Show washington digest national union endangered by trade barriers between states bootlegging of milk and cream calls attention to con become flagrant proper government functions used to accomplish unscrupulous ends by WILLIAM BRUCKART service national press washington D C washington city officials and newspapers of washington D C have worked themselves into a terrible dither lately over a new kind of boot bootlegged bootlegger legge a bootlegger of milk and cream this city like every other city has tight regulations concerning milk and cream that enters the national capital they are regulations designed to protect the health of those who reside here moreover maintenance of such regulations ions are an entirely proper function of government because there can be nothing more important than health according to the charges filed and upon which arrests were made a dairy four or five hundred miles from washington inspected and licensed by the state of its location brought in a truck load of refrigerated cream without first having obtained a permit to do so the city officials prodded perhaps liy local dairies and nearby milk producers threw a couple of men into jail and barked and squawked all around the place because of this bootlegger the local press reports indicated the city officials had made asses of themselves over the whole matter but that is of no particular concern to this discus discussion slon the incident is very important as illustrative of a condition that is rapidly endangering the national union of states and is therefore a matter for analysis here frequently great national issues lie around or are kicked around for months before somebody inadvertently sets a match to the powder and it happened to be local officials who struck the match barriers to trade between states has become flagrant the thing called to national attention by the cream bootlegger is the existence through the nation of barriers or obstacles to trade between the states it has become flagrant selfish interests have been operating first in one state then in another laws have been passed utilizing proper government bunc unc eions to accomplish unscrupulous ends these have bied retaliatory ry measures other states have passed laws to get even with those acting ahead state officials state trade and civic organizations have threatened and have been threatened right back until now we have throughout the united states thousands of people sticking out their tongues in the most childish fashion at other thousands of people each group saying in sign language or otherwise youre another it is serious business and there is no doubt in my mind but what the condition bodes ill III for national unity it takes no expanded imagination to think of the time when we might have 48 little nations snarling and frothing at the mouth as crudely and quite as unintelligently as they do throughout europe now it Is one thing and a very proper thing to use regulations for the preservation of health for the protection of property perty tor for the support of government or governmental policy it is quite another and dastardly thing to make use of those regulations to prevent the now flow of commerce and the products of farm and factory it is such things as that from which monopoly is made it if the now rather ill famed monopoly investigation is worth its salt which it has not demonstrated thus far it could demonstrate its value by examining into trade barriers be tween states proper legal leal power used but it Is used selfishly representative halleck of indiana has been engaged for weeks in digging up facts acts about these trade barriers ile he told me the other day that he be intends to try to break them down either by constitutional amendment or by national statute there are plenty of difficulties confronting him he admits because all of these things have been done by using entirely proper legal power but by using it selfishly to illustrate mr halleck referred to lo that oft repeated assertion that the power to tax is the power to destroy indeed it 1st the power to tax for government revenue is and always has been used but there are many instances of record where that taxing power was employed to levy high rates of tax that the tax collector took everything produced the business was destroyed and it Is the same thinly disguised use of proper power that la Is getting the nation into an awful mess now this choking of trade is going on P despite the constitutional provision which says emphatically that no state may levy tariffs against importations from other states the bright law makers and their henchmen have got around that la in the manner mentioned above mr halleck supplied some facts to show how bow widespread the condition has become he mentioned moreover that the nation is so blan feted with a variance of laws on most subjects that it seems almost a hopeless job to untangle them for example there are different state laws dealing with the la belling and grading of farm products A good ear of corn in one state wont ba recognize rec 4 as a good ear of corn in abot ay ay friend the ordinary irish pu pt y be accepted as no I 1 in ok b ate and find himself as no 3 in another A bottle of beer in missouri tax paid and respectable there becomes virtually a bottle of slop in an adjoining state wines from grapes grown in california cannot possibly be as good as wines grown from grapes in oregon because the oregon law says so and lays a burdensome tax to prevent oregon citizens from having their stomachs corroded or something cement entering florida for a time was not as good as cement produced in florida and florida was prepared to tax it until the case got to the supreme court of the united states states state dwer differ as to what constitutes a truck load take another and less known condition less known because fewer ewer people come in contact with it but it enters into the cost of the things you buy just the same I 1 refer to state laws about load limits of trucks I 1 dont have any love tor for trucks they are so doggoned big these days that I 1 want to take to the timber when I 1 see one of them coming headon head on along the highway but they have rights yet there are no two states as far as I 1 can learn that have the same regulation about the size of a trucks load the trucks can be regulated because they use the highways and yet one state says pounds is a load and another state says pounds is a load the others have laws specifying a load at varying sizes in between and there you arel just what is a load anyway the truth of the matter is that local interests are to blame in most cases they are taking advantage of situations to further their own ends and where are they leading to with this polyglot of legislation the whole thing seems a bit incongruous to me here on the one hand mr cordell hull the very able and valuable secretary of state has been moving heaven and earth to get rid of trade barriers between nations reciprocal trade treaties he calls his method some of them seem to work badly and some others appear to be producing results but no one knows yet whether the whole system should be kept or thrown out that question does not belong here it is the national policy of breaking down obstacles jarring loose log jams so that our products may move into other nations that is important to be consid ered when within our own boundaries every known means is being used to block shipments and sales between states I 1 cannot figure it out unless some folks are strict followers of the biblical injunction not to let the left hand know what the right hand boeth national government policy to blame for conditions I 1 have been wondering therefore what had actuated the selfish interests ot of the country to start on this spree of battling among themselves there must have been some reason behind that at least I 1 have come com e to believe there is 1 I believe that the condition fundamentally springs from national government policy which for years now has been in the direction of destroying the rights of individual states little by little the federal government has torn away the rights of the state st ates sand and the states with pain deduc reduced ed by federal money have permitted it suddenly however the states and their citizens have discovered their whole jurisdiction is enveloped in creeping paralysis we have all noted resentment in the last few years at the encroachment of federal regulation upon individual rights and freedom when these things were realized by the ran rank k and file of the people there developed a new disease as a counter irritant the disease of knocking kno eking the other fellow off it will take more than socialized medicine to correct it the national governments policies having started it if will have to assume the blame and will have to find a way to remedy the condition I 1 hope mr halleck and those he has enlisted to help him can RW find the proper prescription for the cure 0 western union |