Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1907 — GREAT RECEPTION ACCORDED VICE PRESIDENT FAIRBANKS ON HIS RECENT WESTERN TRIP. NOTABLE UTTERANCES OF INDIAN'S DISTINGUISHED STATESMAN. [ARTICLE]

GREAT RECEPTION ACCORDED VICE PRESIDENT FAIRBANKS ON HIS RECENT WESTERN TRIP. NOTABLE UTTERANCES OF IN DIAN'S DISTINGUISHED STATESMAN.

{Special Correspondence.] Indianapolis, Ind., July 24.—-Vice-President Fairbanks has just returned from a long western trip during whicn he was enthusiastically received. Ha will be at home for several days, but the first week in August will go to Put-in-Bay, 0., to deliver the principal "address aUTfie ufiveiling of theTnonu- - ment erected Jn honor of Commander Perry. The first week in September he Is scheduled for an address before the National Irrigation congress at Sacramento, ;Cgl-. ■ The vice-president's speech at Fergus Falls, Minn., 'during his western trip is being widely quoted. At that place he said in part: “In the final analysis, the laws and courts of justice are but. expressive, of the best thought and conscience of the people. If laws are to founded in Justice And, administered, with flmniess and,..impartiality, it will be dne to the'existence of a state of public opinion which sanctions their inauguration and enforcement Those who make laws Xpd those who execute them can not .long run counter to the current of public opinion. Sooner or later they will run with the tide. Respect for the Law. “We live in. a. .fortunate period in our national history. We live in a day when there is keen respect for the law and its enforcement against those who transcend it , Nevertheless,, there is heard above the voice of the multitude, the note of the pessimist, the preacher of discontent, the prophet of discontent, the prophet of social and national decay. This, however, Is not unusual with us nor pteculiar to cnir civilization. ‘Ever since I began to make observations on the state of my country,’ said Lord Macaulay, ‘I have been seeing nothing but growth and hearing of nothing but decay. The more I contemplate our noble institutions the more convinced I am that they are sound at heart, that they have nothing of age but its dignity, and that their strength is still the strength of youth.’ "We have upon all hands evidence of a determination among the people that wholesome laws shall be enacted —-enacted to meet changing conditions conditions which grow out of industdial, social and national progress.

* Must Be Progressive. “The law has a growth as we have growth In commerce and trade. The law of a progressive people must itself be progressive, keeping step with the changing conditions and expanding needs. The underlying, principles of the law, however, do not change. 'Riey'are as changeless as the principles of the decalogue. Right and wrong were right and wrong yesterday, they are so today, and will conttWie so tomorrow. The principles of human freedom which found expression by our fathers in the immortal Declaration of Independence are fundamenta! in, our system of free government and do not change with the shifting seasons. Roosevelt’s High Example. “We rejoice in the fact that there 1S no present toleration of a lax and aimless enforcement of the laws of the Land. The dominant purpose of the people Is to see that laws are in:jpiru& by a wholegame sense of justloe and that they' are enforced with firmness and certainty. We gladly , XhftJoflexible purpose of fYeeldent Roosevelt to enforce the laws according to their writtap intendment,. ,He has set a high example, which,those, of lesser responsibility may well emulate in municipal and state administrations. This is not the time for men to shirk responslhdUtles which the law lays upon them, or to make the law ‘a hissing and by word,’ by permitting it to remain upon the statute books unexecuted. A law duly enacted and uninforced contaminates the statutes. It eooner or later debauches the public conscience and tn time corrupts the very fountains of our national and civic Ufa. Not to be Reproached. “Those who execute the law are not to be reproached for its prompt and proper execution. They are sworn to execute it, and they must execute It as they find it written in th® statutes by the lawmakers of the land, until modified or repealed. President Grant uttered a well recognized troth when he said that the surest way to repeal a bad law was to enforce it It is not the province of the courts or of the administrators of the law, in effect, to modify or repeal it by their own whim or caprice, for that would be arrogating to themselves functions of government which are reposed exclusively, under our ayHtem, In the law-making body. It la for the courts to give effect to the laws of the people, enacted by the law-making bo<Ty in the exercise of its constitutional power. “We have progressed as a people because we have adhered to sound and wholesome principles in politics and business. We have advanced through the co-operation of capital and labor, without which there can be neither social nor commericlal advancement. Each of these great agencies in our national upbuilding has rights which have been recognised by the laws of the land, and if we would attain to our highest developojent. we must continue to regard and rtwpeet them in the future. Neither ean be struck down without Inviting Injury te both." I