Milford chronicle., 1937-10-15

/ or the people VINO then must dlrec
their authority and check their pow
er IL the people would retain sover'
eighty in themselves and control tht
acts of their representatives.
The people of America are without
the limitations of custom and of ira
dition, which among older nations
may be sufficient to restrain power
Hence our people must limit the au-
thority and power of their represen'
tatives by an instrument in writing
denominated a constitution. If by a
constitution their power is so limited
then its inhibitions can be enforced
only by and through the tribunal
created by the people for the final
Interpretation of the meaning and
determination of the limitations and
the enforcement of the rights under
the constitution; namely, by the
courts of our land, before which
states in sovereignty may come, min
critics of whatever race, color or
creed, however numerous or even
one citizen or alien may come, and
invoking the limitations and re-
straints of the Constitution may
stay the power of Congress, or palsy
the executive hand that would strike
at his property, his liberty, his relig-
ion, his race, his color, his political
freedom or his equality before the
law.
The consummation then of mans
struggle through the centuries for
Individual freedom under constitu-
tional government, we Americans in
pride of patriotism acclaim to be our
Constitution which ordains that the
state exists for the Individual and
not the individual for the state, that
its government Is of the people and
through their representatives under
limitations by them prescribed, that
those representative shall not de-
stroy the power of the states or blot
out their existence as separate en-
titles. shall not impinge on the free
dom OF individual initiative, effort
and enterprise. shall not violate the
citizens right of property or to wor-
ship his God as he sees fit or deny
to the most lowly his right to appear
in courts Of justice surrounded by
all the safeguards of constitutional
liberty.
The wisdom Of the centuries and
the experience of century and a
half of constitutional government
under which America has lived have
proved that the limitations of funda-
mental law are as essential in the
life Of a nation in the administra-
tion of justice under the rule of law,
as are the restraints which disci-
plined habit imposes on the selfish
and unsocial impulses of the animal
organism.
In the stress and strain of pres
ent conditions the American citizen
of reflection and reason will pause
long and ponder deeply before he
permits the abandonment of the lin
itations and safeguards of his Con-
stitution and the substitution in
their stead of the changing rule of a
majority with its pass
ions and its greeds, with its preju-
iices and its creeds, to become the
supreme law of the land at the die
tation of an alien radicalism, the
tendency and effect of whose eco
ncmic theories are communistic and
whose policies of governmental ac-
tion are not only confiscatory and
fatal to individualism but destruc-
i've to the traditions and ideals that
have made western civilization the
hope of world progress and America
Is ultimate realization.
This survey of mans aspiration |
or individual liberay and group or
Ter under the rule of constitutional |
aw and its ultimate and finest reali- |
.ation in the Constitution of the Uni
ed States should not close without
'eference to three considerations
hat now imperil its continuance.
The first is a present issue in the
broes of political discussion; the
second is a revolutionary change in
political thought and ac-
ion only yesterday suggested, and
he third is a tendency which if un-
'hecked must destroy not only con-
titutional government but stay the
,rogress of western civilization
IA
The President, with the consent of
he Senate. names the judges. Lord
Bryce refers to the failure of the
ito determine the num-
er of judges in the Supreme Court"
s "a weak point, a joint in the
curtis armor through which a wea-
on might some day penetrate" 1t Is
his dual legislative and executive
over to create the courts and to de-
srmine the number and personnel
( the judges that In full under
landing and proper exercise has
lsde free and independent judici-
ry; and figuratively, is the tendon ;
hich maintains the equilibrium of ,
istice and sustains the weight of
rder as administered under our
nal Federal and State governments. {
ut this vital tendon is exposed to
le possibility that executive domi-
ance over a subservient Congress
: supine people mayatrophy or cut {
with resultant collapse of equili-
'ium and the executive becoming
e dominant authority in govern
ent and in its administration OF
stice.
It is clear that with statutory !
lange In the personnel of the Su- /;
'eme Court and with consequent
change of interpreta-
On, q. e.. when the prior interpre- q
tion gives definition to uncertainty r