of nationalization, an
essentially formative and enlightening political transformation. When a
people are being nationalized, their political, economic, and social
organization or policy is being cooerdinated with their actual needs and
their moral and political ideals. Governmental centralization is to be
regarded as one of the many means which may or may not be taken in order
to effect this purpose. Like every other special aspect of the national
organization, it must be justified by its fruits. There is no
presumption in its favor. Neither is there any general presumption
against it. Whether a given function should or should not be exercised
by the central government in a Federal system is from the point of view
of political logic a matter of expediency--with the burden of proof
resting on those who propose to alter any existing Constitutional
arrangement.

It may be affirmed, consequently, without paradox, that among those
branches of the American national organization which are greatly in need
of nationalizing is the central government. Almost every member of the
American political body has been at one time or another or in one way or
another perverted to the service of special interests. The state
governments and the municipal administrations have sinned more in this
respect than the central government; but the central government itself
has been a grave sinner. The Federal authorities are responsible for the
prevailing policy in respect to military pensions, which is one of the
most flagrant crimes ever perpetrated against the national interest. The
Federal authorities, again, are responsible for the existing tariff
schedules, which benefit a group of special interests at the expense of
the national welfare. The Federal authorities, finally, are responsible
for the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, whose existence on the statute books is
a fatal bar to the treatment of the problem of corporate aggrandizement
from the standpoint of genuinely national policy. Those instances might
be multiplied, but they suffice to show that the ideal of a constructive
relation between the American national and democratic principles does
not imply that any particular piece of legislation or policy is national
because it is Federal. The Federal no less than the state governments
has been the victim of special interests; and when a group of state or
city officials effectively assert the public interest against the
private interests, either of