Milford chronicle., 1936-10-30
Ruby r. VaIe's Speech
tcontInued from PaEe o


with the machinery Of the several
states on the broad principle that
the former is supreme In all for
eign and domestic relations that
touch all the people, while each
state is supreme on all local mat
ters. This result is achieved under
the constitution by express grants
from the states to the nation and
of express reservations of all pow
ers not specifically granted by the
states. Three grants Of power to the
nation, symbolized as purse, sword
and wheel, give to it vitality and
the express prohibitions on the
powers Of Congress- save to the
states local self-goVernment.
But our constitution is something
more than a mere form and ma
cbinery of government. It is also a
conservatOr of the liberties of the
Individual. Those splendid Anglo
SaVOn heritages will remain inviO-
late just so long as we revere the
preamble of our constitution and
cling to its articles and to those
amendments which limit the pow
srs Of Congress and of the Presi-
dent and just so long as we hold sa-
cred the DEGREES and judgments of
our courts, which define and enforce
those limitations on the powers Of
Congress and of the President.
Now it is obvious that under
fern of government so ordained and
its machinery so functiOning in Civ
ing effect to its fundamental pur-
poses that neither individual liber-
ties could be violated nor rights of
states invaded, nor the basal prin-
ciples of American individualism
and equality under law destroyed
without violence to the constitution
which gave them definition and life.
The Supreme Court of the Unitel
States was forced within the last
two years in a series of decisions, |
to condemn President Roosevelt as
the worst offender against the con-
stitution since the foundation of
this government, for in one term |
more legislation demanded by him |
has been stricken down as violative
of states rights and individual lib
critics than in the whole service of
any of his predecessors.
Such has been his advocacy of
bureaucratic tyrannies, such his
abuse of privacy and invasion of in
dividual rights by investigations of
critics of his autOcratic assumptions
and communistic tendencies, such
his zeal for executive aggrandiZe-
ment, such in fine his demands for
the subordinatiOn of individual en-
terprise, liberty and property to the
will of a dominant and autOcratic
state that in utter disregard of his
oath he has brOw-beaten a serVile
Congress to enact as law proposals
which his Attorney General had ad-
vised probably offended the cOnsti-
tuition.
Who is there among you who does |
not know that a Congressman, a |
Senator and the President is only |
the representative of the people. If 4
then he is the agent of the people
they must limit his authority if they
would retain sovereignty in them
selves and control his acts. Theyl
can limit his authority only by in
strument in writing denOminated
constitution. If by a constitution
his power is so limited, then those
inhibitiOns can only be enforced by
and through the tribunal created by
the people for the determination and
of constitutional rights;
by the courts of our land
before which the lOwliest may come,
be citizen or alien, and invoking the
and restraints of our
may stay the power of
Congress, or palsy the executive
hand which would strike at his prop
erty. his liberty, his political free
dom or his equality before the law.
So the momentOus question for
decision in this campaign is whe-
ther you believe that the cOnstitu-
tion is the fundamental law of the
people which says that Congress !
shall not pass a law destroying the
power of the states and blOtting out
their existence as separate entities,
shall not enact a law impinging on
) our freedom of individual initia-
tive, effort and enterprise, shall not
violate your right to worship your
God as you see fit or deny your
right to appear in courts of justice
by all the safeguards of
liberty, or whether I
you will permit the changing rule
Of Congress with its passions and Il
Its greeds, with its prejudices and {
It's creeds, to become the supreme
law of the land at the dictation of ,
radical President, the tendency and {
effect of whose economic theories
are communistic and whose policies {
Of governmental action are not
lnly confiscatOry and fatal to indi-
,idualism but destructive of the ira 9
litions and ideals that have made l
western civilization the hope of
world progress and America its ul- l
innate realization.
do not despair of America or her +
uture, surrounded as she is and
ngulfed though she now may be 4
n cOmmunistic radicalism, for mine Z
s the confidence that frontier Am 4
ricanism still lives and that on -
Iovember next our people will stand 7
n the granite rock of a cOnstitu-
ion on which is builded the struc-
lre of AnglO-Saxon liberty, of I,
quality under law and of order in n
he rule of justice among men.
THE MISSING PIGS n