The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1936-01-09
The Supreme
Court Killed
AAA Deal
Decision of Unconstitutional
ity Given By Six To
Three Vote
A SWEEPING DECISION
Processing Taxes and Crop
Control Programs De-
clared Invalid

On Monday the Supreme Court
found the AAA, the New Deals
Farm Recovery program, an I'M
constitutional attempt to control
production. The decision, given by
a six to three vote, was in such
forceful terms that it left no doubt
that the Bankhead cotton control
act would also be declared invalid,
and it appeared that the Kerr
Smith tobacco and the potato con-
troll law also come under the
sweeping decision.
Processing taxes on wheat, rice,
tobacco, corn, hogs, sugar beets.
sugar cane, paper jute, peanuts and
rye, as well as cotton were struck
down by the decision and crop con-
troll programs for all of these COM
modities went with it.
The decision was considered the
most important in political signifi-
canoe since the Civil War.
Briefs and arguments submitted
during consideration of the case
showed the deepest sort of cleav-
age between the industrial attack
ers and farm defenders of AAA.
Reverberations over the courts
decision were expected to sound
furiously through the coming pol
itical campaigns.
The issue of constitutional
amendment was regarded as an al
most inevitable outcome, although
the exact form it would take was
uncertain.
The court based its decision on
the finding that AAA was an in
vasion Of the right Of the states,
1t also held that the plan itself was
Gin itself not voluntary"
It was planned by administration
leaders to submit substitute leg
islation to congress without delay
to replace the AAA to whatever ex-
tent is deemed necessary and posi-
BILE. The exact legislation will be
uncertain until study of the deci-
sion.
The government was expected to
be liable for benefit payments to
farmers already contracted for.
Justice Owen j. Roberts, who
read the opinions, said as he pro-
ceeded, that the Bankhead act was
merely "a step further" along the
same route as AAA, compulsory as
was AAA.
Striking at the very heart Of the
law, the decision held that control
Of crop production even by volun-
tary agreement and the payment of
bounties exceeded the limitations
placed on the power Of the federal
government.
That there was no possible
chance of a new AAA without con-
stitutional amendment was assured
when Roberts said that even If the
plan was unquestionably voluntary
It would fail because 1t used federal
funds ito purchase compliance"
The courts division on the case
was announced as six to three, with
Roberts writing and reading the
opinion of the majority group.
Only the three regular liberals,
Justices Harlan F. Stone, Louis ID.
Brandeis and Benjamin N. Cardo-
20 stood for the law.
After he had announced the
courts finding, Roberts continued
for some time, seemingly in argu-
ment in defense Of the finding.
If AAA's theory were upheld, he
said, the government might go into
a state with it's taxing and spend
ing power and redistribute the in
dustrial population in violation OF
the states powers.
For the appeal from unwise
laws the recourse Is not to the
court but to the ballot" Justice
Stone said in dissenting opinion.
President Roosevelt received in
silence the news that the Supreme
Court had outlawed the AAA, the
backbone of the New Deals farm
program.
The President was told of the
adverse decision a short time af-
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