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Show WHITE SLAVE DECISION AND THE WEBB LAW The white slave traffic decision of the United States supreme court ma prove a forecast of the court's views on the Webb law, which prohibits li qunr being shipped Info "dry" territory. terri-tory. The liquor law undoubtedly will be tested and the question at Issue will be one relating to state and federal fed-eral jurisdiction In what undoubtedly is the most progressive opinion It has ever delivered deliv-ered -upholding the federal statute igainst the white slave traffic -the su preme court lately defined the powers of the rederal government in dealing with the various phases or interstate commerce, and In doing so practical ly took a stand alongside that of Col onel Roosevelt in his addresses on The N'en Nationalism" of three years ago The white slave decision, which was unanimous, not only makes pos stble federal and state cooperation in deallnR with the white slave trallb , but is of much more far-reaching importance im-portance because of the Progressive principles which it sustains In numerous public addresses. Ooi onel Roosevelt has inveighed against what he termed tho "twilight zone" between federal and state authority, saving that 'unfortunately the courts have tended, by a series of negative decisions, to create a sphere in which neither nation nor state has effective control and where the great business interests that can call to their aid the ability of the greatest corporation lawyers law-yers escape all control whatsoever The derision in the white slave case announces to the country, in effort, that there need be no twilight zone' between rederal and state authority, and points out that it is the duty or the nation to assist the states In enforcing en-forcing laws by exercislug the powers Whit h it has to control beyond the Inn its or slate jurisdiction In other words, if a "twilight zone" exists n is the fault of congress for falling to exercise the powers, the undoubted possession of which is pointed out iu this remarkable opinion 'There is unquestionably a control in the states over the morals of their i Itizena ' Bays the opinion, which was deli v red bs lusi ice ) ( Kenna h i -a control however, which can be ex ercised only within the Jurisdiction of the stales; but there Is a domain which the states eannot reach and over which congress alone has power And if such a power be exerted to control what ihe states cannot. It Is an argument for, not against, its legality." le-gality." The opinion goes on with a square indorsement of the proposition laid down in the preamble of the national Progressive platform of 1912, "It Is iime to set the public welfare in the first place The Progressive conten tion that the constitution nf the Un' ted States should be construed ror i h-highest h-highest welfare of the whole peopir receives this striking indorsement "Our dual form or government has its perplexities, state and nation having hav-ing different spheres or jurisdiction as we have said, but it must be kept In mind that we are one people, and the powers reserved to the state and those conrerred on the nation are adapted to be exercised whether in dependently or concurrently, to pro-I pro-I mote the general weirare. material and moral " The opinion declares that the power of self-government to regulate Inter-l Inter-l state commerce is absolutely unqualified unquali-fied and concress may adopt any means to exercise it, "and the means my have tho quality of police regulations." regu-lations." There Is a striking Indorsement in this action bv the supreme cnun ol J the position taken by former Senator I Albert .1 Bcverldge of Indiana, in his j child labor bill many years ago That bill was based upon the principle of the federal power now specifically upheld up-held by the high court At the time Senator Bcverldge was struggling for his measure, the Tory old guard lead era in the senate scoffed and jeered at the contention that such a proposition proposi-tion was constitutional They had full sway In the senate then and the only thing Senator Beveridce was able to accomplish by his vigorous fight was to get himself squarely on record as being not only right in his construction construc-tion of the constitution and In hi6 Interpretation In-terpretation or the powers or con gress but also many years in advance of his Tory colleagues in recognition recogni-tion of the true general welfare and its needs No more striking and effective indorsement in-dorsement of the publn stand taken by Colonel Roosevelt and Senator Bev-erldge Bev-erldge can be found than in the unan imous opinion of the supreme court of the United States on this most important im-portant question of the day. |