Alfred Clark, in a speech before the Oregon Bar Association on September 2, 1943, warned the American people that a federal monster had just been unleashed:

"Today, in a very real sense, law no longer governs the American people. They are governed by regulations, orders and directives issued by one or the other of our multiple Federal bureaus. I am not now referring to war regulation and the like, but to conditions existing before the war, and which, unless the trend is checked, are likely to continue and to intensify after the war is over.

This has been accomplished, to a very large extent, through a new and, in many aspects, a startling interpretation of the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution, which is now being used to obliterate the States and convert our system into a highly centralized form of government, exercising uncontrolled police power in every State, over all, or nearly all, local affairs and industries.

Lately the new and expanded construction of the commerce clause is being supported by a doctrine at first vaguely stated, but now taking definite form. This doctrine is that Congress has the right, without any constitutional limitations whatsoever, to legislate on, and to regulate any and every matter affecting our way of living, if done with the asserted purpose of promoting the general welfare.

The obvious trend of national legislation under the impact of Executive and bureaucratic pressure, and the obvious trend of judicial decisions in upholding and construing this legislation, is to expand Federal control so as to embrace almost every phase of the social and economic life of the American people. "

He went on to state:

"Congress may now, with the approval of the Supreme Court, deny to any commodity, produced in any State, access to interstate transportation facilities for any reason, or indeed, for no reason whatever. The power to exclude any goods from commerce is now declared to be unlimited.

Each State may now, at the will of the Federal Government, be compelled to become an isolated, self-contained, economic unit, cut off from any commerce with other States or foreign nations, unless it yields complete control and regulation of its industries to the Federal Government. Agriculture, mining and manufacturing are now held to be in interstate commerce, and all phases subject to Federal regulation. "