MikhailT/lj-speech huggingface dataset:
In the case holding the New York Minimum Wage Law unconstitutional, Justice Stone said
that the majority were actually reading into the Constitution their own "personal economic predilections," and that
if the legislative power is not left free to choose the methods of solving the problems of poverty,
subsistence, and health of large numbers in the community, then
government is to be rendered impotent.
In the face of these dissenting opinions, there is no basis for the claim made by some members of the Court
that something in the Constitution has compelled them regretfully to thwart the will of the people.
In the face of such dissenting opinions, it is perfectly clear that, as Chief Justice Hughes has said,
We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.
The Court in addition to the proper use of its judicial functions has improperly set itself up as a third house of the Congress
a super-legislature, as one of the justices has called it
reading into the Constitution words and implications which are not there, and which were never intended to be there.
We have, therefore,
reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself.
We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Constitution itself.
We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution -- not over it.
In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men.
I want -- as all Americans want -- an independent judiciary as proposed by the framers of the Constitution.
That means a Supreme Court that will enforce the Constitution as written
that will refuse to amend the Constitution by the arbitrary exercise of judicial power -- amended by judicial say-so.
It does not mean a judiciary so independent that it can deny the existence of facts which are universally recognized.
How then could we proceed to perform the mandate given us?
It was said in last year's Democratic platform,
If these problems cannot be effectively solved within the Constitution,
we shall seek such clarifying amendment as will assure the power to enact those laws,
adequately to regulate commerce, protect public health and safety, and safeguard economic security.
In other words, we said we would seek an amendment only if every other possible means by legislation were to fail.
When I commenced to review the situation with the problem squarely before me,
I came by a process of elimination to the conclusion that, short of amendments,
the only method which was clearly constitutional, and would at the same time carry out other much needed reforms,
was to infuse new blood into all our courts.
We must have men worthy and equipped to carry out impartial justice.
But, at the same time, we must have judges who will bring to the courts a present-day sense of the Constitution
and reject the legislative powers which the courts have today assumed.
In forty-five out of the forty-eight states of the Union, judges are chosen not for life but for a period of years.
In many states judges must retire at the age of seventy.
Congress has provided financial security
by offering life pensions at full pay for federal judges on all courts who are willing to retire at seventy.
In the case of Supreme Court justices, that pension is $20,000 a year.
But all federal judges, once appointed,
can, if they choose, hold office for life, no matter how old they may get to be.
The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by Franklin D Roosevelt
Section 10. March 9, 1937. Part 2.
What is my proposal?
It is simply this: whenever a judge or justice of any federal court
has reached the age of seventy and does not avail himself of the opportunity to retire on a pension,
a new member shall be appointed by the President then in office,
with the approval, as required by the Constitution, of the Senate of the United States.
That plan has two chief purposes.
By bringing into the judicial system a steady and continuing stream of new and younger blood, I hope, first,
to make the administration of all federal justice speedier and, therefore, less costly;
secondly, to bring to the decision of social and economic problems younger men who have had personal experience and contact
with modern facts and circumstances under which average men have to live and work.
This plan will save our national Constitution from hardening of the judicial arteries.
The number of judges to be appointed would depend wholly on the decision of present judges now over seventy,
or those who would subsequently reach the age of seventy.
If, for instance, any one of the six justices of the Supreme Court now over the age of seventy should retire as provided under the plan,
no additional place would be created.
Consequently, although there never can be more than fifteen, there may be only fourteen, or thirteen, or twelve.
And there may be only nine.
There is nothing novel or radical about this idea.
It seeks to maintain the federal bench in full vigor.
It has been discussed and approved by many persons of high authority
ever since a similar proposal passed the House of Representatives in 1869.
Why was the age fixed at seventy?
Because the laws of many states, the practice of the Civil Service, the regulations of the Army and Navy,
and the rules of many of our universities and of almost every great private business enterprise,
commonly fix the retirement age at seventy years or less.
The statute would apply to all the courts in the federal system.
There is general approval so far as the lower federal courts are concerned.
The plan has met opposition only so far as the Supreme Court of the United States itself is concerned.
If such a plan is good for the lower courts it certainly ought to be equally good for the highest court from which there is no appeal.
Those opposing this plan have sought to arouse prejudice and fear by crying that I am seeking to "pack" the Supreme Court
and that a baneful precedent will be established.
What do they mean by the words "packing the Court"?
Let me answer this question with a bluntness that will end all honest misunderstanding of my purposes.
If by that phrase "packing the Court" it is charged that I wish to place on the bench spineless puppets
who would disregard the law and would decide specific cases as I wished them to be decided, I make this answer:
that no President fit for his office would appoint,
and no Senate of honorable men fit for their office would confirm, that kind of appointees to the Supreme Court.
But if by that phrase the charge is made
that I would appoint and the Senate would confirm justices worthy to sit beside present members of the Court
who understand those modern conditions,
that I will appoint justices who will not undertake to override the judgment of the Congress on legislative policy,
that I will appoint justices who will act as justices and not as legislators
if the appointment of such justices can be called "packing the Courts,"
then I say that I and with me the vast majority of the American people favor doing just that thing -- now.
Is it a dangerous precedent for the Congress to change the number of the justices? The Congress has always had, and will have, that power.
The number of justices has been changed several times before,
in the administration of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson -- both signers of the Declaration of Independence
Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.
I suggest only the addition of justices to the bench
in accordance with a clearly defined principle relating to a clearly defined age limit.
Fundamentally, if in the future, America cannot trust the Congress it elects to refrain from abuse of our Constitutional usages
democracy will have failed far beyond the importance to it of any king of precedent concerning the judiciary.
We think it so much in the public interest to maintain a vigorous judiciary
that we encourage the retirement of elderly judges by offering them a life pension at full salary.
Why then should we leave the fulfillment of this public policy to chance
or make independent on upon the desire or prejudice of any individual justice?
It is the clear intention of our public policy to provide for a constant flow of new and younger blood into the judiciary.
Normally every President appoints a large number of district and circuit court judges and a few members of the Supreme Court.
Until my first term practically every President of the United States has appointed at least one member of the Supreme Court.
President Taft appointed five members and named a Chief Justice;
President Wilson, three; President Harding, four, including a Chief Justice; President Coolidge, one;
President Hoover, three, including a Chief Justice.
Such a succession of appointments should have provided a Court well-balanced as to age.
But chance and the disinclination of individuals to leave the Supreme bench
have now given us a Court in which five justices will be over seventy-five years of age before next June
and one over seventy.
Thus a sound public policy has been defeated.
I now propose that we establish by law an assurance against any such ill-balanced court in the future.
I propose that hereafter, when a judge reaches the age of seventy,
a new and younger judge shall be added to the court automatically.
In this way I propose to enforce a sound public policy by law
instead of leaving the composition of our federal courts, including the highest,
to be determined by chance or the personal indecision of individuals.
If such a law as I propose is regarded as establishing a new precedent,
is it not a most desirable precedent?
Like all lawyers, like all Americans, I regret the necessity of this controversy.
But the welfare of the United States, and indeed of the Constitution itself, is what we all must think about first.
Our difficulty with the Court today rises not from the Court as an institution but from human beings within it.
But we cannot yield our constitutional destiny to the personal judgment of a few men who, being fearful of the future,
would deny us the necessary means of dealing with the present.
This plan of mine is no attack on the Court;
it seeks to restore the Court to its rightful and historic place in our constitutional government
and to have it resume its high task of building anew on the Constitution "a system of living law."
The Court itself can best undo what the Court has done.
I have thus explained to you the reasons that lie behind our efforts to secure results by legislation within the Constitution.
I hope that thereby the difficult process of constitutional amendment may be rendered unnecessary. But,
let us examine the process.
There are many types of amendment proposed.
Each one is radically different from the other.
There is no substantial groups within the Congress or outside it who are agreed on any single amendment.
It would take months or years to get substantial agreement upon the type and language of the amendment.
It would take months and years thereafter to get a two-thirds majority in favor of that amendment in both Houses of the Congress.
Then would come the long course of ratification by three-fourths of all the states.
No amendment which any powerful economic interests or the leaders of any powerful political party have had reason to oppose
has ever been ratified within anything like a reasonable time.
And thirteen states which contain only five percent of the voting population can block ratification
even though the thirty- five states with ninety-five percent of the population are in favor of it.
Bar Association, Manufacturers' Associations, who are trying to give the impression that they really do want a constitutional amendment
would be the first to exclaim as soon as an amendment was proposed
Oh! I was for an amendment all right, but this amendment you proposed is not the kind of amendment that I was thinking about.
I am therefore, going to spend my time, my efforts and my money
to block the amendment, although I would be awfully glad to help get some other kind of amendment ratified.
Two groups oppose my plan on the ground that they favor a constitutional amendment.
The first includes those who fundamentally object to social and economic legislation along modern lines.
This is the same group who during the campaign last Fall tried to block the mandate of the people.
Now they are making a last stand.
And the strategy of that last stand is to suggest the time-consuming process of amendment in order to kill off by delay
the legislation demanded by the mandate.
To them I say: I do not think you will be able long to fool the American people as to your purposes.
The other groups is composed of those who honestly believe the amendment process is the best
and who would be willing to support a reasonable amendment if they could agree on one.
To them I say: we cannot rely on an amendment as the immediate or only answer to our present difficulties.
When the time comes for action,
you will find that many of those who pretend to support you will sabotage any constructive amendment which is proposed.
Look at these strange bed-fellows of yours.
When before have you found them really at your side in your fights for progress?
And remember one thing more.
Even if an amendment were passed, and even if in the years to come it were to be ratified,
its meaning would depend upon the kind of justices who would be sitting on the Supreme Court bench.
An amendment, like the rest of the Constitution,
is what the justices say it is rather than what its framers or you might hope it is.
This proposal of mine will not infringe in the slightest upon the civil or religious liberties so dear to every American.
My record as Governor and President proves my devotion to those liberties.
You who know me can have no fear that I would tolerate the destruction by any branch of government of any part of our heritage of freedom.
The present attempt by those opposed to progress to play upon the fears of danger to personal liberty
brings again to mind that crude and cruel strategy tried by the same opposition
to frighten the workers of America in a pay-envelope propaganda against the Social Security Law.
The workers were not fooled by that propaganda then. The people of America will not be fooled by such propaganda now.
I am in favor of action through legislation:
First, because I believe that it can be passed at this session of the Congress.
Second, because it will provide a reinvigorated
liberal-minded judiciary necessary to furnish quicker and cheaper justice from bottom to top.
Third, because it will provide a series of federal courts willing to enforce the Constitution as written,
and unwilling to assert legislative powers by writing into it their own political and economic policies.
During the past half century the balance of power between the three great branches of the federal government,
has been tipped out of balance by the courts in direct contradiction of the high purposes of the framers of the Constitution.
It is my purpose to restore that balance.
You who know me will accept my solemn assurance that in a world in which democracy is under attack,
I seek to make American democracy succeed.
You and I will do our part.
The Science: History of the Universe, Volume 5.
Edited by Francis Rolt-Wheeler. Biology. Chapter 7. Organic Functions. Part One.
The facts dealing with the physiology of organisms, the activities associated with that which we call life
are often designated Organic Functions.
The terms animal physiology, plant physiology and human physiology are in common use and often suggest to the lay reader
that the functions or workings of the organs of plants, animals or man are quite distinct,
so much so as to require discussion in different treatises.
This is true only as a matter of detail,
for in the past fifty years it has been made evident that in general principles all living things are fundamentally similar.
One of the most important summaries of this similarity
is Huxley's famous essay, "The Border Territory Between the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms," written in 1876,
extracts from which follow.
In the second edition of the "Regne Animal," published in 1828,
Cuvier devotes a special section to the Division of Organized Beings into Animals and Vegetables,
in which the question is treated with that comprehensiveness of knowledge and clear critical judgment which characterize his writings
and justify biologists in regarding them as representative expressions of the most extensive, if not the profoundest, knowledge of his time.
He affirms that living beings have been subdivided from the earliest times into animated beings, which possess sense and motion,
and inanimated beings, which are devoid of these functions and simply vegetable.
Although the roots of plants direct themselves toward moisture and their leaves toward air and light,
although the parts of some plants exhibit oscillating movements without any perceptible cause and the leaves of others retract when touched,
yet none of these movements justify the ascription to plants of perception of will.
From the mobility of animals Cuvier, with his characteristic partiality for teleological reasoning,
reduces the necessity of the existence in them of an alimentary cavity, or reservoir of food,
whence their nutrition may be drawn by vessels, which are a sort of internal roots; and, in the presence of this alimentary cavity
he naturally sees the primary and the most important distinction between animals and plants,
Following out his teleological argument, Cuvier remarks that the organization of this cavity
and its appurtenances must needs vary according to the nature of the aliment and the operations which it has to undergo
before it can be converted into substances fitted for absorption,
while the atmosphere and the earth supply plants with juices ready prepared and which can be absorbed immediately.
As the animal body required to be independent of heat and of the atmosphere,
there were no means by which the motion of its fluids could be produced by internal causes.
Hence arose the second great distinctive character of animals, or the circulatory system, which is less important than the digestive,
since it was unnecessary, and therefore is absent, in the more simple animals.
Animals further needed muscles for locomotion and nerves for sensibility.
Hence, says Cuvier, it was necessary that the chemical composition of the animal body should be more complicated than that of the plant;
and it is so, inasmuch as an additional substance -- nitrogen -- enters into it as an essential element;
while in plants nitrogen is only accidentally joined with the three other fundamental constituents of organic beings
carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
he afterward affirms that nitrogen is peculiar to animals, and herein he places the third distinction between the animal and the plant.
The soil and the atmosphere supply plants with water composed of hydrogen and oxygen
and carbonic acid containing carbon and oxygen.
They retain the hydrogen and the carbon, exhale the superfluous oxygen and absorb little or no nitrogen.
The essential character of vegetable life is the exhalation of oxygen, which is effected through the agency of light.
Animals, on the contrary, derive their nourishment either directly or indirectly from plants.
They get rid of the superfluous hydrogen and carbon and accumulate nitrogen.
The relations of plants and animals to the atmosphere are therefore inverse.
The plant withdraws water and carbonic acid from the atmosphere, the animal contributes both to it.
Respiration -- that is, the absorption of oxygen and the exhalation of carbonic acid
is the specially animal function of animals and constitutes their fourth distinctive character.
Thus wrote Cuvier in 1828.
But in the fourth and fifth decades of this century
the greatest and most rapid revolution which biological science has ever undergone was effected by the application of the modern microscope
to the investigation of organic structure,
by the introduction of exact and easily manageable methods of conducting the chemical analysis of organic compounds and finally
by the employment of instruments of precision for the measurement of the physical forces which are at work in the living economy.
That the semi-fluid contents (which we now term protoplasm) of the cells of certain plants,
such as the Charae, are in constant and regular motion was made out by Bonaventura Corti a century ago;
but the fact, important as it was, fell into oblivion and had to be rediscovered by Treviranus in 1807.
Robert Brown noted the more complex motions of the protoplasm in the cells of Tradescantia in 1831,
and now such movements of the living substance of plants are well known to be some of the most widely prevalent phenomena of vegetable life.
Agardh and other of the botanists of Cuvier's generation who occupied themselves with the lower plants had observed that,
under particular circumstances, the contents of the cells of certain water-weeds were set free and moved about with considerable velocity
and with all the appearances of spontaneity as locomotive bodies,
which, from their similarity to animals of simple organization, were called "zoospores."
Even as late as 1845, however, a botanist of Schleiden's eminence dealt very skeptically with these statements,
and his skepticism was the more justified since Ehrenberg in his elaborate and comprehensive work on the infusoria,
had declared the greater number of what are now recognized as locomotive plants to be animals.
"At the present day," writes Huxley,
innumerable plants and free plant cells are known to pass the whole or part of their lives in an actively locomotive condition,
in nowise distinguishable from that of one of the simpler animals, and
while in this condition their movements are, to all appearances, as spontaneous -- as much the product of volition -- as those of such animals.
Hence the teleological argument for Cuvier's first diagnostic character
the presence in animals of an alimentary cavity, or internal pocket, in which they can carry about their nutriment
has broken down, so far, at least, as his mode of stating it goes. And
with the advance of microscopic anatomy, the universality of the fact itself among animals has ceased to be predicable.
Many animals of even complex structure which live parasitically within others are wholly devoid of an alimentary cavity.
Their food is provided for them,
not only ready cooked but ready digested, and the alimentary canal, become superfluous, has disappeared, and, again,
the males of most Rotifers have no digestive apparatus.
Finally amid the lowest forms of animal life the speck of gelatinous protoplasm, which constitutes the whole body,
has no permanent digestive cavity or mouth, but takes in its food anywhere and digests, so to speak, all over its body.
But although Cuvier's leading diagnosis of the animal from the plant will not stand a strict test,
it remains one of the most constant of the distinctive characters of animals.
And if we substitute for the possession of an alimentary cavity the power of taking solid nutriment into the body and there digesting it,
the definition so changed will cover all animals, except certain parasites,
and the few and exceptional cases of non-parasitic animals which do not feed at all.
On the other hand, the definition thus amended will exclude all ordinary vegetable organisms.
Cuvier himself practically gives up his second distinctive mark when he admits that it is wanting in the simpler animals.
The third distinction is based on a completely erroneous conception of the chemical differences
and resemblances between the constituents of animal and vegetable organisms, for which Cuvier is not responsible,
as it was current among contemporary chemists.
It is now established that nitrogen is as essential a constituent of vegetable as of animal living matter
and that the latter is, chemically speaking, just as complicated as the former.
Starchy substances, cellulose and sugar,
once supposed to be exclusively confined to plants, are now known to be regular and normal products of animals.
Amylaceous and saccharine substances are largely manufactured, even by the highest animals.
Cellulose is widespread as a constituent of the skeletons of the lower animals