Show States States' Rights Promise to Be War Material By fly BRUCE CATTON Among the minor oddities of these chang hanged changed d times there Is the fact that this Democratic administration is apt to o s sec a stirring battle batlle for states' states rights carried on by Republicans The battle lines have formed al- al re ready eady Local autonomy and state sov sovereignty must be restored Is the thc rallyIng allying cry of the G. G O. O P. P A big Chicago Republican paper not long ago go devoted a long column-long page front editorial to the task of proving that the le Republicans really aie are the heirs to o th the Jeffersonian tradition in poll poll- ti tics Ics cs And If it all nil of this seems slightly cockeyed to one who takes his politics in n the time old manner all that can cane be e said is that these are cockeyed times and that stranger things than Republican adherence to the doctrines of f Thomas Jefferson will yet be seen As a matter of fact this new pother about states' states rights conceals one of fundamental ic problems of the moment mo mo- mo ment The trend toward centralization of government has been speeded up enormously during the past few years not not from design but through the logic of circumstances Th The federal government go has had todo to todo too do o an almost infinite nU number of things that lat nev never r before were considered the federal governments government's job job everything everything rom putting men to work in the forests forests for for- ests to lending money to railroads from Crom rom bolstering up banks to regulating the he production of hogs It has reached out ut that touch the life of ofle the le ordinary citizen clUzen at every point At the same time the structure of Io local ocal al government h has s been crumbling Cities have been unable t to collect taxes city services have been given up p policemen and te teachers chers have gone unpaid municipal bonds have haye gone Into nto default and default and the end is a not yet in Insight sight So we have on the one hand a vast extension of f federal activities and on n th the tEe other a swift and steady shrinkage of local government And while men men prepare to fight for a revival re- re Ival vival vival of Jeffersonian principles city efty officials go to Washington begging for or even more mare help from the federal treasury Where all of this thi Is going to end endis ends is s one of the most puzzling issues of ofie the ie day It may be that the end of ofle the le emergency will find most of the traditional setup reestablishing its itself elf m more re or less automatically Or it may be that we shall have to admit that lat the old concept of government no longer Is applicable |