Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1907 — POLITICS and POLITICIANS [ARTICLE]

POLITICS and POLITICIANS

Senator Allison of lowa has made known his purpose to ask for another term, and hia friends are busy denying the rumors that be is incapacitated by age and failing health. In a recent interview Mr. Bryan was asked what is the most important principle to be applied at present in American politics. His reply was a quotation of the Jefferson maxim: “Equal rights to all and special privileges to none.” Pennsylvania’s “favorite son,” Senator Knox, took his stand on the question of federal and State powers, in delivering the annual address to the graduating class of the Yale Law School, his special theme being "The Development of the Federal Power to Regulate Commerce.” He replied particularly to the proposition advanced by Senator Beveridge, in support of the child labor bill, pointing out that production is in no sense commerce, and holding that Congress may legislate only within the scope of its constitutional powers. He says that “legislative discretion extends to the means and not to the ends.” In support of this position, Senator Knox cited a long line of judicial opinions, including the recent decision of the Supreme Court, delivered by Justice Brewer in the Colo-rado-Kansas case. In this view it was maintained that the desirability or popularity of a measure was besida the question so long as Congress had no power to enact it. W. J. Bryan told the Oklahoma Democratic conventional Oklahoma City, that the new State constitution, in his opinion, was the best of any State • the Union, "and better than the constitution of the United States.” He went on to "compliment the cornfield lawyers of Oklahoma upon having puttied up all the holes shot into the constitutions of other States by trust and constitution lawyers." 'He suggesttd -as their campaign motto, "Let the people rule," and added that it should also be the keynote of the national campaign.