Speech #620173057

I say that not out of any want of consideration for the question of the Senator. but because it seems to me it will unduly expand the consideration of this measure. I do not believe the President should be given the right to suspend a law. We saw an instance of the effect. of that once here within our service. where the President by a proclamation suspended what was conceded to be one of the greatest find most farreaching pieces of legislation that Congress ever indulged in. and that was in the case of the publicland laws. where he tied up in darkness the Territory of Alaska. where he tied up and rendered unavailable and unavailing as an asset hundreds of millions of acres. where he blocked the wheels of the immigrants on the plains. or wherever they might be. as effectually as though he had crushed the spokes with the sledge. where he tied up the business eiterprises of those who had located and equipped themselves. depending upon conditions that they had a right to depend upon under the law. and he sent them to .7080 bankruptcy. where he passed by a generation of the American people. took away the opportunities of a whole generation that. while the order was in force. grew too old to avail themselves of the law or were compelled to accept an alternate or a substitute that decreased and destroyed their rights under the law. By his order he closed the schoolhouses. he destroyed taxation. he destroyed home making. he stopped the growth of the country. That was by an Executive order.