The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-04-04


President can upon his own mo-
ton" impose a code upon an in
dustry.
This is still very great power.
But it is a very different sort of
thing from the licensing provision.
Under that provision the President
can license a business, prescribe
rules for it, and if he thinks his
rules have been violated, can revoke
the license and shut down the bust
ness.
This is the summit of admins
trative, or, if you like, bureaucratic,
authority. 1t is this authority which
expires this June. The other power,
which lasts until year from June,
the power to impose a code upon an
industry does not vest in the execu-
tive the power to judge and to
punish. A violator of the code is
not at the mercy of the discretion
of the President or his agents. The
ordinary processes of law, with his
day in court, remain to him.
The licensing provision is in the
literal sense dictatorial power. The
executive is legislator, judge, jury
and executioner. The compulsory
code provision is an extreme form
of delegated legislation: it permits
the President to make federal laws.
But it does not give him the power
to execute them as he sees fit.
1t may therefore be said, I be-
lieve, that if the licensing provision
expires on June Is, the essential
power will have disappeared which
would be required to establish an
industrial system planned and di-
rected from Washington. If the
President asks for a renewal of this
power, then those who object to a
planned and directed economy will
have the issue presented in concrete
and practical form.
This is the acid test which will
determine how much truth there is
in the intentions which Mr.. WadS-
worth, Mr.. Mark Sullivan and
others impute to the President.
MY own view is that the admins
tration ought not to ask for the re-
newal of this power.
THIS licensing provision is far
i too great a power to be vested
in any official, except under the
most pressing emergency and for
the briefest possible time. AS a
permanent power, it is utterly in
consistent with American liberties.
That is the fundamental objection
to it. But there is a practical OBJ
lection as we'll. 1t is that the prom
Use of NRA is most likely to be
achieved if the government ceases
to use compulsion and allows the
codes to become compacts based on
reciprocal benefits among those
concerned.
Then NRA may develop into a
system of constitutional govern
ment within industry. But if the
system is dictated from Washing
ton, it surely will break down. For
the men do not exist who can plan
for and dictate to the multitudinOuS
industries of the United States.
The only way NRA can become
a permanent new deal in industry
is to remove from it the initiative
plus compulsion which the NRA
officials now possess. If that is
done, the system of NRA> gradually
will begin to take the form which
congress obviously intended it should
take when the act was passed. Codes
will be a privilege granted to in
dustries desiring them in return for
concessions to the public interest in
the form of collective bargaining
and fair trade practices. This
would be an orderly evolution of in
dustrial cooperation within the
framework of the principles laid
down by the courts and invoked by
Senator Wagner when he made his
official argument for the act in his
speech of June 7, 1888.
Il
DUT if the initiative to impose
ID codes and the drastic powers of
compulsion are made permanent
the prospect would be one of in
finite troubles. We should find
Washington tangled in a mass of
rules and DEGREES which it could not
hope to enforce. Those to whom it
was attempting to dictate would be
in state of constant rebellion;
those who expected enforcement
and were disappointed would be in
state CT continual discomfort.
All the general compulsory powers
under the licensing section should
be allowed to lapse in June of this
year. The compulsory powers to
impose codes should be allowed to
lapse next year. Then, if it can be
shown that particular industry is
sick, demoralized, or in need of be-
ing regimented, let us have a special
bill for that industry, freely debated
in congress and deliberately enacted.
The Bankhead cotton bill, what
ever else one may think of it, is at
least an example of the right way
to proceed. There may be indus
tries which need to be regimented.
They should be dealt with by spe-
cific laws and not by blanket powers.
The time has passed when it can
fairly be maintained that the emer-
gency is of such a character that
vague and unlimited powers are
necessary throughout the whole
economic order. Last June nobody
knew what powers might be needed
to carry the country through the
winter. 1t was necessary to be
ready for anything eventually.
But now, though We have a long
road to travel, the crisis is past and
We have come to a point where un-