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Show Only the People Can Halt the Centralization of Power at Washington By LEE S. OVERMAN, Senator From North Carolina. Nationalize ! Centralize ! These seem to be the slogans of individuals who do not understand what the fundamental American system is, and who would like to change our system after a foreign pattern. Why we fought the Eevolution to escape a concentration of power unwisely used. Our forefathers were determined that they would make no such mistake in America. Power was to be wisely distributed and jealously guarded. The tendency toward centralization at Washington was critically observed ob-served more than a century ago, but there has been little to halt the onward on-ward march. But one thing will halt it the American people ; they alone can halt it. When they see their home affairs taken away from them one by one, and intrusted to the tender and distant mercies of bureaucratic administration, adminis-tration, they are going to resurrect democratic doctrine on this question, and adopt it. States' rights is no longer a partisan nor a sectional but an American doctrine in which even Republicans have come to believe. Washington Wash-ington itself will be forced by the very burden which centralization imposes, im-poses, to warn the people not to be misled in giving their, rights, Not every problem that faces the country can be met by the simple expediency of more federal legislation. I |