Back to the Constitution

Bv JOHN HENRY KIRBY Famous Lumber Manufacturer and Constitutionol Orotor Houston, Texas

This is "Constitution 'Week." A hundred and fortyseven years ago patriots conceived and brought forth that instrument under which our government was erected. It conformed to the genius of the American people, embraced the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and established the first real Republic the world had ever known.

That Constitution is the highest intellectual expression of a free people summoned to the task of strengthening their government without placing any of the rights of the individual in jeopardy. We shall hear it praised, and those who ordained it praised, the next few days. But seasonal devotion will not make amends for perennial neglect. If we believe in the Constitution we should come wholeheartedly to it and obey every one of its commandments. To break the least of them threatens the life of the instrument and imperils human rights and liberties.

In their several political documents the colonists claimed certain rights which they said could not be justly "altered or amended by any power." After independence was won' and these rights imbedded in the Constitution, so that even the government could not lawfully infringe them, the Republic hastened to a territorial expansion, an agricultural awakening and an industrial development, that amazed mankind. To defend those rights is a better way to glorify the Constitution than to have the stars sing over it.

The colonists complained of the British changing "fundamentally their form of government." They had a right to resist a change, and we have a right to resist a change unless it is made in the manner provided in the Constitution itself, and promises to render more favorable the opportunity of the individual to achieve for himself with the efiorts of his brain and brawn. Those efforts are his, and the rewards of those efforts are his, but if he fails to defend them, he invites infringement, injustice and tyranny.

Security for our private rights vr'as a primal objective of those who framed the Constitution, declared James Madison. He characterized a threat to infringe them "a signal of general alarm."

The guarantees and the living promises of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, adopted almost contemporaneously with the Constitution, itself, are as essential now as when the patriots demanded them. The rights they safeguard belong to us the same as they belonged to our forefathers, and they surely belong to our posterity' Human rights are as eternal and unchangeable zis the God who gives them. They are adjusted to time and eternity' But they could not swim the tide of selfishness, unguarded, even with great patriots in our midst, and it is certain that they will be lost now unless they are guarded against the fallacies of our Upton Sinclairs and Wisconsin La Follettes and like groups. The cautious need only be reminded that the party which came into being to defend the Constitution chose as its standard bearer in California a Socialist committed to the belief that the right of the State in property transcends the right of the individual who has toiled and saved to acquire it.

That is "a signal of general alarm," as warned by Mr. Madison.

Lecky in his "Democracy and Liberty" declares that the essence of tyranny is for the government to claim supreme poriler over the property of its citizens.

The Constitution made but few grants of power to the Federal government, according to Mr. Madison, leaving to the sovereign States every object "which in the ordinary course of affairs concerns the lives, liberties and properties of the people." It gave no grant for the levying of a Federal tax to be used on a local project. "Congress possesses no power," said Andrew Jackson, "to appropriate . for objects of a local character," anywhere. John Marshall sustained that position employing practically the same language. The supreme court, on another occasion, ruled: "To lay with one hand the power of government on the property of the citizen, and, with the other, to bestow it upon favored individuals . is none the less robbery because it is done under the guise of taxation."

The "ultima Thule" of constitutional benevolence is protection for the individual to work out his own destiny, in his own way, with the minimum of government interference.

To glve bureau chiefs, and code authorities legislative, executive and judicial powers combined is in direct antithesis to the American system. Madison, writing for the Federalist, said of the practice that it "may justly be pronounced the very essence of tyranny."

There are "signals of general alarm."

To praise the Constitution while ignoring its provisions is like admiring the eagle in its flight, then pulling the bow cord which sends an arrow into its heart.

The first American contest for tiberty was with the British, who violated the private rights of the colonists and burdened them with unjust taxation. Washington led the patriots in that contest. The next was with the "centralists" who had gained power under the administration of John Adams. The leader of the opposition at this time was Thomas Jefferson. He organized the Democratic party to uphold the Constitution as it came from the hands of the revolutionary sages and patriots, and to resist Federal encroachment upon the rights of the States as well as to make the government responsive to the principles proctaimed in the Declaration of Independence which he had drawn.

We need that master mind and trenchant pen today. We need the courage of those men who sleep along the Rappahannock, on the slopes of Roanoke, and under a Carolina moon. We need to combat that blighting heresy that man is a pawn of the State. We need the unyielding determination that on this continent in this day of creeping despotism throughout the world the citizens of the United States shall remain "masters of their own fate," and "captains of their own souls."

I make no apology'for defending the Constitution. Guards are being awakened from quiet fields where the government has laid its hand to the plow, to where the analytical minds of great lawyers learned in constitutional lore are studying our course.

When the labors of life opened before me and the road was new I learned to revere the Constitution and to rely upon its promises. I want to see those who come after me spurred on by its incentives and assured by its safeguards. We do not need encomiums for it; we do not need praise for the dead whose wisdom and sacrifice secured it. We ne€d an awakening triumph to rally the living to it.

We need resistance to a perversion of the taxing power, to the subordinating of individual energy of mind and hand, to the disbursement of public funds which subsidize a people's faith to the assessment of penalties outside of a court room for an offense never listed in a law book.

The call is to every patriot in this broad land who loves liberty and right and the flag, and verily the Constitution itself for it is that which gives his country its power and the flag its purpose. Concord is looking down through the years, Washington is watching, Jefierson is pleading. Will we vindicate our history ? Will we conserve the rewards of our struggles? Will we guard the government established by the patriots for our happiness and dedicated to our liberty? Without our Constitution we die; with it we live on forever to lead mankind in the way of achievement and of eminence in civilization and to the heights of an ordered liberty and noble National life.

Back From Eastern Trip

Edric E. Brown, manager of the Bark Products Division of The Pacific Lumber Co., San Francisco, returned recently from a five months' visit to the Eastern states. While in the East Mr. Brown made his headquarters in the company's New York and Chicago omces. He reports that he found considerable improvement in general business conditions.

H. W. COLE IN WASHINGTON

H. W. Cole, president, California Redwood Association, and executive officer of the Redwood Division of the LCA, left September 5 to attend a meeting of the Lumber Code Authority in Washington, D. C.

Visits Southern California

Henry M. Hink, sales manager, Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Co., San Francisco, was back at his desk September 24 Lrom a 10-day business trip to Los Angeles and San Diego.

Spends Vacation In The Northwest

Viola McEwing, Schafer Bros. Lumber & Shingle Co., Los Angeles, has returned from a two weeks' vacation trip spent in the Northwest. She made the round-trip on one of the company's vessels, the Anna Schafer. During her absence, Miss E. K. Stuart took over her duties in the Los Angeles office.

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