Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1936-05-29

In its decision declaring the Cuff
few Bituminous Control Law u,
constitutional, the Supreme CouA :
of the United States followed in the
main the same line <of reasoning
which led to the death of NRA.
The grounds for throwing out both
of these acts, SRA and the Guffey
Coal Act, are that the production
of coal, if not slaughtering of
chickens, is not interstate COM
MERGE and therefore Congress has
no power to regulate it. On this
point the Supreme Court divided,
six to three, exactly the same line
up as in the MIRA decision, with
Justices Brandeis, Stone and Cardo-
20 in the minority. The majority
opinion held that the regulation Of
wages, hours and conditions Of Ia
Dor in the soft coal industry is local
matter to be settled locally. 1t al
so held that the law delegated legis-
lative authority unconstitutionally.
The Court also ruled against
another major feature of the Cuff
fey Act. the taxation provision.
The law provided for an excise tax
of IS percent of the total value of
coal mined, to be paid by the mine
Operators; but operators who signed
the soft coal code were to receive
a rebate of 90 percent of this tax
This the Supreme Court held, was
an improper and unconstitutional
use of the taxing power TO impose
a penalty upon operators who re-
fused to be coerced into signing up.
ANNULMENT EXPECTED
The annulment of the Gufey
Act by the Supreme Court was not
unexpected. 1t was commonly re-
ferred to in Washington as "The
Little NRA." In principle it diff
fered in no way from the National
Recovery Act, and serious doubts
as to its Constitutionality were held
BY leaders of both parties in Con-
gress at the time of its enactment.
1t was pending at time of the NRAi
decision last summer, and the
tendency then was to drop it be-
cause it so clearly seemed to be ex-
actly PARALLEL to MIRA. 1t was a.
that critical moment that the Pres
ident wrote to Representative Hill,
Chairman, expressing the hope that
the Committee would not let any
doubt of the constitutionality of
the Gufey Bill prevent its being re-
ported to the House for action.
The real reason behind the bills
passage was the threat of the Unit
ed Mine Workers of a general coal
strike on Septerb e1 IS .aA year,
unless Congress passed. some law
that would compel the mine owners
and operators to accede to the de-
mand of the union for shorter hours
and higher pay. There wa no doubt
that the miners were desperate and
that they meant business. There
was talk of riots extensive enough
to be called rebellion among the
Pennsylvania miners unless bme-
thing was done and done quickly.
EXCISE TAX REFUND
Many large mine owners who re-
fused to sign the code paid the ex-
else tax under protest, at the same
time starting legal proceedings to
have the law declared unconstitu-
tional. About 100000 of these
taxes have to be refunded.
Chief Justice Hughes, while CON
curing in the majority opinion of
the Court wrote an individual opin-
ion in which he held that some fea-
lures of the Gufey Law might be
constitutional if they could be sep
arated from the unconstitutional
phases of it.
RESETTLEMENT DECISION
On the same day that the Gufey
Act decision was handed down, the
Court of Appeals of the District of
Columbia handed down a decision
that the Rural desettlement Admin