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Show BOSTON POLICE : CHALLENGE CONSTITUTION i NEW YORK. Sept 17 - Tho Boston I (police, by going on strike, have challenged chal-lenged tho constitution of the United States, Elihu Root, former secretary of state, declared in an address at the (National Security league's constitution day celebration here tonight. "We cannot maintain this constitution constitu-tion without insisting upon its beinK followed." said Mr. Root "We cannot can-not maintain it by laughing at those I who try to make a joko of it. Wfl cannot maintain it by being tolerant and liberal and indifferent towards I those who attack it, We must stnnd for it when it is challenged. "And it is being challenged today, bere, there and in a hundred dircc-'I dircc-'I Hons. Most notably It is challenged j by the police strike in Boston now. "Now what does the police strike Jin Boston mean? It means that he linen who have been employed and t;.k-ien t;.k-ien their oaths to maintain order and! suppress crime, as the servants of all the people, are refusing to perform that solemn duty unless they are per-Imitted per-Imitted to ally themselves with, affil-iiate affil-iiate themselves with, become mom-i mom-i bers of, a great organization which (contains perhaps 3 per cent of the people. 'Now, if that is done, that is the nd, except for a revolution. Government Govern-ment cannot bo maintained unless It has the power to use force." "The provisional sovrrnment of Russia, composed of good and patriotic men who were doing their best to give the people of Russia an opportunitv to set up their own government by universal uni-versal suffrage, bad not the force, had 'not the power to use force, and Lenine-(and Lenine-(and Trotzky and their associates came along and with German money, and I helped by German agents, they got to-gether to-gether a force that was willing to kill to accomplish their purpose and they set themselves up In the place of the czar and are ruling now "The people of Russia are deprived f the opportunity to rule now as much D8 they were when the czar was there, because these men got control of the force of arms And if the power to use force passes from the 97 per cnt of the whole people of the Unit'd States or from the ino prr cent of 'lu I whole people of the United States to I UfcU organisation of 3 per cent, the ill per cent are no longer a self-governing people. , "The effects may not come today or tomorrow, but that the effectq of the , passing of power to enforce &W3, the power to punish crime, the power to maintain order from the whole penpl a the United States to one section of people of the United States the cf-i cf-i feet of that Is as certain to come in destroying the liberties of the whole and subjecting them to the part as sure as sunrise is to come tomorrow'." A written constitution such as oura limits the powers of the men who covern " Mr Root said, In an eanler part cf his speech. Never forget the importance of that. That Is the vital thing for the preservation of liberty. No king by any name among free people ! "To give to any man in the free land a great office, call him mayor, or governor, or general or president so long as by virtue of that office he is ndiuinistering the law, so long as h-j speaks the voice of the law, he Is yout superior and mine as the representative representa-tive of law, of our law, but the moment mo-ment he pasees the limit of that power Iv-hich is limited by the constitut 'on, i that moment he is our equal and rot jour superior.' |