Page:Is Capital Income, Earle, 1921.djvu/4

4 of whither they were headed, that a unanimous Supreme Court, Conservatives, Liberals, and Radicals all together, condemn their performance as illegal and insufferable. * * * The invalid sections of the Lever Act, in short, made a hash among other things of the guarantees of the Constitution of the United States * * *. '''Judge and Jury could become Constitution, Statute Law, judicial process, economic ruler, arbiter of destiny—everything. The only unfortunate thing about the Supreme Court's decision, in truth, is that it had to be because the crazy Lever Act was.'''"

There could be no more absurd error than concluding from the fact the jackasses bray so loudly that they represent the enduring convictions of the American people, as to the paramount necessity of preserving their Liberty. Communism seems all embracing, until it is put to the test of an election, or trial before a jury upon an indictment—when it becomes less than the shadow of a shade.

And the "Lever Act was" simply the result of a disregard of the instruction perfectly available and to be found in the history of the economic, the common, and our constitutional law. In a recent Essay, "Does Price Fixing Destroy Liberty?", the writer discussed the subject of governmental interferences with the Liberty of Trade as affected by the Lever Act. The present inquiry considers the dangers to our Freedom involved in the attempts being made, not by Constitutional Amendment, but by claims of amplifying construction to nullify further the provisions of Article I, Section 2, Clause 3; and Article I, Section 9, Clause 4, of the Constitution as originally drafted, relating to direct taxation.

The attempt has been made in the Essay above