St Ignatius College - Ignatian Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

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THE SMITH-TOIICYER BILL 21 lYhere, then, are the enemies of America today? They come not in martial array, marching to the drumbeat, with bayonets flashing in the morning sun. Rther they lurk in our midst, imposing artfully upon our credulity, measuring the limits of our tolerance, availing themselves of our sense of national security. Wherever reform shall strain the ancient guarantees of liberty, wherever bigotry shall lay its fatal hands upon education, wherever ignorance shall strike at constitu- tional rights, wherever corruption shall poison the springs of national life, there are. to be found the enemies of America. Shall they triumph? The past calls to us to vindicate its wisdom, the present charges us with its treasures, the future demands of us its hopes. Let us, then, meet these enemies: let ns condemn their legislationg let us impress upon them that the existing Constitution, until changed by authentic and explicit act of the people, is binding upon all Americans-even upon the proponents of the Smith-Towner Bill, There is one method by which the objects of the bill might be legally attained. XVe can amend the Constitu- tion once more. Wie can sink into the bogs of national apostacy. lYe can dole out our liberties to the Federal government until not a drop of freemen's blood courses through our veins. Yes, we N171 amend the constitution. At the behest of an artful minority, we could sell our heri- tage for thirty pieces of silver, lint with Gods help, we shall not yield. VVe will not so disngure and mar the fine fabric of the Constitution that it shall appear before the whole world an ugly patch quilt of gaudy amendments! At a convention in eighteen hundred and forty-seven, Prince Bismark, Prussia's Iron Chancellor, expressed the theory of German government. The German Crown, he said, derives its authority by grace, not of the people, but of God and it has merely of its free will given to the people a portion of its rights. In harmony with such a ,Am-..

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zo TH li IGN,-1 Tl.--IX Such Federalization may be accomplished directly-or it may be accomplished indirvcz'Iy. l do not assert that the Smith-Towner Bill in its present form is a positive usurpation of control by the Federal government or a direct denial of the right of the State control. Ustensibly the bill is a generous effort on the part of the Federal government to assist and encourage State education and, apparently, makes acceptance of the Federal educational programme optional with the States. liut I do assert that the Smith-Towner llill is an attempt to accomplish, indirectly, that which would be, it accomplished directly, tiagrantly violative of the Consti- tution. The bill makes it possible for the Federal govern- ment to arrogate and assume educational control by means of the potent compulsion of Federal linance. lt depends for the attainment of its purpose upon a truth constantly demonstrated in recent years-what the Federal govern- ment Hnances, the Federal goy ernment will ultimately control. A proper understanding ot the spirit of the Constitu- tion compels us to admit that the proponents of such legis- lation are seeking to undermine what they can not safely overthrow: they are ignoring that ancient maxim of juris- prudence which says: That which may not be done directly may not be done indirectly, Advocates of the Smith-Towner llill Haunt their banners of Americanisni through the nation. Yet they are supremely inconsiderate of every American institution and the spirit of the Constitu- tion itself, when it obstructs the scheme by which they hope to Federalize the education, which rightfully belongs to the people and to the States. They are encouraging, instead of discouraging, a modern, un-American tendency toward centralization of power. Do you not recognize in such legislation a typical ehfort of self-constituted, ambitious infatuated reformers to satiate their wilful passions for state paternalism?

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22 THE IGNAI TIA N theory was the Prussian educational monopoly. A Kultus- minister at Berlin, a heirarchy of educational officials tainted the German mind with vile materialism: dulled and moulded the German intellect: inculcated the doc- trines of Kultur. The purpose of it all was the aggran- rlizement of the German State. The sad consequences of it all were: first, the development of a narrow, belligerent nationalism-than a red tide surging back and forth across the fairest harvests of Europe-barricades, massacres and revolution,-abdication, political collapse-and finally a once powerful nation prostrate and groaning beneath the crushing burden of its own autocratic past. For this were the German people educated! XYe have no Prussian political theory in America to facilitate the process of our mental eanslavement. VVhat is the American theory of government? Read it in the Declaration of Independence: All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Yet there are those in America who would make the Capitol at Wlashington the spring and fountain of Ameri- can thought, that it might be poisoned, adulterated, Fed- eralizecl at its source upon the whim and caprice of every irresponsible Secretary of Education. How odious to men who love the vigor and freshness of original thought is this modern conspiracy to deliver American intelli- gence into the hands of politics, to thrust American moral- ity to the mercies of bigotry: yes-to entrust American public opinion to the very government which that public opinion should rightfully influence and control. lf the proponents of such legislation as the Smith- Towner Bill must ultimately triumph, let them at least dignify their efforts with consistency. Let them 110t undermine, evade, nullify and degrade with insult a ven- erable charter of American liberty, Rather let them rele- gate it to the shades of a past that loved libertv: let them