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Show THE STATES IN NO DANGER if Is curious to see with what horror some of the ' In fo' de wah" fossilize, minds view tin proposition of Corporation Corpor-ation Commissioner Garfield to compel corporations dolnx an Interstate business busi-ness to take out a Federal license. Here, for example is a breaking forth upon the subject, of the St. Louis P.epuble The faet that such proposals as the Oarfleld recommendations are soberly anil authoritatively presented to Congress Is of such Importance as to be ep toh-ma-king ii seems to anhouncc the beginning of the end of State autonomy U threatens threat-ens an overshadowing, an absorbing federalism fed-eralism which shall take away the substantial sub-stantial and essential powers of the n-dlv n-dlv Mn.il Stales and leave ih.-m empty and nominal entitles it promises an end to the real duality of ITnlted States Government, Govern-ment, leaving the dual form a hollow fi -tlon. V hat arrant nonsense nil such talk Is! The fact Is. that It Is the business It -"If which obliterates the State lines, not the proposition tO bring It within the regulation of the law. For the purpose of this regulation, the state authority Is absolutely powerless There Is no way to get at the remedy by State process pro-cess for the chief abuses that are Charged upon Interstate monopolies. If It is a question of overcharge, the fact that such overcharge was made In any given State can not be made to appear if it is an allegation pi combination to fix charges in defiance of 'tie freedom of competition, the act complained ol and the authority under which the act Is done are one or both found to be outside out-side of the jurisdiction of the State, and the remedy cannot be found and applied. ap-plied. And thus, when the States under take to regulate a business that Is only partly done within that State the constant con-stant and baffling difficulty Is to find any actual remedy that the State can apply. On the other hand, the IT. S. Constitution Consti-tution specifically and absolutely confers con-fers upon Congress the unrestricted power "To regular Commerce with foreign for-eign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes " This Is a sweeping grant, and as no State undertakes to deal with foreign commerce, or with the traffic and regulation regu-lation of Indian tribes, analogy would suggest that the proper and logl al meaning of the Constitution is that the ?ame i Training on the part of the States and the same undivided and undisputed un-disputed regulation of Interstate com-tnerce com-tnerce by Congress should prevail as In the other- two provisions of the paragraph para-graph of the Constitution quoted. The Idea that this would be fatal to the autonomy of the State Governments Govern-ments Is an absurdity; for the autonomy auto-nomy of these Governments Is in no way dependent upon the power to undertake un-dertake the regulation of Interstate commerce, or to grant Incorporations fo companies to do business outside their own boundaries. Besides, the assumption assump-tion that the States would be injure by this exercise by Congress of an undoubtedly un-doubtedly constitutional power carries the assumption that the States consented con-sented in the first plac e to a provision for their own slaughter, and that they expressly put in the hands of Congress the weapon wherewith they were to be slain. |