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Show Page UTAH LABOR NEWS, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, SEPTEMBER 24. 1937. 2. Utalj Mor MM Established 1929 of the first part and the fine odd man admitted that the court meet those demands for social and for all those economic betterment has been print which lawyers put into leases had been wrong A MEMBER OF THE This paper receives Union News Service, a C.I. O. affiliate. "CM matter March 28, 1930, at the post office Entered as second-clas- s , at Salt Lake under the Act of March 3, 1879. Utah, City, $1.50 Subscription Advertising rates by request. per annum Address all communications and remittances to Utah Labor News, 24 South 4th East Street, Salt Lake City. Utah. Published weekly at 24 Utah. South 4th East Street, Salt Lake City, Telephone Was. 2981. M. I. THOMPSON U M. THOMPSON Publisher Office Manager We stand for what the Constitution stands for "domestic tranquility, the "establishment of justice, and the "promotion of the general welfare." UTAH LABOR NEWS. CONSTITUTION DAY ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT tarian dictatorship is hot the road to it. quickest the permanent conduct of their Both types are equally dangergovernment. Eventually they will ous. One represents the cold insist not only, on the right to blooded resolve to hold power. choose who shall govern them, We have engaged in a definite, but also upon the periodic recon- and so far successful, contest sideration of that choice by the The other represents that. against free exercise of the ballot. a reckless to seize power. resolve And the second reason is that we are that. Equally against the state of world affairs brought And the overwhelming majority about by those new forms of gov- of the American people fully unernment threatens civilization. derstand and completely approve . Armaments and deficits pile up that course as the course of the together. Trade barriers multiply present government of the United and merchant ships are threat- States. ened on the high seas. Fear To hold to that course our conspreads throughout the world democratic form of govstitutional fear of aggression, fear of inva- ernment must meet the insistence sion, fear of revolution, fear of of the mass of our people great death. economic and social security that The people of America are right- and the standard of American livly determined to keep that grow- ing be raised from what they are ing menace from our shores. to levels which know the people The known and measurable dan- our resources justify. ger of becoming involved in war Demands Action Now we face confidently. As to that, knows Only by succeeding in that can your mind, your government and you know your governments we ensure against internal doubt as to the worthwhileness of our mind. But it takes even more fore- democracy and dissipate the illusight, intelligence and patience to sion that the necessary price of meet the subtle attack which efficiency is dictatorship with its spreading dictatorship makes upon attendant spirit of aggression. This is why I have been saying the morale of a democracy. for months that there is a crisis A New Idea In our generation a new idea in American affairs which dehas come to dominate thought mands action now a crisis parabout government the idea that ticularly dangerous because Its the resources of the nation can be external and internal difficulties made to produce a far higher reenforce each other. Purposely I paint a broad picstandard of living for the masses if only government is intelligent ture. For only if the problem is and energetic in giving the right seen in perspective can we see its solution in perspective. direction to economic life. I am not a pessimist. I believe That idea or more properly that ideal is wholly justified by that democratic government in the facts. It cannot be thrust aside this country can do all the things by those who want to go back to which common sense people, seethe conditions of 10 years ago or ing that picture as a whole, have even preserve the conditions of the right to expect. I believe that today. It puts all forms of govern- these things can be done under the constitution, without the surment to proof. That ideal makes understand- render of a single one of the civil able the demands of labor for and religious liberties it was inshorter hours and higher wages, tended to safeguard. And I am determined that under the demands of farmers for a the constitution these things shall more stable income, the demands of the great majority of business be done. The men who wrote the constimen for relief from disruptive trade practices, the demands of all tution were the men who fought for the end of that kind of li- the revolution. They had watched cense, often mistermed liberty, a weak emergency government alwhich permits a handful of the most lose the war, and continue population to take far more than economic distress among 13 little their tolerable share from the rest republics at peace but without effective national government. of the people. So when these men planned a And as other forms of government in other lands parade their new government, they drew the pseudo science of economic organi- kind of agreement which men zation, even some of our own peo- make when they really want to ple may wonder whether democ- work together under it for a very racy can match dictatorship in long time. For the youngest of nations giving this generation the things thev drew wrhat is today the oldest want from government. they written instrument under which Dangerous Ones We have those who really fear men have continuously lived tothe majority rule of democracy, gether as a nation. The Constitution of the United who want old forms of economic and social control to remain in a States was a laymans document, few hands. Thev say in their not a lawyers contract. That canhearts: If constitutional democ- not be stressed too often. Madison, racy continues to threaten our most responsible for it. was not a control, why should we be against lawyer nor was Washington or a plutocratic dictatorship which Franklin, whose sense of the of life had kept the conwould perpetuate, our control? vention we have those who are in And together. ' too much of a hurry, who are imCharter of Principles This great laymens document patient at the processes of constitutional democracies, wrho want was a charter of general princintoria over night and are not sure ples completely different from that some vague form of prole the whereases and the parties (Continued from page 1) . give-and-ta- ke and insurance policies and installment agreements. ' When the framers were dealing with what they rightly considered eternal verities, unchangeable by time and circumstances, they used specific language. In no uncertain terms, for instance, they forbade titles of nobility, the suspension of habeas corpus and the withdrawal of money from the treasury except after appropriation by law. With almost equal definiteness they detailed the bill of rights. But when they considered the fundamental powers of the new national government they used generality, implication and statement of mere objectives, as intentional phrases which flexible statesmanship of the future, within the constitution, could adapt to time and circumstance. For instance, the framers used broad and general language capable of meeting revolution and change when they referred to commerce between the states, the taxing power and the general welfare. Ignores Supreme Court Even the supreme court was treated with that purposeful lack of specification. Contrary to the belief of many Americans, the constitution says nothing about any power of the court to declare nor legislation unconstitutional; does it mention the number or judges for the court. Again and again the convention voted down proposals to give justices of the court a veto 'over legislation. Clearly a majority of the dele? gates believed that the relation of the court to the congress and the executive, like the other subjects treated in general terms, would work itself out by evolution and change over the years. But for 150 years we have had an unending struggle between those who would preserve this original broad concept of the constitution as a laymans instrument of government and those who Would shrivel the constitution into a lawyers contract. Those of us who really believe in the enduring wisdom of the constitution hold no rancor against those who professionally or politically talk and think in purely legalistic phrases; We cannot seriously be alarmed when they cry unconstitutional at every effort to better the condition of our . people. Lawyers Overruled cries have always been with us and, ultimately, they have always been overruled. Lawyers distinguished in 1787 insisted that the constitution itself .was unconstitutional under the articles of confederation. But the ratifying conventions overruled them. Lawyers distinguished in their day warned Washington and Hamilton that the protective tariff was unconstitutional warned J eff erson that the Louisiana purchase was warned Monroe unconstitutional across the roads to that open up unconstitutional. was Alleghanies But the executive and the congress overruled them. Lawyers distinguished in their day persuaded a divided supreme court that the congress had no power to govern slavery in the territories, that the Missouri compromise was unconstitutional. But a war between the states overruled them. Lawyers distinguished in their day persuaded the odd man on the supreme court that the methods of financing the Civil War were unconstitutional. But a new odd man overruled them. That great senatorial constitutional authority of his day. Senator Evarts, issued a solemn warning that the proposed interstate commerce act and the federal regulation of railway rates which the farmers demanded would be unconstitutional. But both the senate and the supreme court overruled him. Free Information Less than two years ago 58 of the highest priced lawyers in the land gave the nation (without 'ost to the nation) a solemn and formal opinion that the Wagner laboT relations act was unconstitutional. And in a few months, first a national election and later the sunreme court overruled them. For twenty years the odd man on the supreme court refused to admit that state minimum wage laws for women were constitutional. A few months ago, after my message to the congress on the rejuvenation of the judiciary, the Such long-standi- ng twenty years and overruled himself. In this constant struggle the lawyers of no political party mine or any other have had a consistent or unblemished record. But the lay rank and file of political parties has had a consistent record. Unlike some lawyers, they have respected as sacred all branches of their government. They have seen nothing more sacred about one branch than about either of the others. They have considered as most sacred the concrete welfare of the generation of the day. And with laymens commonsense of what government is for, they have demanded that all three branches be efficient that all three be interdependent as well as independent and that all three work together to meet the living generations expectations of government. That lay rank and file can take cheer from the historic fact that every effort to construe the constitution as a lawyers contract rather than a laymans charter has ultimately failed. Covers Terrible Cost Whenever legalistic interpretation has clashed with contemporary sense on great questions of broad national policy, ultimately the people and the congress have had their way. But that word ultimately covers a terrible cost. It cost a Civil War to gain recognition of the constitutional power of the congress to legislate for the territories. It cost twenty years of taxation on those least able to pay to recognize the constitutional power of the congress to levy taxes on those most able to pay. It cost twenty yeaTs of exploitation of womens labor to recognize the constitutional power, of the states to pass minimum wage laws for their protection. It has cost twenty years already and no one knows how many more are to come to obtain a constitutional interpretation that will let the nation regulate the shipment in national commerce of goods sweated from the labor of little children. We know it takes time to adjust government to the needs of society. But modem history proves that reforms too long delayed or denied have jeopardized peace, undermined democracy and swept, away civil and religious liberties. Yes, time more than ever before is vital in statesmanship and in government in all three branches of it. We will no longer be permitted to sacrifice each generation in turn while the law catches up with life. Should Not Delay We can no longer afford the luxury of twenty-yea- r lags. You will find no justification in any of the language of the constitution for delay in the reforms which the mass of the American people, now demand. Yet, nearly every attempt to CENTURY PRINTING INCORPORATED jeopardized or actually forbidden by those who have sought to read into the constitution language which the framers refused to write into the constitution. No one cherishes more deeply than I the civil and religious liberties achieved by so much blood and anguish through the many centuries of history. But the constitution guarantees liberty, not license masquerading as liberty. Let me put the real situation In the simplest terms. The present government of the United States has never taken away and never will take away any liberty from any minority, unless it be a minority harm to its neighbors constituting the majority. But the government of the United States refuses to forget that the bill of rights was put into the constitution not only to protect minorities against intolerance of majorities, but to protect majorities against the enthronement of minorities. Fundamental Tolerance Nothing would so surely destroy the substance of what the bill of rights protects than its perversion to prevent social progress. The surest protection of the individual and of minorities is that fundamental tolerance and feeling for fair play which the bill of rights assumes. But tolerance and fair play would disappear here as it has in some other lands if the great mass of people were denied confidence in their justice, their security and their Desperate people in other lands surrendered their liberties when freedom came merely to mean humiliation and starvation. The crisis of 1933 should make us understand that. On this solemn anniversary I ask that the American people rejoice in the wisdom of their Constitution. I ask that they guarantee the effectiveness of each of its parts by living by the Constitution as a anglo-Americ- an self-Tespe- ct. whole. I ask that they have faith in its ultimate capacity to work out the problems of democracy, but that they justify that faith by making it work now rather than twenty years from now. I ask that they give their fealty to the Constitution itself and not to its misinterpreted. I ask that they exalt the glorious simplicity of its purposes rather than a century of complicated legalism. I ask that majorities and minorities subordinate intolerance and power alike to the common good of all. For us the Constitution is a comwithout bitterness, for those who see America as Lincoln saw it the last, best hope of earth. So we revere it not because It is old but- because it is ever new not in the worship of its past alone but in the faith of the living who keep it young, now and in the years to come. mon bond,, - 3 Utahs oldest and largest UNION Printing Plant Commercial Printers cr Catering to local and firms ana Union-mad- e who desire organizations Paper and 100 Union Printing. out-of-to- n 231-23- 5 uThe Master Salesman Edison Street Phone Wasatch 1801 Salt Lake City, Utah a |