Show I EXPOUNDING THE CONSTITUTION We copied from the Constitution two or three jays ago a section which reads The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful need-ful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States etc We called attention to the fact that if the United States had properly of any kind not in any Stale not in nny organized Territory Ter-ritory Congress might sell it if I it pleased not in violation of tho Constitution Consti-tution but under the express permission of the Constitution whereupon a near contemporary cries out What bal crash cr-ash What childish prattle And declares that the Constitution Is Intended In-tended to extend wherever this Government Gov-ernment extends and the writer of the article does not seem to comprehend that If the Congress of the United States that represents all the people of tho United States pleases to sell the Phlllppino islands tomorrow to German Ger-man or to England or to France or to sell them back to Spain It would be In strict accord with the rights which the Constitution gives to the representatives repre-sentatives of all the people of the I United States and the thought behind the framers of the Constitution was that at some future time the Government Govern-ment might become possessed of property prop-erty which it might wish to establish governments over or to sell and hence that clause was put In that Congress should have the absolute right to dispose dis-pose of and make all needful rules and regulation respecting such propert We susrect that the New York Sun had our contemporary in mind the other day when published the follow ing IngIf If It ware true that Congress was with out power to discriminate between tho varying social and economic conditions of tho different lands and people under our flag then all Idea of national growth and expansion must bo abandoned and wo must remain a nation dltmoysessed of the primal elements of life and sovereIgnty huch a senseless and unllexlblu organic law woud leave tho ship of Stato A bont with armless men to row und a blind man it tho rudder j I Tho whole secret Is that leading Democrats are opposing the Porto Rico tariff on the general theory of Constitutional Consti-tutional limitation which they have adopted simply as a weapon of partisanship parti-sanship and how senseless It all is can be scon by the fact that the object of the proposed tariff Is solely to raise a little revenue which the Porto RIcans musj have In some form or another because they are starving and their children need schools The Government Govern-ment has Just paid over to Porlo Rico 2OSfi4ooSS the amount paid on imports from Porto Rico during the past eighteen eight-een months The United States passed it over to her for the use and benefit of the island The proposed tariff is simply a proposition to rake revenue for the Island for the Use and benefit of the people of that Island In a way which produces the least friction and which would save the taxpayers of the United States Just that amount |