McCormick messenger. (McCormick, S.C.) 1902-current, April 22, 1937, Image 3
McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMICK. S. C.. THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 1937
The
SUPREME
COURT
AND HOW
IT WORKS
Our National Umpire
By ROBERT MERRILL
T HE Supreme Court of the
United States has frequent
ly been described as “Our Na
tional Umpire.’*
This is because its purpose is
to keep both the government
and the people within the rules
as fixed in our fundamental law
—the United States Constitu
tion.
It constitutes a significant factor
in our federal government of three
co-ordinate branches—the legisla
tive, which makes the laws; the
executive, which administers the
laws; and the judicial, which in
terprets the laws. The Supreme
court heads the judicial branch.
With the other two branches of
government, the court was first es
tablished by the Constitution a cen
tury and a half ago. Like them, it
has progressed from a series of
temporary quarters in New York
and Philadelphia, during the early
days of the nation, to an impressive
home of its own in Washington. Like
them it has played an interesting
part in the development of constitu
tional government.
Protects Citizen’s Rights.
Under our Constitution, the Su
preme court acts not only to decide
certain grave problems of law, but
also to protect the individual citizen
against any encroachment on his
constitutional rights by government.
How does this work? Well, for
example:
When congressmen enact a law
and the President signs it, they all
may be convinced that it conforms
to the Constitution. An individual
citizen, however, may with equal
honesty believe that it violates some
; right which the Constitution guaran
tees to him.
“I need,” says the citizen, “an
independent decision as to whether
this act is the constitutional measure
! t which the congress says it is, or
whether, as I think, it is an act
that deprives me of a right vital to
my welfare and happiness.”
In such a situation it is obvious
that What the citizen needs is an
umpire independent of both congress
and president who will decide ths
issue with all the impartiality of
which men are capable. The Su
preme court of the United States is
' such an umpire.
Upholds Will of People. >
If, for example, the citizen thinks
that the act in question deprives him
of trial by jury or that it subjects
his house to unreasonable search
or that it takes his property without
due process of law, he may carry
his appeal all the way up to the
Supreme court of the United States
and ask for equal justice under the
law.
If the court decides that the act
conforms to the will of the people
as expressed in the Constitution, the
citizen’s complaint will be dis
missed. If, however, the decision is
that the Constitution has been vio
lated, the act will not be permitted
to prevail against the right of the
citizen.
This function was recognized by
the court in an early opinion deliv
ered by Chief Justice John Marshall,
which held, in effect, that since the
Constitution is the basic law of the
nation, any act which conflicts with
it is unconstitutional and the courts
must so declare. It has been reit
erated in various later opinions, and
become a frequent subject of debate
between supporters and opponents.
Neither the citizen who invokes
this judicial protection, nor the cir
cumstances which occasion it need
be particularly important. It cov
ers the humblest of men, under all
conditions.
On one occasion, for instance, con
gress passed an act providing that
in certain cases a person might be
imprisoned at hard labor without
having been first indicted by a grand
jury. Under this act a man was
convicted of an offense and sen
tenced to six months in a local work-
house at hard labor.
His appeal was carried before the
Supreme court. The justices found
that a constitutional right assured
him in the 5th Amendment had been
violated. Under its provisions, they
pointed out, “when an accused is in
danger of an infamous punishment
if convicted, he has a right to insist
that he be not put upon trial except
on the accusation of a grand jury.”
Work Applies fo All.
In other words the court decided
that the act of congress under which
the citizen had been sentenced vio
lated the rules as fixed by the people
in the Constitution and was, there
fore, void.
This is only one of many cases
heard by the Supreme court which
did not involve major crimes or
prominent persons. But it and oth
ers similarly decided did involve
constitutional rights, applying not
merely to the men concerned but to
all ci“zens. That made them im
portant enough for our National Um
pire to rule upon.
Two Firsts
The first cotton mill in our coun
try was built at Pawtucket on Nar-
ragansett bay in 1790. The first
shop for the manufacture of ready
made clothts was opened in 1825 ir
New Bedfoid, Mass
Rainy Season Bridge in Guatemala City.
Prepared by National Geographic Society,
Washington, D. C.—VVNU Service.
HEN you enter Guatemala
City, you are in the most
populous place in all Cen
tral America. With a pop
ulation of 120,000, including about
6,000 foreigners, Guatemala City is
a thriving metropolis of well-paved
streets, department stores, luxury
shops, cafes, country clubs, busy
factories, garages, and modern ho
tels. Its motion picture theaters,
showing mostly American “talkies”
with Spanish subtitles, advertise
with big electric signs overhanging
the streets in Broadway style.
At the capital’s covered central
market, the largest in the country,
the array of foodstuffs, textiles,
utensils, furniture, and other com
modities is endless. Its long aisles,
and the streets adjoining the mar
ket building and cathedral, are al
ways jammed with a noisy, restless
throng of merchants and buyers.
And the odors, strange, spicy and
heavy! The fresh scents of vege
tables and exotic flowers mingle
with the greasy smell of cooking
food, the aroma of roasted coffee,
and the balmy fragrance of copal
incense.
Those with weak stomachs may
not, like the appearance or odor of
freshly slaughtered meat. Nor will
they find appetizing the leached
corn mash for tortillas; or arma
dillos roasted in their shells; or
crude brown sugar pressed into
dirty blocks and balls. But vis
itors are delighted with bright trop
ical fruits piled in artistic disar
ray. graceful baskets and glazed
pottery, and gay textiles woven on
primitive hand looms.
Guatemalans are proud, and just
ly so, of the fine coffee grown in
their highlands. Placards in Eng
lish and Spanish remind the visitor
at every turn that “Guatemala
Grows the Best Coffee in the
World.”
On the days when tourist trains
arrive in Guatemala City, the de
partment of agriculture holds open
house. Small packages of freshly
rohsted coffee, wrapped in glazed
paper, are presented to each visitor.
They are appropriate souvenirs of
a nation which is the sixth most im
portant coffee grower in the world,
being exceeded only by Brazil, Co
lombia, the Netherlands Indies,
Venezuela and El falvador.
The second most important ex
port is the banana, grown in the
coastal plains bordering the Gulf of
Honduras and the Pacific.
Airport a Busy Spot.
One of the busiest spots today in
this busiest of Central American
capitals is La Aurora airport. Here
the trunk line of the Pan Amer
ican Airways from Brownsville,
Texas, to Panama connects with a
half-dozen local air services to dis
tant parts of the republic.
Many who do not come to Guate
mala City by plane, come by boat,
and dock at San Jose, a sleepy little
tropical port. Between steamers
this “back door” to Guatemala
drowses in the shade of tall bread
fruit trees and coconut palms, and
carries on a desultory commerce
with the Indians of the coastal la
goons.
Its dingy water front, ragged por
ters and fishermen, stifling heat,
and main street pre-empted by rail
road tracks give no promise of
the color and activity of Guate
mala’s gay, modern capital, high
up in the cool central plateau
The first part of the 73-mile jour
ney to Guatemala City fbllows a
gently rising plain, whose black vol
canic soil is planted thickly in ba
nanas, sugar cane, cotton, cacao,
and fruit trees. Guatemala City is
nearly a mile above sea level, in
the cool and healthful tierra tem-
plada, o»* temperate zone, and the
train must gain most of this alti
tude in the last fifty miles.
Not far beyond Palin the line
creeps through a narrow valley be
tween two towering peaks and
comes out on the edge of mountain-
rimmed Lake Amatitlon. For sev
eral miles the railroad winds along
the shore, passing groups of In
dian women washing clothes in hot
springs at the water’s edge. It is
a convenient laundry, for clothes
may be boiled in the springs and
rinsed in the cold fresh water of the
lake without taking a step!
The train approaches Guatemala
City through verdant suburbs which
give way to warehouses and rail
road yards, indicating the commer
cial activity of this busy Latin
American capital.
“Winter” Means Rainy Season.
From the terminal, taxis whisk
visitors over smoothly paved streets
to their hotel, frequently a grandi
ose structure with a glass-covered
patio, mahogany floors and furni
ture, and very high ceilings.
If one remarks to the clerk that
the air seems a trifle chilly, “Yes,
the winter is just beginning,” he
may reply.
“Winter? In the tropics? And
in May?
He explains that “winter” in Gua
temala is the rainy season. May to
October, a period of clouds, damp
ness, and dismal rains, although, he
hastens to add, “part of every day
is fair and sunny.” In “summer,”
November to April, there is little
or no rain, the sun shines through
out the day, and the people are
healthier and happier.
One may be awakened in the
morning by the clamor of church
bells, the rumble of heavy oxcarts,
and the musical chimes of carriages
bearing worshipers to early mass.
Guatemala City is compactly
built. Stand on the roof of one of
its modern buildings and you see
a clean and pleasant community,
most of whose white, blue, pink,
and buff-colored houses and shops
are one or two stories high. Only
a few concrete busintss buildings
and stone church towers rise above
the prevailing flat, red-tiled roofs.
Founded in the year the United
States declared its independence,
Guatemala City is a comparative
youngster among the communities
of Latin America. * Several times
it has been damaged by earth
quakes, and in 1917 almost the en
tire city was destroyed. It has lost
its Old World air, although it still
has many Moorish-type homes with
iron-grilled windows and patios
aglow with flowers.
Fascinating as is Guatemala City,
however, it is but a prelude to that
native Guatemala which is older in
race, culture, and traditions. High
in the Sierra Madre west and north
of the capital, pure-blooded Indians
still dress as did their ancestors,
v/orship their old gods as well as
the new, and live their lives al
most unaffected by modern civil
ization.
Until a few years ago, when the
government launched an extensive
road-building program, travel in the
highlands of Guatemala was slow
and arduous. Now one may motor
from the capital westward to the
Mexican border and east to El Sal
vador.
Motoring Through the Country.
Speeding along the floor of the
valley, one passes a steady stream
of Indians and vehicles bound for
the markets of Guatemala City.
Stolid, earnest-faced men trot by at
a half run, their heads held rigid
by a tumpline across the forehead
that supports the heavy loads on
their backs. For miles, they have
been jogging along at this peculiar,
forward-falling gait. In cacastes,
or wooden frames, they carry goods
of all kinds—earthen jars, furniture,
bags of grain, or fresh vegetables.
Their women hurry along beside
or behind them, arms swinging free
ly, their burdens on their heads.
Sometimes it is a basket of live
chickens, a fat roll of clothing, wov
en fabrics, or a bundle of firewood.
Almost always a baby bobs up and
down in a shawl slung across the
mother’s back.
Each tribe, and almost every vil
lage, in the highlands has a distinc
tive costume. Designs have not
changed in hundreds of years. To
those who know the different cos
tumes, the Indians of the highlands
might be carrying signs around
their necks reading, “I am from
Solola,” or “I am from Chichicas-
tenango,” et cetera.
It is regrettable, however, that
many of these costumes are disap
pearing. Native garb has been re
placed by blue denim and cheap
imported cotton goods throughout
most of El Salvador, and these ma
terials are now penetrating Guate
mala. Under the harsh treatment
of the Indian’s daily toil, such fab
rics are quickly reduced to tatters.
Unlike the half-naked aborigines
of the jungle lowlands, or the itin
erant tradesmen and servants of
the cities, the Indians of the high
lands of Guatemala have main
tained a proud semi-independence
as farmers, weavers and pottery
makers.
Conquered but never assimilated,
they are aristocrats among the na
tive peoples of Cential America,
and they are sufficiently well or
ganized to make mass petitions to
the central government when local
conditions demand it. They have
had much less contact with other
races than Indians elsewhere have
had, and are not badly scourged
with alcohol. Consequently, tney
have retained their self-respect and
are neither subservient nor crin^
ing.
IMPROVED
UNIFORM INTERNATIONAL
s
L
UNDAY
chool uesson
By REV. HAROLD L. LUNDQUIST.
Dean of the Moody Bible Institute
of Chicago.
© Western Newspaper Union.
Lesson for April 25
THE OBEDIENCE OF NOAH
LESSON TEXT—Genesis 8:20-22; 9:8-17.
GOLDEN TEXT—By faith Noah, being
warned of God concerning things not seen
as yet, moved with godly fear, prepared
an ark to the saving of his house. Heb. 11:7.
PRIMARY TOPIC—The Meaning of the
Rainbow.
JUNIOR TOPIC—The Rainbow’s Message.
INTERMEDIATE AND SENIOR TOPIC—
Following God's Plan.
YOUNG PEOPLE AND ADULT TOPIC—
Deliverance through Obedience.
The “book of beginnings” (Gene
sis) has already brought before us
the creation of the world, the origin
of man, the entrance of sin into the
world, and God’s judgment upon
that sin. In chapter 4 we find the
first murder. Cain, who brought an
offering before God which was not
acceptable, murdered his brother
Abel, whose offering pleased God.
Strange it is that man has it in
his heart to hate those who expose
his sin by their godly life.
God does not leave himself with
out a witness in the earth. The
God-fearing line of Seth appears.
There are always those who have
not bowed the knee to the Adver
sary. Consider the astonishment
of Soviet officials at the deep-seated
and wide-spread faith in God re
vealed in their recent census.
But sin again lifts it^ ugly head
and ere long God is driven to the
necessity of judgment upon man
kind. Read the terrific indictment
of humanity in Genesis 6:5-7. It is
still true that the heart of man
apart from God’s grace is “des
perately wicked” (Jer. 17:9). Well
does a contemporary writer say
that even modern “psychology has
unveiled the dismal and sinister
depths in human nature. Man can
no longer flee from reality into
the romantic refuge of his own
heart; for the human heart has be
come a house of horrors in whose
murky recesses man cannot erect
for his solace either a shrine or
a citadel. Man is bad; he is a sin
ner. The depths of his meanness
are being unveiled in a ghastly way
in individual and social life in these
times. What a contemporary ring
there is about these old biblical
judgments on mankind! (Gen. 6:5,
6; Isa. 1:6.) What a tremendous ar
raignment of sinful human nature is
Paul’s prologue in Romans 1”
(Mackay).
So God sent a flood upon the
earth. It used to be fashionable to
doubt the story of the flood, but
archaeology has joined hands with
geology and history to agree with
Scripture. The facts are available;
let us use them.
“But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord” and prepared an ark
at God’s command. Here again it
can be demonstrated that the ark
was sufficiently large to meet the
need of Noah and all his family,
with the animals and their food, and
with room to spare. It is significant
that the proportions of the ark were
those of a well-planned boat. God
knows how to build, and man does
well to obey his instructions.
The rain came, the fountains of
the deep were opened, and all the
living perished, except those within
the ark. What an instructive type
of our safety in Christ is the ark!
But our lesson concerns primar
ily what occurred after Noah came
forth from the ark and presented
himself before God.
I. An Obedient'Man (8:20-22).
To come before God with accept
able worship, man must come with
clean hands. The question is not
whether he is brilliant, learned, or
of high position. The one thing that
counts is obedience. When such a
man offers the worship of his heart
before God, it goes up to him like
a sweet savor.
II. A Covenant-Keeping God (9:8-
17).
The beautiful rainbow in the cloud
became a token of God’s promise,
and the visible assurance to “all
flesh” that the judgment of the flood
will not be repeated. Never again
will seed time and harvest, nor any
of the orderly processes of nature,
fail throughout the whole earth.
What a gracious God we have!
And what a pity that men presume
upon his goodness. Because he
“maketh his sun to rise on the evil
and on the good, and sendeth rain
on the just and on the unjust”
(Matt. 5:45), men not only forget
that he is the giver of all things,
but assume that they may sin
against him with impunity. Let us
remind them that it is the clear
teaching of Scripture that “every
one of us shall give account of him
self to God” (Rom. 14:12)..
Well Spent Days
Oh, what a glory doth this world
put on, for him who with a fervent
heart goes forth under the bright
and glorious sky, and looks on
duties well performed, and days
well spent.—Longfellow.
Purity of Heart
A holy life is the very gate of
heaven; but let us always remem
ber that holiness does not consist in
doing uncommon things, but in do
ing everything with purity of heart.
-•Cardinal Manning.
««TF YOU’D take a few steps,
* Sis, I believe I’d be inspired
to answer that question, ‘Did you
ever see a dream walking?’. You
are nothing less than devastating
—truly a menace!”
“You meow so sweetly, Connie.
I’m a bit suspicious that this little
peplum frock of mine has got
you catty. Your eyes really aren’t
green by rights, you know.”
Connie Sews Her Own.
“How could you? I think my
dress looks as nice on me as
yours does on you. Why practical
ly all of the girls at the Laf-a-Lot
last night wanted to know where
I found such a lovely frock. Not
one of them guessed that I made
it myself. And did I feel elegant
when I played Mendelssohn’s
Spring Song on Diane’s new baby
grand! The girls said I fit into
the picture perfectly. I thought
if only Dwight could see me now.”
“I still say my two-piecer with
its piped peplum, cute little but
tons and stream-lines is the No. 1
spring outfit in this woman’s
town.”
Mother Happens Along.
“Girls, girls, if your talk were
only half as pretty as your frocks
you’d be better off. Sometimes I
wonder if you wouldn’t be more
appropriately titled The Cheek
Twins, rather than The Chic
Twins.”
“Okay, Mother, you win. Let’o
change the subject by changing
clothes. We’ll put on our cullottes
and join you in a round of golf,
how’s that? Gee, Mother, you nev
er look sweeter than when you’re
wearing a casual you-.g two-piece
shirt dress. The piaid pique is
just the thing for you, too. In
fact, Mom, you’re just about
tops from any angle.”
The Patterns.
Pattern 1257 is for sizes 12 to
20 (30 to 40 bust). Size 14 re
quires 4% yards of 39-inch ma
terial plus 11 yards of ribbon or
bias binding. Pattern 1231 is avail
able in sizes 14 to 20 (32 to 42
bust). Size 16 requires 4V4 yards
of 39-inch material.
Pattern 1236 comes in sizes 14
to 20 (32 to 42 bust). Size 16 re
quires yards of 39-inch ma
terial.
New Pattern Book.
Send for the Barbara Bell
Spring and Summer Pattern
Book. Make yourself attractive,
The Great Kipling
Rudyard Kipling’s devotion to
his son is shown in a new anec
dote, says the Boston Post. Soon
after the death of Second Lieuten
ant John Kipling, at the front
during the World war, an un
known admirer accosted the poet
on a road neai Burwash, England.
“So you are the great Kipling?”
he asked.
“No, my son is,” was the reply.
practical and becoming clothes,
selecting designs from the Bar
bara Bell well-planned easy-to-
make patterns. Interesting and
exclusive fashions for little chil
dren and the difficult junior age;
slenderizing, well-cut patterns for
the mature figure; afternoon
dresses for the most particular
young women and matrons and
other patterns for special occa
sions are air to be found in the
Barbara Bell Pattern Book. Send
15 cents (in coins} today for your
copy. \
Send your order to The Sewing
Circle Pattern Dept., Room 1020,
211 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago, 111.
Patterns 1£> cents (ip coins) each.
€> Bell,Syndicate.—WNU Service.
s >' l' ■: 1 ■
&
* «
KILLS INSECTS
ON FLOWERS • FRUITS
VEGETABLES & SHRUBS
Demand original Mealed
bottles, from your dealer
lew
Be Careful—First Rule
No one has the right of way
when a life is at stake.
PHOTOGRAPHY
• PHOTO FINISHING
Any size roll film developed and 16 never-
fade prints: 2Sc c6in.
TROUP'S PHOTO SERVICE, Toccoa, Ge.
MM! BEST
SOUP I EVER
TASTED . . . IT’S
PHILLIPS
DELICIOUS!
Says GEORGE RECTOR
AMERICA’S FOREMOST
COOKINO AUTHORITY
AND MASTER CHEF OF
PHILLIPS
^beliciou* South#*
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Wed.—Thurs.—Fri.
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