The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-05-19
Says Court Looks
= OnIyto TangibIes
Copyright, 1885,
BY RAYMOND CLAPPER,

CLEVELAND, May 19.-The Supreme Court has
~ again swung on the New Deal sending the
Guffey Coal Control Act the way of MIRA and AAA
About all we know out here is that six judges said
the Gufey Act wasn't constitutional and three said
it Also that the Interpretation of interstate
commerce has been narrowed down so that Federal
jurisdiction scarcely goes beyond the physical act of
hauling goods.
Plainly the court does not recognize that eco
nomic forces we'll as goods travel in interstate
commerce. 1t sees only the ton of coal the bushe
OF wheat crossing state line But its eyeSght is
too dim to those shadowy, but vastly more i'm
portant, things which are racing back and forth in
interstate comerce-the rise and fall of wages the
rise and fall of prices They travel with almost cleo
trcal speed when Kentucky overloads the coal mar
ket and forces mines in Pennsylvania to shut down
and throw thousands of employees on relief.
When the cotton farmers of Texas plunge in
cheaply produced cotton, the court does not see
racing across to Georgia the edict-as powerful as
If it the word of God-that the price of cotton
must go down and that the farmer must move out
ana let the sheriff take him over
The court does not see those forces which consti-
tute our real interstate commerce in America
True, the court does make exception now and
then, recognizing for instance that radio waves al
though invisible do travel across state lines But
the MAN, the theory is that if you can't see it, it
isn't there. So agriculture and coal production
are strictly interstate activities and of no concern
to the people Of other states unless somebody sends
the wheat or the coal across the state line.
ITO be you will look in vain for any specific
4 word on the subject in the Constitution but as
Chief Justice Hughes once said the Constitution is
what the judges say it is so it is in there The courts
have put many things into the Constitution
This is one CT the broader functions of the
courts-o I'LL in the gaps, to supplement the declara-
lions Of constitution makers and law makers and
that is where the economic and political PHILOSOPHERS
OF the judges come in.
One of the Supreme Court justices, Associate
justice Cardozo, delivered several Illuminating lee
lures on this subject years ago under the title
OF The Nature of the Judicial Process"
He said to quote fragments from his scholarly
discussion, i take judge-made laws as one of the
existing realities of life there is in each of us
stream CT tendency, whether you choose to cali it
philosophy or not which gives conference and direc-
ton TO thought and action. Judges can not escape
that current any more than other mortals All their
ves forces which they do not recognize and can not
name, have been tugging at them-inherited in
stncts traditional beliefs acquired convictions and
the result is an outlook life, conception of social
needs, which, when nicely balanced must
determine where choice shall fall . We may try
TO see things as effectively we please None the
less, We can never see them with any eyes except
our own"
That is why, time after time on social and no.
htical issues you have the six members of the
court expounding the same philosophy as Herbert
Hoover and the American Liberty League. while the
three others voice different philosophy one quite
akin at times to Rcozepelts.