Evening star., 1935-06-01
Back Fifty Years-or Two!


Does the Supreme Court decision
on N. r. A. put us back fifty years
TO the days of the horse and buggy
or does it merely put us back two
years. to the interpretations of the
Constitution which prevailed before
the descent upon the Capital of the
facile minded brain trusters and their
large ideas?
Has the Supreme Court really cur
tailed the power of the Federal Gov
ernment over interstate commerce, or
has the court merely restated funda-
mental limitations on that and other
powers?
The lawyers will dispute the i'm
preston created by the Presidents ap-
parent Interpretation of loss of ground
brought about by the Supreme Courts
decision. Certainly the enactment Of
NJ r. A. represented a radical de-
parture in grants of power to Con-
gress and to the Executive. Nobody
had ever seriously attempted the far
reaching measures so quickly spon-
sored by the New Deal because, until
the days of the New Deal. nobody
ever seriously believed that they were
valid under the Constitution and its
interpretations.
The child labor amendment is a
good example of the anomaly which
has been found to exist in other New
Deal experiments Here Congress ad-
mitted its lack Of power to regulate
child labor when it submitted to the
States-after an adverse decision of
the Supreme Court-a constitutional
amendment expressly giving to Con-
gress the power to limit. regulate and
prohibit the labor of persons under
eighteen years of age" But one Of
the overnight accomplishments OF the
N r. A. fand one of the most praise
worthy of its accomplishments was
the eliminate of child labor Yet,
and despite the fact that the amend
ment was submitted to the States ten
years ago, and despite the fact that
elimination of child labor under N. r.
A. has been almost universally praised
for two years. only half of the States
have ratified the amendment. What
the New Deal was anxious to do by
an N. r. A. shortcut Congress has
lacked the power to do. and the neces-
sary number OF the States even now
has been unwilling to grant that power
by ratification of the amendment.
1t is true that had the Supreme
Court placed its stamp OF approval on
the New Deals principles as embodied
in N. r. A. we would not have gone
back fifty years. or even two. We
would have burned all bridges behind
us, forgotten the past and entered
into period of Federal control that
would affect all business in the coun-
try. big and little. whether confined to
village. city or State. And the NJ
r. A. of the first two years would have
been as nothing compared with the
N. r. A. of the future.
Has the country gone back fifty
years merely because the Supreme
Court by unanimous decision has de-
clined to permit the extension Of
Federal control over business of every
kind that nobody dreamed Of before
the Johnsons and the Moleys and the
Tugwells and the Richbergs came to
town? And has the country lost halt
a century's gain through the Supreme
Courts finding that Congress cannot
with one broad sweep. delegate its
law-making powers to the President
or to his agents?
The Supreme Court has not set the
country back. The Supreme Court
has merely reaffirmed constitutional
principles which, in the dust of the
past two years, had apparently been
lost to view.