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the last two sentences. America has stood every test except that which ruined every other republic. It has not yet encountered direct government, towards which we seem radically tending. It has not withstood what Lord Macauley, a century ago, predicted would prove our overthrow. He declared the republic was “all sail and no ballast.” He predicted great speed for a period; but he warned against the day when those who did not have breakfast and did not expect dinner would elect our congress and our president. The demagogue would be abroad in the land and he would say: “Why do these have and you suffer?”

      “Your republic will be pillaged and ravaged in the 20th century, just as the Roman Empire was by the barbarians of the fifth century, with this difference, that the devastators of the Roman Empire, the Huns and Vandals, came from abroad, while your barbarians will be the people of your own country, and the product of your own institutions.”

      If “Coxie’s army” had been led by Eugene Debs, or any one of more than a score whose names are revered by many, instead of by a patriotic American, every mile of the road over which it traveled would have reeked with human gore. Had it resorted to bloodshed at that time, however, it would not have proceeded far. But socialism has made great progress since 1895.

      Speaking before a Senate committee early in January of this year, the president of the American Federation of Labor is reported to have said: “The people will not countenance industrial stagnation after the war. There can be no repetition in the United States of the conditions that prevailed from 1893 to 1896 when men and women were hungry for the want of employment.”

      The same veiled threat has been uttered repeatedly by men high in official position.

      Are we face to face with a condition and not a theory? Will laborers revolt if they fail to secure employment, or when compelled to accept a lesser wage? Will farmers turn anarchist if they can find no market for their crops, or when compelled to accept a lesser price? Will bankers become bomb throwers if unloanable funds accumulate? No, America has not withstood every trial to which she can possibly be subjected. The supreme menace stands today with gnashing teeth, glaring into our faces.

      CHAPTER VIII

      WHAT IS A CONSTITUTION?

      The nature of the constitution and the dependence of the minority thereon and hence the necessity for an independent judiciary discussed and illustrated.

      A constitution is little less than a firm and binding contract between the majority and the minority, entered into for the sole protection of the minority, with regularly constituted courts to enforce its provisions.

      The Supreme Court of the United States, from which every root of the Judiciary Department – one of the three coordinate branches of government – derives its vitality, is our only continuing and unchanging bulwark of liberty.

      The executive branch, from President down through all the departments, State, Treasury, War and Navy, is liable to radical change on the fourth day of March every four years. Either house and both houses of Congress frequently change in partisan complexion at a single election. The Supreme Court, the members of which hold by life tenure, remains, theoretically, at least, unchanged.

      Unless the people undermine their liberties by “effecting in the forms of the Constitution alterations which will impair the energy of the system,” which Washington warned against, or unless some executive corrupts the personnel of the Supreme Court by filling vacancies with socialists, or other revolutionary elements, Anglican liberty, the hope of the world, is secured in America against everything except bolshevism. With respect to the courts, Washington’s famous order is pertinent: “Place none but Americans on guard tonight.”

      WHO IS AN AMERICAN?

      Who is an American, worthy to be placed on guard tonight? Is he American born? He may be, and he may have been born beneath any flag and under any sky. An American is one who believes in and is ready to defend this republic. To be ready to defend our territory, or even our flag, is not enough.

      Though we continue our socialistic bent and either undermine or overthrow our form of government through peaceful evolution or forceful revolution, with sword or by ballot, the land will remain. The rains will water it, the sun warm it, human life will exist, the Stars and Stripes will still float, but, except from the map, America will be gone forever.

      America is more than fertile fields, more than bursting banks, more than waving flags. The America in which one must believe, and for which he must sacrifice, is constitutional liberty and justice according to law, guaranteed and administered by three coordinate branches of government. Just in proportion as we weaken the energy of the system through changes in the Constitution – which Washington so earnestly warned against – we undermine what thus far no one has succeeded in overthrowing.

      I repeat, three coordinate branches of government with no subordinate branch! In the America which the world knows, and which we love, laws must be enacted by the legislative branch, and not by the executive or by the proletariat. Laws must be interpreted by an independent judiciary, fearless and unrecallable except by impeachment. And these laws, whose scope is limited by the Constitution, must be administered by the executive and not by the legislative branch. Congress has no more right to direct the manner of execution of its acts than the president has to direct or coerce the nature of its acts. Let each coordinate branch keep hands off the sacred prerogatives of the other. That’s America! And the man who defends her traditions and her institutions, regardless of his nativity, is an American who can safely be placed on guard tonight.

      AN ACTUAL MENACE

      On February 3, 1919, an editorial writer who has testified that he has six million or more readers, quoted Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, as saying:

      “I mean that the people propose to control their government and do not intend any longer to have the governing power exercised by judges on the bench.”

      And the editor correctly adds:

      “This is as near to an American revolutionary statement as has ever come from a man as important officially as Mr. Gompers.”

      Thus the issue is sharply drawn. This organization, if its president has been correctly quoted, intends to abolish one of our coordinate branches of government, to-wit, the courts.

      What have the courts done to justify such a radical change in our form of government? When the government was organized the Fathers thought wise to make express provision that no class should ever become the special favorite of legislation. The Constitution forbids class legislation and the courts enforce it. Unless labor union people demand special exemptions from obligations to which all others are amenable, or special privileges denied to others, why do they officially make the revolutionary announcement that the courts are to be abolished? Yet this very thing has the approval of this most widely known and best-paid editorial writer in the world. Pressed in a corner, I presume both would claim that their only desire is to compel the courts promptly to observe popular sentiment instead of studying legal principles and, to that end, propose to subject judges to some kind of recall. And they would doubtless justify all this by the hackneyed phrase, “the people can be trusted.”

      Thus they follow Rousseau and Robespierre. The former declared, “The general will, the public will, is always right.” The latter said, “The people is infallible.”

      A case that well illustrates this “popular infallibility” as taught by Rousseau and Robespierre, as well as by their present day disciples, occurred in a certain county in Iowa, not fifty miles from my home. A person charged with second degree murder sought his constitutional right of a fair and impartial trial. He made application for a change of venue, alleging that his case had been prejudged and that because of the existing prejudice he could not obtain a fair trial within that county. Five citizens, the minimum requisite number, supported his motion by their affidavits. Promptly, two hundred most reputable citizens filed counter affidavits alleging that there was no prejudice whatever. The judge believed the five. It is probable that he discerned evidence of prejudice in the eagerness with which the two hundred sought to have the case tried in their midst. A change of venue was granted, and that night these two hundred liberty-loving citizens decided they

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