The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1934-12-28
1l|dtIi1ia{I'gffSlijq :
National Topics Interpreted "a fTYTTTF1R
2 by William Bruckart Apx1rFfF
National Topics Interpreted
by William Bruckart

Il
that the country as whole may have
chance to know
NeD Deal how many laws and
Publicity executive orders is
sued Hereunder have
| come out Of the New Deal in its twen-
| ty-one months of life. President Roose-
welt has determined upon publication
Informing Mr.. Average Man what he Is
not supposed to do under the New
| Deal. 1t has not been determined yet
whether there will be an official gov
eminent newspaper for publication of
| all Of these laws, executive orders,
codes, regulations and other means of
official expression, but everything points
that way.
| Courts have always said that igno-
rance Of the law excuses no man. 1t
remained for the Supreme Court Of the
United States, however, to say that
when the average man was deluged
with hundreds of orders of inhibition
and prohibition from Washington. he
was or is quite likely to be unable to
comprehend what it is all about.
1t was almost unprecedented for
criticism to come from a member of
the Supreme Court Of the United
States. But Associate Justice Bran
deis, one of the outstanding liberals of
the highest tribunal, made no effort to
conceal his grievance when, in the
course Of presentation of an NRA case
| to the court, he learned to his amaze
ment that there had been no publica-
| ton Of the numerous orders, regula-
| tons or rules In a manner that could
conceivably reach the country as a
whole. OF course, the newspapers
have attempted to keep the country
| Informed but there seems to be no
doubt that the number of official pro-
nsuncementS was too great for any
newspaper, however large, to keep
track of and publish them all. Conse-
quently, the Associate Justice gave
voice to feeling that has prevailed
| among newspaper correspondents In
Washington for long time, namely,
that the bulk of the citizens of this
country were uniformed concerning
the vast number of new regulations
forthcoming under the New Deal.
1t is regular practice for congress
to enact legislation and include in such
laws phrase to this effect:
Authority to issue regulations car
rying out the terms of this law is here
by extended" ris1
That phrase whenever it is included,
as 1t is almost invariably, gives to the
rules and regulations, proclamations
and announcements, the full force and
effect of the law itself so long as the
administrative promulgations are with
in the terms of the law itself and with
in reason. In other words, these be-
come law.
The magnitude Of the problem with
which the President has now deter
mined to deal was
WeIghty suggested recently by
Problem, committee Of the
American Bar asso-
citation which estimated that in the
first year of the NRA alone more than
ten thousand pages of such "law" were
written by executive authority with
out adequate provision for notifying
the public.
1.-The total legislative output by or
In connection with this one admins
trative agency" the committee de-
clared, actually staggers the magma
ton"
The committee added that any cal
culation involved guess-work and it con-
cluded after something more than a
superficial investigation that between
four thousand five hundred and five
thousand methods of business conduct
were prohibited by the codes and sup
Elemental amendments to codes pro-
Administration in it's brief period Of
life.
The Brooklyn institute in study
of the situation has found that in the
federal government there are sixty diff
ferent administrative tribunals which,
as the Institutes statement said, are
making judicial decisions affecting
private rights. The Institutes state
ment added that "these do not pro-
coed according to any single form, do
not follow any uniform procedure and
do not fit in as integral parts of CO.
herent or intelligent system"
During the World war there was an
official publication issued by the COM
mittee on public information which
was designed to acquaint the general
public with the myriads of orders from
the White House, orders from the War
and Navy departments, orders from
score Of other places, in the hope that
public understanding would simplify
the administrators problem. That Is
the only time, as far as / have been
able to ascertain, when the produc-
ton Of rules and regulations and adj
| ministration-made "law" was so great
that other than normal press channels
had to be used. Mr.. Roosevelt said in
announcing his decision, that frankly
there never had been machinery of
| government for the publication of such
DEGREES and laws. Obviously now that
the Supreme court has called atten-
| ton to the lack of central compila-
ton or publication Of such orders,
something constructive is going to be
done about 1t.
There is. however, a possibility of
danger in that course. Attention has
been directed here to the threat that,
unless careful supervision over such
a publication is maintained, some un-