xt7zs756fb78 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7zs756fb78/data/mets.xml  1923  books b97-24-37872552 English s.n., : [S.l. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. United States. Constitution. United States Constitutional history.McCamant, Wallace. Constitution maintained is freedom preserved. Murphy, Ethel Allen. America's rock of ages. Frayser, Nannie Lee, d. 1924. Story of an immortal document: 1787-1823. Constitution week celebration in Louisville text Constitution week celebration in Louisville 1923 2002 true xt7zs756fb78 section xt7zs756fb78 









The Purpose
   in publishing this pamphlet
   is to preserve a record of
   Louisville's celebration of
   Constitution Week in the
   year 1923-Sept. eleventh to
   the seventeenth inclusive-
   and perchance to afford a
   suggestion or two to organi-
   zations for similar celebrations
   in the future
          MARVIN H. LEWIS,
            Chaas.Eiecacive Cifndmtee
   Louisville, Kentucky
   October lat, 1923

 
















       Message from the President

  The annual observance of September 17 as
Constitution Day, in honor of the fact that it is
the anniversary of the signing of the great charter,
is a customi altogether worthy of continuation and
perpetuation. I am glad to know that the day
will be so widely celebrated this year, for I am
very sure that, as the American people appreciate
the blessings that their Constitution has insured
to them, so they will be the more disposed to live
in accordance with its precepts and purposes.
                                CALVIN COOLIDGE.

          The above message was wriclle by the President at
          the request of the Constitutiox Week Committee

 




      Constitution Week Celebration

                  in Louisville

   The celebration of Constitution Week in Louisville was
under the joint auspices of the Kentucky Society Sons of the
American Revolution and a committee of one hundred citi-
zens appointed by the Mayor of Louisville. As a result of
various meetings called by Mayor Huston Quin an Executive
Committee was appointed with power to arrange for the cele-
bration. Marvin H. Lewis, Director General of the Sons of
the American Revolution, was named by the Mayor as chair-
man of this commu-ittee, the personnel of which was composed
of a number of active business men and club women. Plans
were adopted by the Committee with a view to a celebra-
tion which would reach the whole people.
   Four-minute speakers, were sent into the factories and
theatres to tell the story of the Constitution. Slides were
also used in the moving picture theatres. Mr. James P.
Barnes, President of the Louisville Railway Company,
headed the Speakers' Bureau. A Speakers' Bulletin of
twelve pages was prepared, which contained practical
information about the Constitution. The Louisville Cour-
ier-Journal offered cash prizes for the three best four-minute
speeches on the Constitution. The competition was state-
wide, and several hundred manuscripts were received.
Three prize winning speeches were printed in the Speakers'
Bulletin.  The Louisville Times offered cash prizes for the
two best slogans for use during Constitution WAeek, and these
were also printed in the Speakers' Bulletin. This Bulletin
was not only sent to speakers, but to every school and Sunday
school superintendent and minister in Louisville and to all
the newspapers in the state.
   The ministers co-operated by preaching appropriate
sermons on the Constitution. Exercises were held in all
the Sunday schools on the Sunday preceding Constitution
Day and in all the public and parochial schools on Constitu-
tion Day. Story hours were held in the community centers
and libraries during the week, and the story of the Constitu-
tion was told to the smaller children at these gatherings,



Page Three

 


and also in the schools. The story of the Constitution was
written for this purpose by Miss Nannie Lee Frayser.
It is printed herein. At the State Fair audiences repeated
several times each day the Allegiance to the Flag, which
was printed on oil-cloth banners so that it could be seen
from all parts of the auditorium. This feature was managed
with appropriate ceremony.
   The success of the celebration was largely due to the
splendid co-operation of the daily papers. About fifteen
pages of newspaper publicity were given gratis by the news-
papers prior to and during Constitution Week. The Louis-
ville Post printed in full "We, the People," a pamphlet
analyzing the meaning of the Constitution clause by clause.
The Louisville Courier-Journal and the Louisville Herald
printed special articles on the Constitution . A daily con-
test for the best fifty word definition of the meaning of
the Constitution to the individual citizen was conducted
by the latter newspaper. The. Louisville Times published
each day during Constitution Week articles by leading
lawyers on various topics relating to the Constitution.
The Louisville Railway Company, as its contribution,
furnished 100,000 copies of the Constitution in pam-
phlet form, with marginal notes in black face type giving
the story of the Constitution and its value to the individual
citizen. The Allegiance to the Flag was printed on the
outside cover of the pamphlet.
   The Associated Press supplied stories of the celebration
to all the newspapers in Kentucky which subscribe for its
service, and also sent a full story of the celebration of Con-
stitution Day proper to fifty of the larger newspapers of
the country, including a synopsis of Judge Wallace McCam-
ant's address. Judge McCamant's complete address was
supplied to fifteen daily newspapers in Kentucky. It was
published in full in the Louisville Courier-Journal and
the Louisville Herald and to a considerable extent in the
afternoon papers on the day following its delivery. The
combined circulation of the four daily newspapers in Louis-
ville is about 200,000, with probably twice that number
of readers.  It is estimated that the speakers addressed
at least 227,000 people. Hence, it may be truly said that
the story of the spirit and meaning of the Constitution



Page Four

 



reached practically the whole people of Louisville and
a great many in the state during Constitution Week. Proc-
lamations calling upon the city and the state to appropri-
ately observe Constitution Day and Week were issued by
the Mayor of Louisville and the Governor of Kentucky.
    On Constitution Day, a mass meeting was arranged in
Lincoln Park at the noon hour, which was well attended.
At that hour whistles and bells throughout the city sounded,
and each citizen, no matter where he might be, was requested
to stop for a moment and offer the following silent prayer:
"I am an American citizen. God help me to do my duty
as such. "
   In the evening of Constitution Day a uniformed parade
passed through the heart of the business section, large
searchlights playing upon it throughout the line of march.
Color bearers of fifty or more organizations participated,
and in addition there were four hundred large American
flags carried in the parade. The 138th Field Artillery acted
as color guard. This proved to be one of the most impres-
sive spectacles ever attempted in Louisville. The parade
marched to the Kosair Auditorium, where a big mass meet-
ing was held.
   This meeting was attended by about 7,000 people. Fol-
lowing the invocation, the first number on the program con-
sisted of the Massing of the Colors. Five hundred flag
bearers carrying large American flags were massed on the
stage with the Kosair Band in the center playing "The Star-
Spangled Banner." Mayor Huston Quin then read a brief
message from the President of the United States, written
especially for the Louisville celebration, and most graciously
introduced Judge Wallace McCamant, of Portland, Oregon,
who delivered the Constitution Day address. His able and
scholarly address is published in full herein. It will also
be published at an early date in the Constitutional Review.
   The closing feature of the exercises at the Auditorium
was the pageant, entitled "America's Rock of Ages," re-
markable for its beauty and impressiveness. It is printed
herein in full, and may be used by anyone for a patriotic
celebration without charge, provided the author, Miss
Ethel Allen Murphy, and the Kentucky Society Sons of
the American Revolution, are given due credit. The



Page Fire

 


pageant closed with a prayer for our country by the Voice
of Patriotism, and the singing of the last verse of "Amer-
ica." Thus ended a celebration which was noteworthy in
the history of Louisville.
   The experience of the Committee is that if people can
be inspired to co-operate in a great patriotic celebration
like this, they will better appreciate the fundamental
principles of our government and make a greater effort to
preserve those principles for their own benefit and the bene-
fit of future generations.



Page Six

 




       The Constitution Maintained

            is Freedom Preserved

ADDRESS DELIVERED BY JUDGE WALLACE MCCAMANT, OF PORTLAND, ORE

  The complete text of the speech of Judge Wallace McCamant of Portland, Ore.,
at the Constitution Day Celebration at Kosair Auditorium in Louisville, Ky.,
on the evening of September 17, 1923, follows:
   I am not laboring under the delusion that Kentucky
has any occasion to look to Oregon for instruction in Amer-
ican fundamentals. The Commonwealth which maintained
Henry Clay in public life for a generation, which was the
birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, whose roll of fame contains
such names as Robert Anderson, Robert J. Breckinridge,
and John J. Crittenden, and which has enjoyed the journal-
istic leadership of Henry Watterson, has no occasion to go
beyond its own boundaries for instruction in those lessons
which the 17th of September suggests. I am here tonight
because I received an invitation signed by a number of
gentlemen prominent in your civic life, two of whom are
my personal friends; an invitation so persuasive that it
was easier to travel 5,000 miles than to say " No. "
   We are accustomed to think of the War for Indepen-
dence as the fount from which our political blessings have
flowed. As a matter of fact, the Revolutionary War only
cleared the way for the great constructive work which was
to follow. At the close of the war the country was in a
pitiable condition. Great stretches of territory had been
ravaged by hostile armies. The accumulated wealth of
the country had never been great and it had been swallowed
up by the war. Measured by the standards of that time,
the national debt was a crushing burden. There was but
little cohesion between the several States. The Articles of
Confederation were a rope of sand. They gave Congress
no direct touch with the people. It had no power to levy
taxes. It could raise money only by loans or by requisi-
tions on the States. These requisitions were tardily and
scantly paid.  As the year passed they were treated with
increasing neglect. With no dependable revenue the gov-
ernment could expect but little credit and the time came



Page Seven

 



when it had none at all. The country defaulted in the
payment of interest on its debt and our representative at
the Court of France was obliged to listen to the burning
reproaches of French statesmen that we were neglecting
the payment of interest on the loans which had financed
the revolution. The government had eyes and ears, but
no hands. It could see the distress of the people; it could
hear the complaints which welled up on every hand; but it
could do nothing to discharge the governmental functions
essential to normal industrial and commercial life.

               No Banking System
   There was no national circulating medium, no banking
system, and but little hard money. The paper money
of the several States circulated at a discount within their
territory and elsewhere scarcely at all. The facilities for
the transaction of business were lacking and there was little
business. Before the Revolution our maritime trade had
been chiefly with Great Britain and her dependencies. After
the war the British navigation laws cut us off from that
trade, except as the cargoes were carried in British vessels.
   There was but little national spirit. The means of
communication were poor and the great mass of the people
had little touch with the world outside the communities in
which they lived. The Revolutionary War had but slightly
affected the situation. The campaigns in the North were
fought chiefly with northern troops and the campaigns in
the South with southern troops. Only a small percentage
of the men of the American Revolution rendered service in
sections remote from that in which they lived.
   The relations of the States to each other were not har-
monious; in several cases they were positively hostile. The
dispute as to the sovereignty of the Wyoming Valley es-
tranged Connecticut from Pennsylvania. The controversy
over the territory which is now Vermont created a bitter
feud between New Hampshire and New York. Each
State erected custom houses at its borders and discrimi-
nated against interstate and in favor of domestic commerce.
So burdensome were the restrictions imposed by New York
that the merchants of New London, Connecticut, entered
into an agreement to have no business dealings with her.



Page Eight

 



   The private indebtedness of the country was large, and
with trade stagnant there were many who could not pay.
The conditions sorely tested the conscience of the people.
Many who in normal times would have recognized and en-
deavored to meet their obligations were swept from their
moral balance. They were unable to see the guilt and the
folly of repudiation. Shay's rebellion was an effort of the
debtor class to prevent the functioning of the courts that
they might not be called upon to meet their obligations.
This incident revealed a most alarming spirit of lawlessness,
dishonesty and class hatred in the important Common-
wealth of Massachusetts.
   George III and the Tories, who had supported his policy,
viewed this situation with satisfaction. They frequently
expressed the belief that impossible economic conditions
would drive the States to seek protection under the British
crown.
   These were the conditions under which the Constitu-
tional Convention met. There is no new life without
travail. Such is the law of nature, applicable alike to man-
kind and to nations. Without the tribulation of the crit-
ical period there would have been no Constitutional Con-
vention. But for the approach of the Ship of State to
the reefs and breakers of anarchy, her pilots would not have
dared to steer her into the uncharted seas of government
under the Constitution.

              Leaders Were Sought
   In 1787 all thoughtful men were sobered by the signs
of the times. The temper of public opinion was not re-
ceptive to the appeals of demagogues. In each of the
twelve States represented in the convention, the people
sought out their true leaders, men qualified for constructive
political work. There were but forty-five delegates to the
convention. It would be hard to find another case in
history where it has been given to so small a body of men
to achieve so much for their generation and for posterity.
Mr. Gladstone did not err when he declared our Federal
Constitution "the most wonderful work everstruck off at a
given time by the brain and purpose of man." The rev-
erent student of history cannot fail to see the hand of God



Page Nine

 



in the deliberations of the convention and in the circum-
stances which brought the delegates together.
   The delegates to the convention were not all great men.
Some of them were disappointingly narrow, bigoted and
opinionated. Yet nearly all of them were patriotic to the
extent of their lights. They had given the best possible
evidence of their patriotism. On Christmas night, 1776,
several of them had crossed the Delaware amid the floating
ice, and on the following day had participated in the victory
at Trenton. Some of them had fought under Pulaski,
Lincoln and Greene in the campaigns of the South. Others
had wintered at Valley Forge. One of them had given all
his money and then pledged his plate to raise additional
funds with which to equip the troops who fought under
John Stark at Bennington. Eight of them had signed the
Declaration of Independence; they knew that if the revo-
lution failed this act would be treated as high treason and
treason in that day under British law was punished with
barbaric cruelty. The delegates had all learned the lesson
which the tyranny of George III was calculated to teach;
no one among them subscribed to the doctrine of the divine
right of kings. With entire unanimity they incorporated
the clause forbidding all titles of nobility. They were
agreed that in this country all power should spring from
the people. Most of the delegates had learned from the
infirmity of the Government under the Articles of Con-
federation, the necessity of a Government with powers
adequate to the common defense and the general welfare.

              Washington a Delegate
   The list of delegates included Washington. He was
unanimously chosen chairman, and presided with dignity
and fairness over the deliberations. His great name gave
the highest credit to the convention and assured support
for the Constitution from many who were intellectually
incapable of weighing the arguments for and against rati-
fication.
   Benjamin Franklin, then in his eighty-second year,
rendered in the convention his last conspicuous public
service. Since the Albany Conference of 1754 he had
consistently advocated a Federal union. Notwithstanding



Page Ten

 



his advanced years, he retained his strong mentality and
his marvelous endowments of good common sense. When
the heat of debate threatened the harmony of the proceed-
ings, he reminded the delegates of their trust and brought
them back to temperate deliberation.
   Alexander Hamilton of New York and James Madison
of Virginia were the most constructive members of the con-
vention. Hamilton was 30 and Madison 36. With the
vigor of comparative youth, they united a maturity born
of intellectual honesty, single-minded patriotism and pro-
found consideration of the problems to be solved. Both
were gentlemen, mindful at all times of the courtesies ap-
pertaining to forensic discussion, and Hamilton particularly
had a personal charm which spelt power over his fellowmen.
Both were eloquent. Both labored with consummate tact
and unfailing industry during the four months that the
convention deliberated.
   Rufus King of Massachusetts was the author of the
provision which forbade all laws impairing the obligation
of contracts. This inhibition has powerfully contributed
to the establishment of public and private credit. It has
delivered the people from penalties incident to their own
brain storms.
               Morris Was Leader
   Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania was one of the ablest
and most eloquent men of an era which was more prolific
in great men than the golden age of Athens. He was charged
with the duty of revising the verbiage of the Constitution.
To his command of the English language we are largely in-
debted for the accuracy and felicity of expression which
have been remarked by all students of the Constitution.
   The membership of the convention included John Rut-
ledge, the great war governor of South Carolina; Charles
Coatesworth Pinckney of the same Commonwealth, already
distinguished for his military services and destined to be
still better known as the author of that sterling American
sentiment: " Millions for defense, but not one cent for
tribute"; John Dickinson of Delaware, author of the
"Farmer's Letters, " which had contributed mightily to
support of the patriot cause at the outbreak of the revo-



Page Eleven

 


lution; Robert Morris, financier of the revolution; Oliver
Ellsworth of Connecticut; William Paterson of New Jersey;
and James Wilson of Pennsylvania.
   All in all, they were the master architects and builders
of the political world. Yet there was no man among them
wise enough to have drafted a constitution so good as that
which was the product of their collective wisdom. Their
work was done with much travail and anguish of spirit.
The fear that the people would reject the Constitution was
ever with them, but the courageous words of Washington,
guided their deliberations: "If to please the people we
offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward
defend our work Let us erect a standard to which the
wise and just may repair. The event is in the hands of
God."
             Tells Accurate Prophecy
   On my last visit to the hall in which the convention
deliberated, the custodian called my attention to the figure
of a sun sending out its rays engraved on the back of the
chair occupied by Washington. When the Constitution
had been signed, Franklin said that he had been depressed
by the acrimony and the sectionalism which had charac-
terized the convention's debates; more than once he had
thought that the engraving was a setting sun and that it
typified the setting of the hopes of those who had endeavored
to build up in this country a great republic. But now that
the Constitution had been adopted and signed, the old
man cried out with the fire of prophecy in his eye, "It is
the rising sun, it is the rising sun."
   Thirteen decades of government under the Constitution
attest the accuracy of this prophecy. Our population has
expanded with a mighty growth and our wealth has in-
creased in still greater ratio. Our boundaries have stretched
westward from the Alleghanies to the Pacific and across
the Pacific to the isles of the sea. But we have not outrun
the protection or the benefits of our Federal Constitution.
   The confidence of the people in Washington assured
that the experiment should have a trial. It is one of the
marks of Washington's greatness that he attracted to him-
self the finest intellects of his time. Witness his selection
of the first Secretary of the Treasury. The career of Alex-



Page Twelve

 


ander Hamilton demonstrates that the age of miracles did
not cease with the Incarnation. With the wand of a wizard
he transformed insolvency into prosperity. He provided
a national revenue, established a circulating medium, and
created a national credit. Alexander Hamilton was the
most constructive thinker in all American history.

               Terms of Constitution
    The Constitution was couched in terms which under a
narrow and technical construction would have dwarfed
the new government and denied it the essential attributes
of sovereignty. But the Divinity which shapes our ends
gave us John Marshall. Without a judiciary charged with
the interpretation of the Constitution and with the vindi-
cation of its guaranties, the bill of rights would have been
empty rhetoric. Marshall established the Federal Ju-
diciary, defined its functions, created its ideals and launched
it on its great work. He had the vision of a seer, the wisdom
of a constructive statesman and the courage of a hero.
In accord with Washington on all Washington's funda-
mental beliefs, Marshall was an apostle of the national idea.
He believed that the people had established a more perfect
union; that they had created a nation; and that there was
to be found in the Constitution authority for all those
activities which are essential to national life. Marshall's
great decisions spanning thirty-four years of the life of
the Republic make up the most fruitful and the most con-
structive work ever performed in any country by any man.
   When the work of Marshall was well nigh done, the
ringing periods of Daniel Webster in his reply to Hayne
proclaimed to the world the beauty and the glory of the
structure. In 1835 old Liberty Bell cracked as it tolled
at the funeral of John Marshall. The incident symbolized
that the American Revolution was a completed work and
that the last of its great men had passed to his reward.
   The Constitution had knit the States into a compact
whole. A generation was growing up in which love for
flag and country was a deep-rooted sentiment. The mystic
chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and
patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone in the
land were ready to swell the chorus of the union. The



Page Thir/een

 



foundations of the American Commonwealth had been
builded broad and deep and the structure was to stand
four square against the storms of disunion. The prowess
of the Army of Northern Virginia and the genius of Robert
E. Lee were to try the faith of a generation of brave men
and good women, but it was written in the eternal decrees
that they could not overthrow the temple founded and
reared by the fathers of the Republic.

           Guarantees of Constitution
   The first ten amendments, proposed by the first Congress,
under the leadership of Madison and speedily ratified by
the States, are to be treated as a part of the original in-
strument. With the guarantees of freedom contained in
the thirteenth amendment and of protection to life, liberty
and property contained in the fourteenth, they constitute
a great grant of franchises for the protection of which the
humblest citizen is entitled to invoke the power of a hun-
dred millions of people.
   The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, freedom
of the press, and the right of the people peaceably to as-
semble and petition the Government for the redress of
grievances. These guarantees assure the application of
the collective wisdom to all our national problems. Under
their operation we have evolved a school system which
looks not to the higher education of the few, but to the
adequate education of all. Our public school system is
the bulwark of our free institutions and a demonstration,
as well, that those institutions are adapted to the highest
type of public service.
   Guided by public opinion, Congress adopted a public
land code, of which the homestead and mineral entry
statutes are foundation pillars. It is the wisest agrarian
legislation the world has ever seen. Under its operation
the untilled prairies and the mountain wastes have been
transformed in a generation into prosperous commonwealths
where men and women fear God and love this old flag.
   Under these constitutional guarantees public opinion
has become so powerful that no remediable abuse can
stand against it.



Page Fourteen

 



   The Constitution assures to every person the equal
protection of the laws. In adversity and unpopularity
it is our protector.
   The rights guaranteed by the Constitution were not
voluntarily granted by arbitrary power. They are the
fruition of struggle and sacrifice. They speak to us of
Runnymede and Naseby, of Leyden and Nieuport, of
Bunker Hill and Valley Forge. They are the rights whose
value has been demonstrated by experience, rights with
which, God helping us, we will never part.

                Power from People
   Under the Constitution all power springs from the
people. Through a system of checks and balances there
is some assurance that the laws which we all must obey
shall be shaped and moulded not by temporary gusts of
public opinion, but by the sober second thought of the
people. National powers for the Federal Government and
local powers reserved to the States. Power and security
are the key words of the Constitution. Power adequate
to preserve the Union, to protect against invasion and dis-
order, to promote the general welfare. Security in the
enjoyment of fundamental rights, a security which no
officer or branch of the Government may disturb; a secur-
ity guaranteed to every citizen and to the stranger within
our gates.
   The vigor and power of our Government under the
Constitution had their supreme test in the World War.
Russia had been conquered. Great Britain, France and
Italy had wrought valiantly, but their backs were to the
wall. Their military leaders admitted privately that they
could not subdue that gigantic military machine of the
German Empire.
   Our people heard the President's clarion call, "The
world must be made safe for Democracy." From farm
and workshop, from mountain and prairie, the flower of
our young manhood came forth to battle for the right.
The war power under the Constitution placed four mil-
lions of freemen with the colors, and at Cantigny and
Belleau Wood, at St. Mihiel and the Argonne, they demon-



Page Filleen

 



strated the might of American manhood nurtured under
free institutions and zealous for international righteousness.
   The world moves. We must not permit our attach-
ment to the past to blind us to the importance of correcting
abuses as they appear from time to time. New conditions
will always require new laws. But the fundamental prin-
ciples on which the Constitution is built are as true as the
multiplication table and as worthy of veneration as the
Rock of Ages.

                Rights of Property
   Centrifugal and disintegrating forces have been in oper-
ation throughout our national life. They fought the rat-
ification of the Constitution; they contended for a strict
construction of its provisions, which would have shorn the
Government of its power and robbed the country of its
glorious future; they contended for the principle of se-
cession. In these days their attack is directed against
the right of private property guaranteed by the fifth and
fourteenth amendments. This right is fundamental. It
is essential not alone to the perpetuity of our institutions,
but to the preservation of civilization itself. Show me a
place where the right of private property is lightly esteemed
and I will show you a place where life is cheap and where
women are unsafe.
   The right to acquire, possess and enjoy property is
important not to the well-to-do alone Everyone has some
piece of property which to him is dear. Ask the child for
his toy, the musician for his instrument, the Christian for
his Bible, or the wife for her wedding ring. Each of these
possessions is property held by the same title as that by
which the Pennsylvania Company owns its railroad.
   Everyone is interested in the maintenance of good order,
stability and respect for the rights of others.
   Radicalism makes its converts by appeal to the dis-
contented. For the most part these converts are super-
ficial thinkers. They have not thought out a rational
remedy for the abuses of which they complain. They
think that in any shakeup they would have a chance for
betterment. They figure that they have nothing to lose.



Page Sixteen

 



    No one would reason thus, but for the habit men have
of taking their blessings as a matter of course. Everyone
has much to lose. The heritage of orderly government, of
respect for law, which has come to us from the fathers is
beyond all price. Recent experiences in Russia should
convince every American of the folly of exchanging it for
the communistic mess of pottage. The communistic state
is hopelessly impractical. Divide up all property per cap-
ita and a new state of inequality would develop in a week.
The strong, the thrifty and the crafty would soon possess
the share of the weak, the careless and the foolish.

            Scores Destructive Critics
   We hear a great deal of criticism of the action of courts
in declaring statutes unconstitutional. Some of this crit-
icism is due to legitimate difference of opinion in the in-
terpretation of the language of the Constitution. But the
man who would deny the courts this power is a destructive
critic. Without this power the bill of rights is a house of
cards.
   We have many of these destructive critics, but I know
of no responsible leader of public opinion who will say that
we should have any such law as the Constitution forbids.
   Ought we to have a law forbidding the free exercise of
religious opinion Should we have a censorship of the
press such as obtains in Russia Should the people be
subject in their persons, houses, papers and effects to un-
reasonable searches and seizures Should any man be
convicted of crime without a trial in which he is confronted
by the witnesses in his favor Should any man be deprived
of life, liberty, or property without due process of law
   The man who will answer any of these questions in the
affirmative is unworthy to be called a free man, nor does
he deserve the protection of the flag.
   A political, like a religious, creed is of value only so
long as it expresses the genuine belief which moulds the life
and conduct of its adherents. If the day ever comes when
the people cease to believe in the principles of the Consti