Evening star., 1935-02-24
N. r. A. HELDILL ANDDYINC
DESPITE ANY EXTENSIONS
Strong Tide Running Against Basic
Principles Involved-States
Reversing Attitude.

peneQ 10 anOtQeT lISLlLuLlOn WIuCh
recently was meant to be for all time.
but turned out to have q short life
When national prohibition and the
Volstead law were adopted by Con-
gress, the Anti-Saloon League and the
prohibition forces invented the same
strategy that was later COPIED by
Gen. johnson with NJ r. A. They
started a campaign to have all the
States pass baby Volstead laws. Prac-
tically all did so. (All except Mary
land and Massachusetts,
Then reaction against national pro-
hibition began, just as reaction
against N. r. A. is now under way.
On May 4, 1923, the New York State
Legislature, under the leadership CT
Gov. Alfred E. Smith. repealed its
baby Volstead act That was one of
the beginnings of the end of national
prohibition.
New Influence Arises.
So. I suspect, is New Jerseys end
ing of its baby N. R. A. beginning
of the end of N. r. A.
N. r. AS attempt to have the States
adopt baby N. r. A. statutes came to
an end with IA States; and one Of
those, New Jersey. has ended the baby
N, r. A. which it adopted in the early
flush Of N. r. A. success. In addition,
another influence has arisen, STRONGLY
destructive to N. r. A.-fatal to j.,
think, If it goes farther.
The courts have been finding the
baby N. R. A. statutes invalid. In Flew
York Judge MacNaught of the Supreme
Court handed down in Broome County
a decision holding unconstitutional
the New York State baby N. r. A..
known as the "Shackno law"
Judge MacNaught's decision Is not
final, for what is called in New York
the Supreme Court" is not the cour:
Of last appeal; there is an Appellate
Division, and above that a Court OF
Appeals. But Judge MacNaught's
opinion is strongly convincing.
The case was between the New York
State N. r. A. code authority for the
solid fuel industry, and small coal
dealer. The code authority, acting
under the State baby N. r. A.. the
Shackno law, had fixed floor price"
below which no coal dealer could sell.
An independent dealer in Bingham
ton. defying the code authority, sold
below the codes floor price" He
bought his coal within the State and
sold it within the State-it was purely
an intrastate business. On this
ground (as well as on the ground Of
unconstitutionality), Judge Mac
l.A AnlA tAA tHAANArdapHt
dealer could "sell his own merchan-
disc at a price fixed by him and sat
isfactory to him."
Regulation Another Matter.
II should say that think coal, be-
cause 1t Is a natural resource. Is one
commodity which, together with other
natural resource industries. might well
be regulated by the Government. But.
Of course, the regulation, II and when
done. must be in a proper way; and
not by means Of en- N. r. A. which
puts the same restriction upon every
commodity whatever)
Judge MacNaught held that the ma
tional n. r. A. could not touch the
business of the independent coal
dealer in Binghamton, because the
business was wholly within one State.
Then the Judge said that the baby
N. r. A. Of New York State, the
Shackno Law, could not touch the
Binghamton coal dealer because the
Shackno law is unconstitutional.
The Shackno law undertakes, in ef-
feet, to operate in this way: Any code
authority Of any industry writes a
code. That is, the leading members
Of the industry write the code. Then
a certified copy Of this code Is fled
with the State government at Albany.
BY this act, so the Shackno law says.
the code becomes a law of the State:
under 1t men may be hailed into
criminal court.
Not so, says Judge MacNaught.
This, says Judge MacNaught, is no
way to write law. He says that laws
cannot be written by groups Of pri-
vate citizens. Laws, especially GRIM
inal laws, can only be written by the
Legislature. The Legislature may not
delegate the power to create crimes"
Innovations Frowned Upon.
Judge MacNaught in some sentences
of his opinion deals sternly with some
Of the innovations brought by the
New Deal.
Legislative declarations Of emsr-
gency are relied upon to justify star
ting innovations and to sustain un-
usual changes in our constitutional
system of government. . The leg
islative power of the Congress has
been abdicated more fully than in any
previous enactments. II such abdi-
cation of legislative power is within
the authority Of the Congress then a
coordinate branch of the Federal
Government created by the Constitu-
ton may voluntarily destroy itself
and disrupt the American system Of
government"
To read Judge MacNaught's decision
is to feel pleasure at recognizing how
much power of analysis, how much
exactness of thought and precision in
the use of words, together with knowl.
edge of the law and regard for the
Constitution, are to be found fire.
quently among the several thousand
men who sit on the local. State and
county benches throughout the coun-
try. From considerable knowledge of
them I am tempted to think that these
local judges, a hundred or so Of them
in each State, many Of them little
known outside Of their own counties,
compose, on the whole. perhaps the
finest one group Of men in the country.
(The impression made by one Of them.
Judge Thomas w. Trenchard, a rural
judge in a county seat town Of some
5000 people, who came to public notice
in the Lindbergh murder kidnapping
case. is fresh in the public mind.)
These country judges may save
America, even though Congress for q
while abdicated.