Nine Groups Instead of the 48 States
A Proposal for
Rebuilding the Structure of Government
In Order to Deal With Issues on a
National Scale
By Delbert Clark: Washington The New York Times Magazine April 21, 1935
There is a growing sentiment - it is still too inchoate to
be termed a movement - among certain members of Congress with advanced social
views and a willingness to break with tradition, in favor of drastic change in
our form of government to facilitate nation-wide reforms frequently blocked by
the very nature of our confederation. Since, obviously, there is political
dynamite in any proposal to abolish States in so far as they provide a check
upon the Federal Government, no one has yet dared to broach publicly the thesis
that the abolition would be in the public interest and is, in fact, a distinct
possibility in the some-what distant future.
Yet there are those who feel that the change should be made.
The reasons advanced for such a revolutionary step are on their face sound
enough. A study of our recent legislative history, beginning with the
imposition of a Federal income tax in the Wilson administration, reveals
clearly that virtually every great national reform movement, economic or
social, has brought up short against constitutional inhibitions against Federal
regulation of intrastate matters.
A Federal income tax could not be imposed until the long,
tedious process of amending the Constitution had been carried through. A
National prohibition law could not be obtained without amendment of the
Constitution. Equal suffrage for women had to go the same route; there is
pending a constitutional amendment to permit the abolition, on a national
scale, of child labor. None of these measures, good or bad, could be adopted
without altering our basic law, and, what is of almost equal importance, none
of them could be nullified without going through the same process in reverse.
But even these are relatively minor difficulties. It may
well be a good thing that important changes are confronted with so formidable a
hurdle as two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress and a three-fourths vote
of the States. The really alarming feature, these men assert, is the fact that
in times of genuine emergency, when traditional State sovereignty must be
forgotten for the common welfare, emergency acts of the Federal Government can
be effectively nullified by the fact that there exist State lines which cannot
be crossed by that great national policeman. [Constitution]
The time has come, they say, when we should realize that the
functions of the Federal Government have become much more than those of a peace
officer, when the progressive welding of forty-eight States into one nation
calls for recognition, through revision of what has become a cumbersome
instrument of government. This talk has arisen largely under the New Deal,
which has brought to the fore urgent national problems that can be met only on
a national scale; proposed remedies are often virtually checkmated by the fact
of State sovereignty.
The industrial control features of the National Industrial
Recovery Act have been repeatedly declared unconstitutional in the inferior
Federal courts; the controverted Section 7a, governing labor relations, has
only recently been held unconstitutional except in interstate commerce, and the
term "interstate" so construed as virtually to nullify the operations
of the section under any circumstances. ATTACKS on the constitutionality of the
power development program of the Federal Government, on its regulation of
national resources such as lumber and oil, on its efforts at slum clearance,
have multiplied to such an extent that New Deal administrators go about these
days with their fingers habitually crossed.
And it is not always the Federal foot that the shoe pinches.
Only a few weeks ago a sovereign State - New York - was told by the Supreme
Court of the United States that it must not regulate the price of milk within
its borders if that milk was produced in another State, since that would
constitute an interference with interstate commerce. While many of the more
advanced school do not necessarily quarrel with these decisions on legal
grounds, they are tremendously irked by the system which makes them possible.
It takes a very great judge indeed, they admit, to fly in the face of tradition
and establish an important precedent. Even those who would shy away from any
suggestion of fundamental change in our instrument of government believe some
action is necessary, or if not action then change of method, if all reform
legislation of a national character is not to be hampered by literal-minded
court opinions.
Among those who believe the courts should accept social and
economic change as a controlling factor in approving or nullifying legislation,
and who are profoundly dissatisfied with the (to them) artificial barriers
provided by State lines, is Senator Wagner of New York. Senator Wagner, himself
a lawyer and former justice of a high State tribunal, and sponsor in his
Senatorial career of much social reform legislation, believes that adherence to
the letter of a document adopted nearly 150 years ago by thirteen seaboard
States, with few of our present problems, tends to make of that document a dead
thing, rather than the living organism it was intended to be. Such
interpretation, he believes, is contrary to the best legal thought of our whole
history, and he foresees what might amount to a blockade of "public
welfare" legislation unless State frontiers cease to be barriers in the path
of social advancement.
Note: The
Constitution is not a living document, nor was it intended to be. The intent was to protect the inherited - of
our Creator - rights of the individual.
The law is static.
There are, he pointed out recently, two major considerations
before the Supreme Court when it is called upon to determine the
constitutionality of a given law.
The first is: "Does the legislation violate due process
of law or infringe liberty of contract?" This, he added, "involves
determination of whether the force of government has overstepped the boundary
that separates it from freedom of the Individual under our constitutional
system."
The second consideration is: "Has the Federal
Government acted within the limits of its delegated authority under the
commerce clause, or has it overstepped the boundary that separates national
action from State action? "Neither of these boundaries, said Senator
Wagner, should be fixed or inflexible, because "changing social and
economic conditions transmute personal questions into social questions and
State issues into national issues."
As an example of what once was considered unconstitutional
in that it infringed the rights of the individual, the Senator recalled a
decision in1904, when the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a NewYork law
prohibiting employment for more than ten hours a day in bakeries. The ground
for the court's opinion was that the law constituted a "meddlesome
interference" with individual liberty! Yet in 1917 Congress could decree an
eight-hour day for all railway employees, and it occurred to no one that this
in fringed upon the liberties of the individual.
Senator Wagner's feeling is perhaps intensified by the fact
that he is titular author of the National Industrial Recovery Act, an act
which, whatever its purpose later became, was originally intended primarily as
a measure of social and business reform. And it is this act which is subject to
a more concerted attack than perhaps any other New Deal law.
The Senator's own Labor Disputes Bill, now pending, may well
face similar attack if it becomes law. "The question of whether something
affects interstate commerce and is therefore subject to national
regulation," said the Senator, summing up his arguement, "depends
upon shifting and complex economic and social facts quite as much as the
question of whether a matter is affected with a public interest to the extent
necessary to justify State interference with "freedom of contract."
However, Senator Wagner is not yet ready to join the ranks
of those who would change our governmental system to facilitate national
reform. Going back over the history and development of the Supreme Court, he
sees with rising hope a slow but steady progression toward a broader social
attitude on the part of that final tribunal. It is his hope and belief that the
court itself will solve the problem which he recognizes as so urgent. Others
are not so optimistic. Courts are notoriously slow at best, they point out, and
much harmful delay can result through legal procedures before a case ever
reaches the Supreme bench.
Any one of the inferior Federal judges could, it is
asserted, easily tie up matters for a long time through mistaken judgement or
too literal interpretation of the Constitution. The Revisionists, as they are
being called for a lack of a better term, believe the only genuine remedy is
whatever constitutional change may be necessary to get rid of the troublesome
commerce clause. This clause, they contend, is nothing less than a minor
survival of the idea that States might levy tariffs. The levying of tariffs
between States was specifically forbidden in the Constitution to which they
consented, but the distinction between interstate and intrastate commerce was
allowed to remain.
This distinction now is little more than a quibble, the
Revisionists contend, and should be obliterated. But how bring about this
greater cohesion, this enhancement of the Federal Government's powers to cross
States lines for the general good? The most common - albeit the most startling
proposal - is to abolish so-called States' rights entirely, preserving State
lines only for sentimental reasons, and reapportion the United States into
eight or ten great departments, to be locally self-governed but without the
power to hamstring the national government in its legislative acts.
Such a plan would envisage a national House of
Representatives of the same membership and on the same basis as at present.
Each member would be chosen from a Congressional district as now. The Senate,
on the other hand, would be made up of an equal number of members from each
department, to be elected at large. On this basis the membership of the Senate
might be the same as now, or it might be slightly larger or smaller. For
example, if there were eight departments there could be twelve Senators at
Large from each department. Or if there were ten departments there could be 100
Senators, with ten from each department. Or with nine departments there could
be ninety Senators.
The Governor of each department would be chosen at large by
popular vote. The matter of local autonomy, the proponents of this scheme say,
could be worked out as a detail in the larger plan. It could, perhaps, apply to
police and fire protection within the department, and to public schools,
sanitation and the like. But taxation, general social and economic regulation,
in fact anything for which there would be no valid reason for local
differentiation, would be in the province of the Federal Government.
There would be a uniform system of marriage and divorce, a
uniform system of social insurance and labor regulation, uniform national
banking and uniform traffic regulations. And since the departmental governors,
while elective, would be responsible to the President just as county Sheriffs
are now responsible to the Governor of a State, sufficient uniformity could be
had in primary education and other matters intimately affecting the national
weal.
To provide for strictly local expenses, a pro rata share of the
national revenue would be turned over to the departments. Elimination of party
duplicating systems, it is held would make possible vast economies. To those
who suggest that such a centralization of functions would make for a tremendous
bureaucracy and unutterable confusion, its proponents blandly reply that things
could not be much worse confounded than at present, and add that obviously such
a system would have to be worked out in minute detail long in advanced of
execution.
As for bureaucracy, they point to the already lengthening
arm of the Federal Government, and hint that it might be less wasteful if it
were extended a bit further. To the argument that elimination of this
particular set of checks and balances, making it possible to enact all sorts of
vital legislation by a simple act of Congress, would invite the danger or large
numbers of ill-considered laws being foisted on the citizenry, reply is made
that, on the other hand, bad laws would be equally easy to get rid of.
There is no purpose to abolish the Constitution or deprive
the Supreme Court of its self-assumed power to pass on legislation. There would
still be that system of checks - the whole Federal process remaining the same,
except that State governments as such would cease to exist.
Strange as it may seem, a mutuality of interest among the
States follows roughly sectional lines. There are problem children, whose cases
the revisionists would weigh before tossing a State into the appropriate
basket.
One proposed division would be approximately as follows:
(1) Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island and Connecticut - all New England.
(2) New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and West
Virginia.
(3) Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, Kentucky
and Tennessee.
(4) Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and
Arkansas.
(5) Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Missouri.
(6) Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana.
(7) Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska
and Kansas.
(8) Montana, Idaho, Wyoming,Nevada, Utah and Colorado.
(9) Washington, Oregon and California.
Obviously many quarrels would arise before this grouping
could be carried to a successful conclusion.
For example, there is West Virginia, orphan child of the war
between the States. Virginia might want to reclaim this lost province, but, on
the other hand, its dominant industry would appear to place it with
Pennsylvania.
Tennessee and Kentucky also present problems, particularly
Kentucky. Are they North, East or South? Both would vehemently deny any
affiliation, spiritual or otherwise, with the North, yet Northern Kentucky
might well be affiliated with Ohio. And there is strong reason to suspect that
neither would choose to amalgamate with the States along the lower Mississippi.
The proponent of this particular line-up contends that their
principal interest lies with the States to the east. The problem of
designations for the proposed departments would be considerable. Certainly, to
avoid strife, any thought of designations suggesting present State names would
have to be discarded.
The first group is simple enough - the Department of New
England.
But thereafter the difficulty starts. How devise a name to
describe that great commercial group bounded by New York on the north and West
Virginia on the south? "Department of Commerce" obviously would never
do. Urbana has been suggested, or simply the Department of the Middle Atlantic.
Sloping southwest to the region of chronic Statehood, the
third department could be called the Department of the Irreconcilables, or
merely the Department of the South Atlantic.
Group 4 might well be named the Department of the Gulf, the
Department of the Mississippi, or, to please Louisiana, the Coted' Azur.
Group 5 suggests the Department of the Southwest, or, more
poetically, of the Frontier.
Group 6 would undoubtedly like to get away from "Middle
West,"and might be known as the Department of the Inland Seas, or, simply,
of the Great Lakes.
Group 7 suggests the Department of the Prairies, or perhaps
the Department of Experimentation. [End of Article]
N O T E : The original of this article is contained in the
Regionalism Document Packet detailed in the Doc Packet list. Documents make the
difference in proving to state and local elected officials that regionalism
will eliminate local and state governments. Elected officials are literally
voting their jobs, their Constitutional protections and their freedom away. . .
and of course, their loved ones, we, and all Americans will go down the tubes
together. We would rather not, thank you. Global Governance CANNOT be
implemented until the plan to eliminate local and state governments is
complete. Don't let maps showing township, county, state lines bluff you.
Regionalism is an overlay. If one were to look at a map today showing the
regions... one would gasp in shock. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge has
admitted that our local government borders are "artificial". We can
stop and reverse the process if we get busy N O W !!!
