The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1937-09-30
Your Washington
And Mine! !!
FROM
Behind the Scenes
By DIR. James E. Pope


ions are his own and his articles do
not necessarily always reflect the
editorial opinion or policies of this
paper. Another your WASHING
TON and MINE" will appear in our
columns next week.
Washington, Sept, 28-Idaho's
leonine Senator, William E. Borah
universally loved, but upon whom
his own party signally failed to be-
stow national honors in his role as
premier Constitutional orator pro-
claims that the Supreme Court is
''the final judge between the people,
their agents and servants, and
urges the U. S. to jealousy guard
and defend the Constitution.
The learned Senator Borah lead
ing actor in the dramatic fight
against President Roosevelt's court
reorganization plan, worshiper at
the shrine of Abraham Lincoln also
calls upon the country to keep I'M
impaired the independence of the
Supreme Court, apparently forget
ting, that anything Mr.. Roosevelt
now proposes assumes graciously
benign aspect when compared with
the things Mr.. Lincoln actually did.
The Maryland legislature was due
to convene September II, 1861-an-
other Constitution Day anniversary.
and MIR. Lincoln, fearing legislators,
and Maryland's desertion to the con-
federacy, caused the arrest and i'm
prisonment of several legislators,
but, there being no good and suffi-
cient charge against them, United
states Supreme Court ruled that
they were illegally held, and Mr..
Chief Justice fancy ordered their
release. But they were NOT re-
leased. Lincoln also voided the
right to habeas corpus, caused GER
tain newspaper offices to be raid
ed and many publications suspend
ed, in open definance of the First
Amendment. He raised armies and
carried on war against the seeding
states, although this power is in
vested in Congress alone under the
Constitution.
Mr.. Lincoln was right! When
the President is doing the obviously
correct and popular thing all water
runs to his mill, but let him once
step out and bruise the toes of the
modern walters at the wall of lost
patronage then he needs must re-
turn home by the weeping cross.
President Lincoln could, and did
President Roosevelt cannot, and
won't. Yet these professedly sim
cere lovers of Lincoln and critics of
Roosevelt would make cheese of
one and chalk of the other.
Lincoln faced condition of open
rebellion, and his acts were justi-
fled by emergency and acute neces-
sity casting the mantle of authority
thereover. Roosevelt did not have
to contend with armed rebellion.
The problem he faced was not that
of preserving the Union, but of
feeding the Union Lincoln had saw
ed.
In 1882 and '33-big men, blue
Tipped from hunger-respected wo-
men, wives and mothers emaciated
and made frail in the desperate
struggle for food, any kind of food
mattering not how coarse or I'M
suited, just enough to save their
ragged and shivering progeny from
disease and starvation-helpless
babes, their hunger-pinched faces
making them to look like little old
men, whitening and dying in their
innocense-simply because there was
too much food, because the psyche
logy of fear and oversupply had
bankrupted not only the producers
but potential consumers as we'll,
thereby creating such a depression
that nobody could buy even the
most needful things.
Secession was rebellion and could
not be tolerated. Lincoln was right
But, seventy-one' years later, seeing
their children starve in the midst of
plenty brought heart-break to job
less men who were anxious to work.
And the pitiful, pleading whimper-
ing sobs of his unfed baby, even
though made in broken whicnerS
through the unquiet slumber of sick
life, can thunder louder in a mans
soul than any gun at Fort Sumter.