveS and Liberals
wake up and rally to the support of the cause:
Nothing is inevitable. Fascism can be an
ticipated, beaten and stopped-but it be
done only if the channels of agitation are freely
open for the organization of counter forces.
IF the reaction can be anticipated and cir
cumvented by that overwhelming majority who
produce and consume the wealth of the land
liberty will take on new meaning.
mot only will it realize the ancient hope
of freedom from control by an exploiting class
ont IF
duced-but a liberty of the mind and spirit
never possible in a warning world. This is the
coming struggle for freedom--a greater freedom
than the world has ever seen for the masses OF
mankind, but for which countless thousands
have long dreamed and striven"