Source: The New York Daily Call, May 28th, 1910. Vol. 3, No. 148.
Transcription and Markup: Bill Wright for marxists.org, February, 2023.
Note: This article was typed out by sight rather than the typical method of OCR software.
The edge of the final three paragraphs was blacked out by an imperfect scan, so there was some guesswork involved in completing certain sentences.
Words that I had to guess that were partially or completely illegible have been identified with [editor's brackets] in this transcription,
and complete guesses with no visual or contextual clues also have a [question mark?].
Did you ever stop to think seriously about his question: “Who is who in the United States?” Not who belongs to the “four hundred” and who doesn’t; but who holds the political power in this country?
I know that you are often told that it makes no difference who does, as “politics” does not affect your bread and butter. That you cannot vote yourself into easier circumstances; you cannot vote any steadier employment for yourself, nor any better pay, nor shorter hours of work. But that is a mistake. Those who possess political power have always voted themselves into easier circumstances, and they always will.
Have you ever read about the struggles between the patricians (aristocrats) and the plebeians (the common people) of ancient Rome? The fight was for political power. But the object of the fight was more bread and butter, or an easier way of getting it. And whenever the common people of Rome succeeded in obtaining political power they used it for that object: to make their lot in life easier and happier.
The same is true of the Middle Ages. Wherever and whenever the common people obtained any political power, as in Florence and other Italian cities, they used it with considerable success for the betterment of their economic condition. That’s why the aristocrats and the rich merchants were fighting so hard against the common people having any political power.
The same is true of more modern times. One of the most important results of the French Revolution was a redistribution of the ownership of land in France. The moment the French people acquired political power by the overthrow of the monarchy and the aristocracy, they used it for their economic advantage. The most pressing need of the most numerous and most oppressed class of that time — the peasantry — was more land and freer land, free from the oppressive feudal charges which up till then [were] attached to peasant land. And no sooner did the people obtain political power then they put an end to all feudal charges, and distributed an enormous quantity of land, taken from the crown, the aristocrats, and the church, among small proprietors.
And in our own days we see the Russian people use the little political power which they succeeded in wresting from their tyrant to ameliorate the economic condition of the peasants of that unfortunate country. No sooner did the Russian people obtain political power then they made ready to use it for their own economic good. And now that most of this power has been taken away, they use whatever little power is left to them for that purpose.
This is true of ordinary, peaceful times, as well as of the more turbulent revolutionary times. There is not a country in the world today, be it ever so peaceful, orderly and law-abiding, where the people really possess political power, but this power is constantly used for the economic advantage of the people.
So we constantly read how the British people, for instance, are making use of their political power to ameliorate their economic condition. One day, it is the Irish peasant that is being helped against his greedy landlord by an Irish land bill. The next day it is the Scotch peasant, in a Scottish small holdings bill. And then, again, it is the industrial workingmen of the whole country who are being helped, and life made less of a burden to them by such laws as the trades disputes act, the workingmen’s compensation act, the old age pension act, or, again, it is the workers of some particular industries, wherein exploitation of labor is particularly oppressive, that are taken care of by such laws as the minimum wage law.
And England is not an exception. It is merely a shining example. But by no means the only one that could be named. Not even the most shining example, perhaps. I mentioned England merely because most people are likely to know more about England than about the other countries that I could name.
“Yea,” I hear you say; “but how is it that my political power never did me any good?” “My political power never assured me steady employment, nor raised my wages, nor secured me shorter hours, nor protected my life and limb, nor secured my old age against destitution.”
That is all very true. Unfortunately it is but too true. But — have you political power? Are you sure of that? Don’t tell me that you possess the franchise. I know that. I know that you vote, or have a right to vote, at every election for a long list of public officials whose functions you sometimes don’t even know. But the mere right to vote is not political power. Nor is voting of itself the exercise of political power. Voting for church wardens, you know, is not the exercise of political power. Nor is the voting at a beauty contest instituted by a newspaper or at a ball.
To be of real political importance, to constitute the exercise of real political power, your vote must give the person for whom you vote, if he is elected, the right to use the political power of the community. It must invest him with what is called “the sovereignty of the people.”
Have you not heard the patriotic orators on the Fourth of July tell you that you are a “sovereign” American citizen? The politicians before election tell you that on election day every American citizen is “sovereign!” When they tell you that they want you to believe that the American people have the political power of this nation in their own hands. That they can decide its destinies as they please. And that you, by your vote, give your elected representative this power to decide the destinies of the nation. And you believe it. For you know you are the citizen of a free country. And the citizens of a free country have the “sovereign” power to decide their own destinies. Decide democratically, by the rule of the majority.
That is what you are told, and what you believe. But is it so? Have the people of this country the power to decide absolutely their own destinies, like the citizens of a free country? Have they, through their chosen representatives, the power to enact all laws which they may find necessary for their own welfare? Like, say, the French, the Swiss, or the English people? Can the American people enact for their own benefit such laws as we have seen the English people had enacted when it suited them? Laws like the Irish land act, the Scotch small holdings act? Or a trades disputes act, a workingmen’s compensation act, an old age pension act, a minimum wage law?
Why, no! The American people cannot have such laws, no matter how bad they want them. You can vote at spring and fall elections, but you can no more have laws of real benefit to the people than you can by voting at beauty contests.
We have tried it. We had our congress pass an employers’ liability law for interstate railroads, in order to secure some compensation to the many workingmen who are annually slaughtered and maimed on our railroads. Where is that law now? The state of New York has passed a law limiting the hours of work in bakeries in order to protect the health of the workingmen in that life-shortening trade, and to secure for the community clean and wholesome bread. The same state has passed a law limiting the hours of work of women in factories and other mechanical establishments, in order to protect the health of the coming generations. Where are those laws? Many other states have passed different laws designed to protect the safety, health and well-being of the workers. What has become of those laws?
They have, most of them, been declared null and void. And they are null and void, just as if the American people had never enacted them. The fact that the American people, through their chosen representatives, have solemnly enacted them did not make them law. For the fact is that the American people cannot decide their own destinies, the way the French, the English, the Swiss and other enlightened people do. The American citizen does not possess real political power, that is, the sovereign law-making power. He has that no more than the subjects of the Russian czar, who can only make laws as he permits them.
Of course, we have no czar here. We had once a king. But our liberty-loving ancestors wouldn’t tolerate that, and they drove his agents from the country. But “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” And we did not watch out. So we now find ourselves under the despotic rule of the judges, with the judges of the United States Supreme Court in full possession of the sovereign law-making power of this nation, as the czar is of the Russian nation. Like the czar, the judges tell you, you free and independent citizens of a free country, what laws your representatives can make, and what laws they must not make. And if the representatives of the people pass some law that the judges do not like, the judges declare it null and void, and that’s the end of it.
They call that declaring a law “unconstitutional.” And some folks may tell you that that means that the Constitution says that such a law must not be. But that is a lie. A plain, unvarnished lie. It does not mean anything of the kind. It simply means that the judges don’t want that law. You can read the Constitution for yourself, and see. There is no a word in it against an employers’ liability law, or against a bakery law, or about the limitation of the hours of work in factories. You can read that Constitution from now until doomsday and you will never find any such thing in it.
Nor can anybody else. No, not even the judges. If it were there, all the judges would see it. But some don’t. That is, those judges who happen to like the law, don’t. When the New York bakery law was declared “unconstitutional” the judges of the Supreme Court could not agree. Four liked the law, and five didn’t. So the four that liked it said to the five that didn’t: “Why, there is nothing in the Constitution against such a law.” And the five answered: “Yes, there is.” And the four asked: “Where is it?” And the five answered: “Why, there, in front of you. Don’t you see it?” But the four didn’t. And the wonder is how they all kept their faces straight while arguing about it. And more wonder still how others can keep their faces straight while listening to such argument. And how the American people can keep their temper, and their indignation, in the face of such humbuggery.
And the greatest joke of this tragic comedy, in which the welfare of the American people is ruthlessly sacrificed, is this: Nobody, no matter how learned or clever, is supposed to know anything about what there is in the Constitution if he is not a judge. But if he is a judge, no matter how petty, he is supposed to know all about it, unless a higher judge tells him that he doesn’t.
The house of representatives and the senate contain some of the greatest constitutional lawyers in the country. No bill can become a law unless the house and the senate are of the opinion that it does not conflict with the Constitution. And no bill can become a law unless the President, who acts upon the advice of the Attorney General, who is also supposed to be a great constitutional lawyer, finds that it does not conflict with the Constitution. And yet all this counts for nothing when the judges don’t like the law. One would think that if all the learned constitutional lawyers of the house and the senate, and the President and his Attorney General, could not find it in the Constitution, it is not there. And yet, if the judges don’t like the law they say it is there. And that is the end of it.
It is laughable. Or, rather it would be laughable, if it were not so sad. For is it not ridiculous to see a great people humbugged by so simple a trick? Can anybody believe that because a man wears a judicial robe he can see in the Constitution, what one without a robe cannot? For that is just what you are asked to believe. Nay, even more: that the same man can see it with robe on, but not without it. Take the case of Judge Moody, of the Supreme Court, for instance. He was once a congressman. His opinion on the constitutionality of laws at that time didn’t count. He was then Attorney General. His opinion as to what there was in the Constitution didn’t count then, either. But one day President Roosevelt appointed him one of the judges. And now he knows what is and what isn’t in the Constitution. Now he is one of the nine men who hold the destinies of this nation in their hands — the real sovereigns who make the laws of the land.
What happened to Mr. Moody that he suddenly became possessed of the power to know things which others cannot know, and which he himself so recently could not know? Why, nothing. Except that he ceased to be a representative of the people, subject to their will, and because independent of them. And herein lies the secret why the judges were permitted to usurp the sovereign power of the people, and why all those who live by plundering the people want this power to remain with the judges.
The enemies of the people in this country, as everywhere else, do not want the people to have real political power. They do not want the people to have the power to make laws for their own protection and benefit. So they contrived to place the Constitution in the way of the people, by claiming that the Constitution does not permit any such laws. And in order to carry out their scheme they gave to the judges the sole power of declaring what the Constitution [says].
With the judges in power [they have] clinched their game. If a representative, elected by the people and responsible to the people, should say something [which] everybody can see is not there, [most] people would not stand for it. They would quickly retire any man who is tempted to humbug them in [that] fashion. But the judges can do [that] with impunity. They are not elected by the people, and are not responsive to the people. They can annul your laws by [spurious?] references to the Constitution, and you cannot retire them.
In order to justify this outrageous scheme, which has robbed the people of this country of their political birthright, they tell you that this is necessary because we have a written Constitution and a double government [of] state and federal. But this is [another one] of the lies invented by the enemies of the people in order to keep them in bondage. Ours is not the only government with a written Constitution. Nor is ours the only country [with] state and federal governments. [And] yet, there is no other country in the world where the judges have the [power] to annul the will of the [people] enacted into law. No free [people] would to submit to such an outrage, [no free] people could submit to it and [still be] free.
Can we afford to submit to [this outrage any] longer? Are we a free people[?]
Last updated on 12 February 2023