158 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES
They suffer from the same disease that a drug addict suffers from
they become the beneficiaries of stimulation and, if you once remove
the stimulation, they cease to exist; they can not go on. And it is
just the same thing in this, as Mr. Green properly described it—
a gesture. The difficulty with gesturesis this, that gestures from Wash-
ington result as a rule in the laying down all over the country of those
who are engaged in trying to solve a problem and waiting for the solution
to come from Washington. And while it is not a constitutional
question but rather an economic one—and I can not speak as an
economist, but I can speak as one who has gained a modicum of
common sense through his own experience— this gesture from Wash-
ington would probably do more to delay the solution of this problem
of unemployment than anything else.
The other two measures are constructive; one proposes to plan for
a sensible, orderly expenditure of Federal funds in such operations as
the Federal Government may properly carry on; and the other
proposes to collect and disseminate information, which is properly a
Federal function. But this bill is violative of the spirit of the Con-
stitution; it is violative of the genius of the American Government;
and I warn those people who propose to violate the Constitution on
this score that they will suffer the evil consequences, because, eventu-
ally, as we amend the Constitution by constant violation, those who
now so glibly wipe aside the constitutional argument may have
occasion some day to regret that some other constitutional provision
on which they rely to support their rights has also gradually become
amended and eliminated through violation.
There is another feature to this and that is the strange coincidence
that a great deal of the support of this measure comes fiom a State
which is holding up the Eighteenth amendment to the Constitution as
a great violation of the principles of American Government of local
determination, and they propose by this measure to invite the Federal
Government to come in and regulate a thing which by the Con-
stitution itself is primarily, solely and exclusively, a State function.
I thank you.
In New York ». Miln (11 Pet. 102, 139 (1837) ) the court said:
“We choose rather to plant ourselves on what we consider impregnable positions
They are these: That a State has the same undeniable and unlimited jurisdiction
over all persons and things, within its territorial limits, as any foreign nation;
where that jurisdiction is not surrendered or restrained by the Constitution of the
United States. That, by virtue of this, it is not only the right but the bounden
and solemn duty of a State to advance the safety, happiness, and prosperity of its
people and to provide for its general welfare by any and every act of legislation
which it may deem to be conducive to these ends, where the power over the par-
ticular subject or the manner of its exercise is not surrendered or restrained in the
manner ‘just stated. That all those powers which relate to. merely municipal
legislation, or what may perhaps more properly be called internal police, are not
thus surrendered or restrained; and that consequently in relation to these the
authority of a State is complete, unqualified, and exclusive.” ‘
- In re Raher (140 U. 8. 545,554 (1890)) the court said:
“The power of the State to impose restraints and burdens upon persons and
property in- conservation and promotion of the public health, good order, .and
prosperity is a power originally and always belonging to the States, not sur-
rendered by them to the general government nor directly restrained by the Con-
gtitution of the United States, and essentially exelusive.” :
- In Kansas ¢. Colorado. (206 U. S. 46, 89, 90 (1906), the court said:
~ “The proposition that theve are legislative powers affecting the Nation. as 2
whole, which belong to although not expressed in the grant of powers, is in
direct conflict with the doetrine that this is a Governimnent of enumerated powers.
