Evening star., 1936-01-09
GOOD FAITH HELD
VIOLATED BY j. S.
Refusal to Respect Gold
Clause and Publishing
of Income Cited.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.

InlS is STORY ABOUT gOOQ 1altn IN
government. President Roosevelt in
sists that good faith requires the Fed
eral Government to pay the farmers
the money it contracted to give them,
even though the Supreme Court of the
United States has said the law under
which the contracts were made was
unconstitutional.
But on another occasion when good
faith arose, namely, when contracts
between American citizens and their
Government for the payment Of bonds
in gold of specified value were up for
payment, the Roosevelt administration
not only refused to honor the con-
tracts but Congress adopted a law for
bidding the citizen to 60 to court to
prove his loss unless he filed the suit
within six months.
Here is what the Supreme Court OF
the United States said in the famous
gold clause case on the subject Of good
faith:
The fact that the United States
may not be sued without its consent
is a matter of procedure which does
uot affect the legal and binding char
acter of its contracts.
Obligation Remains Binding.
while the Congress is under no
duty to provide remedies through the
courts, contractual obligation still
exists and despite infirmities of pro-
cedure, remains binding upon the con-
science of the sovereign"
The Roosevelt administration Is en-
barking now on course that prefers
one set of citizens to another in the
matter of honoring obligations Of the
Government of the United States.
The Government, having contracted
with the farmers who have done their
part in reducing acreage, owes the
money to the farmers. No voice will
be raised against this in Congress.
But the question of why the Congress
chose to ignore another contract, writ
ten in a Government bond and upheld
by the Supreme Court of the United
States, is one not so easy to explain.
Good Faith Broken Again.
AS far as good faith Is concerned,
another and more striking instance of
its violation has come up this week.
The American people. it will be re-
called, spoke an overwhelming pro-
test against publicity provisions OF the
revenue law of 1884. The pink slip.
which was to embody the data. became
the subject of Nationwide discussion,
and Congress, by heavy vote, re-
pealed the provision.
There was no doubt then of what the
American people wanted done-they
wanted the publicity idea repealed so
that kidnappers and snoopers and ex-
tortionists could not get hold Of what
would prove to be an excellent prospect
list But when the pink slip provision
was repealed, another section Of the
law was inadvertently left untouched
Under this provision. the Secretary OF
the Treasury was to submit an annual
report making known to Congress a
list of persons receiving SIS 900 year
or over.
Publication Not Stipulated.
No stipulation in the law said the
report was to be made public. Nc
prohibition was contained in the law
forbidding publicity. The law omitted
all reference to general publicity of in
come tax data. The Secretary Of the
Treasury maintained faith with the
American people by refusing to make
the document public.
The House Ways and Means Com
mittee had no obligation resting upon
1t to reveal the contents of the
doucument. But 1t voted to do SO
just the same, thus breaking faith
with the spirit. If not the letter. of
the famous pink slip" repeal reso-
luton which was adopted by a vote
of both Houses of Congress.
The making public of the list of
names and salaries serves no public
purpose that could not be achieved
in another way. The law could have
required that the stockholders of all
corporations be furnished the data,
but that it was to be preserved in
confidence by the stockholders them
selves. Certainly it would have been
difficult to compile q list Of kidnap-
ing prospects if the information had
been scattered to stockholders so that
the data about one corporation was
not known to the other.
(Copyrieht. 1850