Evening star., 1936-03-03
VANDENBERG SEES
KEY TO TYRANNY.
Senator Declares Supreme
Court Gag Could Kill
All Liberties.

Deprivation OF the supreme CouTt
veto power would bring q .'sad day
for popular government and the per-
petuation of American liberties" Sem
ator Vandenberg. Republican, Of
Michigan said last night in an address
on the National Radio Forum, ar
ranged by The Star and broadcast
over a coast-to-coast network Of the
National Broadcasting Co.
Vandenberg, q dark-horse possibility
for the Republican presidential nomi-
nation. said Supreme Court decisions
were the peoples voice upholding con-
stitutional guarantees. He quoted
Patrick Henry, famous author Of the
"Give me liberty or give me death"
challenge to British domination Of
America, who said:
The judiciary are the sole pro-
lection against tyrannical execu-
ton of the laws"
Cites Danger In Supremacy.
He pointed to the unfettered law
making power of the British Parlia-
ment, of which a former British
cabinet member declared:
parliament could pass a law that
every red-headed man should be
hanged and the courts of law would
have to carry out its bidding"
You can never make tyrant out
of the Supreme Court" Vandenberg
said. 1T lacks one single power of
affirmative enslavement. 1t cannot
take one single step toward oligarchy.
But you can make any sort of mon
ster. suited to the prevailing appetite
Of the ruling passion, out of supreme
congress, which is above all things
and all men,"
Text of Address.
The text of Senator Vandenberg's s
speech follows:
respond to the subject. "A Layman
Looks at the Supreme Court" am
not a lawyer This is neither boast
nor an apology. 1t is simply state
ment Of fact. Lawyers usually monop-
Ollie the discussion of constitutional
questions. But there are many more
laymen, fortunately, than lawyers.
Therefore, layman's view may be
tolerated in the present discussion
which rumbles up and down the coun-
try and intermittently breaks hotly
in the Congress and the White House.
The cause of these discussions is
that the Supreme Court is repeatedly
stopping Congress and the President
In enterprises which violate the Con-
stitution. This has happened 10 times
since March 4, 1888 In anticipation
of similar inevitable denunciations,
Congress itself has repealed a num-
Der of its other recent laws. Promptly
an age-old controversy resumes. Since
the foundation of the republic, when
ever Congress and the court have thus
clashed, impatient agitation has ar
gued that the Supreme Courts au-
thority over the constitutionality Of
acts of Congress ought to be abol-
ished. Although the court has repu-
dated only 81 acts out of 24,300 pub
lie laws since the beginning, each
time it happens there is the cry that
Congress must be released from this
court veto. In this layman's view, if
any such movement ever succeeds it
will be sad day for popular govern
Lnent. and for the perpetuation of
American liberties.
1t will simplify our thinking If We
realize that when an act of Congress
is thus rejected. it is the Constitution
which is speaking. That means, in
turn. that it is the people speaking.
The Supreme Court, in such instances,
Is only the Constitutions voice. The
judges are not passing their opinions
upon the intrinsic merits of the law.
Their sole responsibility is to reject
The judges are human. Their judg-
ments may err. But somewhere, some
how, some time, in our American
system, somebody must speak for the
Constitution in this precise fashion
or. manifestly, the Constitution be-
comes mute and impotent. Better to
risk occasional error of Interpretation
than to risk the loss of ordered lib
erty. This is our choice.
People Own Government.
It is our theory Of government that
the Constitution belongs exclusively to
the people. They fought for it. They
died for it. They wrote its guaran-
tees. Into it they put those inalien-
able warrants which set American lib
erty apart and make it the grandest
thing on earth. To make certain that
the people should never be robbed Of
its protection, the founders provided
that none but the people can ever
change it. They prescribed, in the
great charter itself, just how 1t may
be amended. 1t thus has been amend
ed 81 times. That makes of it liv-
ing. progressing thing. But it is i'm
pregnable to any attack save by the
people themselves; and any time it
loses this granite character 1t will be
the people who have been victimized.
It may be changed, but it must not
be cheated.
Now. in order to protect this popu-
lar right, the founders realized they
had to provide checks and balances.
They had to defend the Constitution
against notification and usurpation.
So they wisely-as every lesson of
the years has proved-separated the
executive, legislative and judicial
functions. They set up the Legislature
to legislate and the Executive to exc
cute: then they provided an inde-
pendent judiciary to require each to
respect the rights of the other, and to
require both to respect the rights
Of the people. Thus the Supreme
Court became the voice of the Con-
stitution which. remember, is, in turn,
the voice Of the people. Today's re-
current question is: Shall this voice
be sti1ed?
The founders of America knew ex-
actly what they were doing. They
knew that If Congress could decide
whether its own acts are constitu-
tional, the entire American system
would be flung to transient politics.
The Constitution-and its sacred
guarsntees-would become whatever
each succeeding Congress might want
to make 1t. It would change with
the ebb and flow OF each election. The