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Show THE AMERICAN VAY Bearing in mind that these United States of America were intended to be a Republic not a Democracy what then is the duty of our federal government gov-ernment at Washington? And what limitations did the Constitution Con-stitution and the Bill of Rights place upon the federal government? govern-ment? The primary function or duty of the federal government is to protect the private citizen against oppression resulting from the abuse of power, including in-cluding that which destroys competition and interferes with equality of opportunity. Concentration Con-centration of power, whether it be vested in business, in Labor Unions or in Government, is opposed op-posed to the philosophy and the continuation of a republican republi-can form of government. Over the years we have laid down safeguards to prevent unbridled un-bridled concentration of power in business (the Clayton and Sherman Acts). We have made a first step toward avertin" concentration con-centration of despotic power in labor unions (the Taft-Hartley Act). We drew up the Constitution Constitu-tion in 1787 and added the Bill of Rights in 1791 to prohibit concentration of power in the federal government. In the case of business we have succeeded fairly well in protecting the individual; in-dividual; in the case of labor unions we have not done quite so well; but as far as the federal fed-eral government is concerned, we have failed miserably. Article X of the Bill of Rights reads: "The powers not delegated dele-gated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." Because we have not insisted that our politicians obey this law and because the individual states have not zealously zeal-ously guarded their rights, we have seen the federal government govern-ment usurp riower after power that in a Renublic rightfully belong to the individual states. Undoubtedly the saddest thing lt0 do that ?v,-Power T V , i Jts remaining h C.TT this Process gtv,du Tt 0 troyingore.l.d become weakw 3 re and more Vnd taken to Wa5?inB?w L " ;; V resulted i "fn. fajh handle the macfrS1 ernment, a buS of i t a lar control. 0f 'ble V 1 have had to deitrV fl bu-eaucracy the 'Sate M rules which haJar Jaw. to construe th'V" ft enforce themV, er1nwlsKfeot' number of emLncreaH:,f i at the publicfefcJ& creases, the while tf1 a I W less and less sSlt we star immedelvl1 fat1 tralize this power atr V I ton by lopping off th M-t 1 of this bureaus Republic is doomi0 H must decentralize or!? 4 our minds that we sfa,;s ruled by a great eentr e cracy which nobody A bureaucratic sfc (Uf ernment is as alien TO W he is as susceptible to 3 U and corruption, and u 3 able of popular control 1 A other system of govern. Ufl eluding even that of s J 11' If the time hasi ll the responsobilities andd? U ties of government excti capacity of the American r, to discharge them, then w. in for a change in the fc Jp our government. No tH V American wishes this to b'' til' but we are allowing it tc " en. To prevent it, Dowerii V5! be taken from Washing m restored to the smaller ur.' , i Government. These smaller"; must once aeain flex their 3' cles and become strong; i , mut govern again. " w The federal povernmen ',A a job to do. but it can ic .1 1 a general job of gover-j that is. if we are to reK:1., Renublic nnHer which strone and made onrselr freatest nation in all m:: i tory. 1 |
