The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-12-07

iANiN|sA |NSSiN III iAioiiJ \CtA -
The resulting decision may be
the most significant since the
bred Scott decision rs years
ago.
Quiet of Storm Center
The air will be full of your hon
ors" and IF the court pleases" and
there will be order and quiet-the
quiet, as Oliver Wendell Holmes
once remarked, of a storm center.
For the omnipotent courts ruling
in these farm cases will affect vi
tally and directly 100000 farmers.
1t may cause an agrarian revolt that
would recall the Populists to many.
1t may shape action on amendment
OF the Constitution. 1t may lead
to drastic curb on the power of
Federal courtS-a process which
Congress has already started in the
second AAA Act. Treasury refund
of billion dollars in processing
taxes already collected and spent is
at stake.
The farm cases are symbolic as
we'll as significant. In the first
one, the Hoosac case. William M.
Butler, conf1dant of former Presi-
dent Coolidge, is resisting payment
of processing taxes. Here is an
instance of taxation to redistribute
the national income and provide a
larger share to the farmers. Farm
ers have cited the protective tariff
and its benefit to manufacturers as
a justifying precedent.
The battle reflects the declara =
ton of war which big business pro-
nounced against the New Deal in
New York this week. John w. Da-
Wis, conservative Democrat, corpora
ton lawyer and Liberty Lacquer,
stands shoulder to shoulder with ex-
Senator George Wharton Pepper,
conservative Republican, in denounc-
ing AAA as an unconstitutional
scheme for Federal regulation of
local affairs, namely, the acreage
and production of farmers.
Advocate Protective Tariff
And the business interests now so
forclbly asserting this anti-Federal-
list doctrine are attacking the posi-
ton taken by F'ederaliSt Alexander
Hamilton in advocating a protective
tariff.
The justices, although averaging
past 70 years, have Speeded up their
actions in recent years, and prob
ably will have a decision within a
month to drop into the midst of the
election-year Congress.
Monday at noon the nine men will
start off by announcing decisions
written in the current two-week
recess.
The HooSac case probably will
come up in mid-afternoon. The
next day the fight over the Bank
head Cotton Control Act, which I'M
like AAA itself involves compulsion.
Will be heard. The following week
The rice processing tax case and the
IVA cases will be heard. The IVA
decision likely will determine our
national power policy.
The court will recess over the
holidays and the justices will re-
tire to their quiet chambers, to study
and to assign law clerks to look UP
precedentS, to meet in conference
and to debate and fight-in a gen.
tlemanly way-for two or three
weeks.
Congress meets Jan. 3. The court
viii reconvene probably Jan. 10, and
announce its decisions on that
Monday or on one of the two fol-
lowing Mondays.
Government Confident
Government officials are putting
up brave front of confidence that
AAA will win, but some of their
smart lawyers privately fear that
the court will sweep the whole AAA,
acreage control and benefit pay
mentS as we'll as taxes, down as
an unconstitutional, unauthorized
Federal activity.
The anti-AAA lawyers are en-
phasizing the statement last spring
OF Justice Roberts, in the railroad
retirement act case, that that law
denies due process of law by TAX
ing the property of one and bestow-
ing 1t upon another"
And Roberts vote may be the de-
gliding one here as it was in the
railroad case. The four conservat.ya
justices, on their past records, are
deemed most likely to oppose AAA
as they have the gold, railroad,
NRA, Frazier-Lemke, New York
milk control and Minnesota farm
mortgage moratorium laws.
Exchange tn Hear noctor