The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1936-10-06
NEWSPAPERS OPINIONS
ISSUE OF CENTRALIZED POWER

4
eminent with vast and centralized authority over
the economic life of the nation.
On that ISSUE the Post Dispatch believing as it
does in an economy of free enterprise, under the
political forms of our federal system of govern
ment cannot support Mr.. Roosevelt for reelection
to the presidency.
All the other issues of the campaign are subor-
dinate to OF embraced in this great issue. In Its
prominence and its high Importance to the coun-
try it resembles the silver issue that divided the
Democratic party in the heyday of BryanlSm. but
it strikes infinitely deeper than that issue 1t goes
10 the roots of the system of checks and balances
of judicial review to protect the rights OF the ci
Gems. of the constitutional division of powers De-
tween the states and the federal governmental
the roots in short, of the system of government
created by the Constitution.
That Constitution is open to amendment IN inc
way that it provides it must not be amended by
subterfuge and indrecton. The Roosevelt ADMIN
istration has attempted to amend it. In TINS II
has done an ntolerable thing for which 1t should
be rebuked at the polls, as it has already been re-
peatedly rebuked by the supreme court.
The question to repeat. is whether we shall con-
tnue under the present constitutional system - d
system of which free competitions an lntegral ana
necessary part - or whether shall substitute Tor
il federal bureaucracy with the unrestraned pow
err to impose its flats upon the daily ahaMS OF the
citizen. Such bureaucracy not only destroys eco
nomic freedom, but must in the end II 1t Is u
succeed, destroy political freedom
While opposing the reelection OF Mr.. Roosevelt
we give him full credit for the courage ne olS-
PLAYED in the dark days of March, 1888; 1ul ereu''
for high-minded and patriotic endeavor to improve
the lot of the common man. we nave apPloveo
,,,Nio al mont M
and continue TO approve substantial part vi MS
rrogram We believe that social gains have been
made that should be consolidated and carried on
that will. we are convinced, be carried on, such is
the compelling force of events, by whatever ADMIN
istration may be voted into power next Nobember'
We do not subscribe to the vituperative criticism
which has been heaped upon the President, though
re boIieve that much of this is the result OF ms
own too frequent imputing of unworthy motives 10
his opponents.
Rut the evils inherent in the central philosophy
which guides the Roosevelt administration out
,reicb the good achievements. These evils are en-
pressed specifically in the waste and extravaganza
of rho administration; in the hasty improvisation
| of measures to meet real or fancied emergency
and the subsequent attempts to make them periha-
mont. in the building up at Washington OF gov
ernn,ent not of laws but of men, men working Oh
ten at cross-purpoSes to the unsettlement Oh VIC
whole nacional economy and the CONFUSION Vi '''e
public mind; in administrative nehlciency' 50 'm'''
even worthy measures are IN danger OF oe'ns WIS
credited; in the growth of the spoils system ana
rs use in a manner not justified by any prior con-
ortin of the practical needs of political parties
IN the mounting national debt and the hghtnesS
with which it is regarded; in the cavalier attitude
of the administration toward the restraints imposed
nv the Constitutions in the weakened surrender
of congress to the demands of the executive.
| All these things are being exploited and proper
" so. as issues in the campaign; but the dominant,
the all-embracing issue, we have sald Is crea'eo
by the steady march of federal empire away
from the economic and political system on whlch
the country has been built. The march Is toward
a bureaucracy of centralized powers undreamed Oh
and not alone by the founders of the nation put
even by the makers of the Democratic piauOrrh u
| 1882 to which the President SUBSCRIBED lVV pei
cont The party whose livery the President wears
is not the Democratic party as 1t existed oo"n ~
tbe nresent administration That fact in itself does
not necessarily damn the new doctrines ou' IL s''.'
q hollow ring to the call for support of Mr. Roose
,.oIt on tho oround Of old party loyalties. Mr.
Roosevelt cannot be sincerely supported save as the
owpopent Of philosophy of government at war
;.L .ho basic concepts of the Democratic party
| Tho marty TODAY under Mr.. Roosevelt, burns It's
| incense before strange gods.
| The rights of the states? Away with them! lhey
belong to the horse-and-buggy era.
| The Constitution? 1t is something to be got
around, so that we may have the more abundant
! life. ,
The supreme court? mine old men" barring the
onward march to Utopia.
Economy in government? An outmoded idea
Checks and balances in government? Forget
them Mr. Roosevelt knows what is good for the
country In the words of Mr. Roosevelt to con-
gress in January of this year: 1--WE have built up
new instruments of public power In the hands OF
a peoples government the power is wholesome and
proper" Mr.. Roosevelt asks the country to write
him. as the head of this peoples government
with its "new instruments of public power a
blank check for the future. That was the central
theme of his eloquent address in accepting the
! nomination at Philadelphia.
We base our opposition to Mr.. Roosevelt not so
much on the errors of his administration as on the
direction, drift, of the philosophy that controls
lit. We believe that the reelection of Mr.. Roose-
Welt would be construed by him as mandate TO