T9o8 



EDITORIAL 



121 



"cles, and proceeded, purely of its own 

 motion, with no authority whatever 

 so to do, and behind closed -doors, to 

 formulate an entirely new constitu- 

 tion. And are we to believe, now, 

 that this document, fifteen times 

 amended, still leaves the people in a 

 strait jacket, and incapable of safe- 

 guarding their most fundamentally 

 important material interests? 



.,™ „ That the constitutional 



Powers question should be rais- 



ed on the Appalachian- 

 White Mountain Bill implies that 

 those who raise it still hold to the old 

 doctrine of "express" powers. As 

 some make the Scripture text to read, 

 "The poor ye shall have always with 

 you," so some make the tenth article 

 of the constitution read, "The powers 

 not expressly delegated to the United 

 States * * ''' are reserved," etc. But 

 the word "expressly" has no more 

 place in the second quotation than the 

 word "shall" has in the first. It was 

 long since discovered that to confine 

 the powers of the National Govern- 

 ment to those "expressly" delegated to 

 it would be to leave that Government 

 in a position but a degree in advance 

 of the intolerable one under which it 

 was left by the articles ; and that any 

 one in this year of grace imagines the 

 National Government to be operating 

 only under such limited powers seems 

 incredible. In what article, section 

 and clause are we to look, for ex- 

 ample, for express powers to do the 

 several things which Congressman 

 Lever, at the Annual Meeting, re- 

 .minded constitutional inquirers the 

 Government had already done ; to ap- 

 propriate annually five hundred thous- 

 and dollars to control the cotton boll 

 weevil, to appropriate another half 

 million to stamp out the foot and 

 mouth disease, and still other money 

 to destroy the green-bug? Where 

 shall we look for the express power of 

 Congress to enact a tarifif law, to 

 charter national banks, to authorize 

 such banks to issue notes, or to aid in 

 building privately owned railroads. 

 Western or other? Upon what ex- 



press grant of power is built up the 

 tremendous work of the Geological 

 and Coast surveys, and of the Agricul- 

 tural Department? Under which of 

 its eighteen specific powers was Con- 

 gress authorized to empower the Pres- 

 ident to proclaim National Forests on 

 the public domain, or to establish the 

 work of National irrigation? Which 

 clause gave Congress power to author- 

 ize the laying of a Government cable 

 in Alaskan waters, the digging of a 

 Panama canal, and the ownership and 

 operation of a railroad in connection 

 therewith? And will some legisla- 

 tor, with a constitutional conscience, 

 point to the chapter and verse in the 

 constitution declaring that the Con- 

 gress shall have power to dredge out 

 the Mississippi river and provide its 

 channel with jetties? As a matter of 

 fact, if the National Government un- 

 dertook to run on the basis of "ex- 

 press" powers only it might as well 

 shut up shop, once for all, and go out 

 of business. Thomas Jefferson dis- 

 covered this when, as President, there 

 came to the Nation, through him, the 

 unparallelled opportunity to obtain 

 possession, for a trifle, of the imperial 

 domain known as the "Louisiana Pur- 

 chase." As a strict constructionist. 

 President Jefferson could find in the 

 constitution no power to buy the ter- 

 ritory ; but as an American citizen 

 and National executive, he saw in his 

 hand an opportunity that it would be 

 unpardonable to cast aside ; and al- 

 though, as he declared, "the Constitu- 

 tion had to be stretched until it 

 cracked," he bought Louisiana. What 

 would we think of him to-day had he, 

 through a constitutional quibble, 

 turned the opportunity down? And 

 what will future generations think of 

 the Sixtieth Congress if, by a similar 

 quibble, it permits the abomination of 

 desolation to continue in the field of 

 onr indispensable natural resources? 



Some, otherwise "confused and 

 doubtful," admit that the third of the 

 specific powers of Congress, that 

 namely "to regulate commerce among 

 'the several States" settles the case 

 afHnnatively; and the constitutional 



