The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1936-01-17
TheCherry
ETv Where with sur
roo Little Matchet
We tell the truth
about many things, Sometimes pre-
fsundly, sometimes &ippamtly,
Sometimes recklessly.

as if in that phrase we should find
the reason for the actions of the su-
preme court.
Let us stop using that phrase.
The fact that these nine men of
the all-high bench are old has nothing
necessarily to do with the case.
Out of the same environment it
would be as easy to pick nine very
much younger men who would write
decisions of the same kind. In fact
the most liberal of them all is the
oldest.
Reaction is not a necessary product
of age. If it were, then we should
have unanimous decisions always.
The AAA decision was 6 to and
the three are no youngsters.
1t is background, training, previous
condition of longitude and latitude
that makes for what we get.
Samuel Gompers was what might be
called an old man, at the time of his
passing. Could any one imagine Sam
uel Gompers siding with Justice Rob-
erts?
Most of the worlds great philoso-
piers were no longer youngsters when
they gave the world the thought for
which they are remembered.
Woodrow Wilson was no youngster
when he fired the idealism of the
world.
Theodore Roosevelt was no young
ster when he led the Bull Moose in
rebellion against Taft, who later be-
came chief justice.
The thing that is the matter with
the supreme court is point of view,
not calendar years.
In other men of equal years the
finest traditions of liberty will be
found and also the most potent and
matured arguments against the
kind of thing for which the supreme
court now stands.
To lay these decisions to age is to
give the real culprit the finest kind
of alibi and thus befog the issue.
If youth were the answer, then
what of the men who make the great
array of newspapers that have been
clamoring for the death of the same
laws stricken down by court?
Probably a majority of the daily
newspapers side with the court-and
newspapers are made by young men
some Of them too young to have any
depth or perspective whatever; and
some of them lacking the energy or
Elemental integrity to rebel at being
sold down the river
If we are to use age as the whip
ping post, then must we all look for
ward to mental atrophy at somewhere
between 65 and 70, with all the old
ones siding with the six, only the
young and the freakishly old siding
with the three. And it isn't so. 1t just
isn't so.
Stop this talk about "the nine old
men" Else how account for the pro-
testing three?
By and large, men come out Of
environment and give US opinion
shaped by the facts of that environ
ment and the interest of that enyir-
onment.
Broad and Wall has one interest.
Delaney street has another. In every
city there is a section that typifies
the opposite of Broad and Wall, where
the citadel Of vested interests is
found. In San Francisco, south Of the
slot, as it was called in older days;
in Milwaukee, the Third ward; in
Chicago, tthe yards" and so on.
But it isn't age.
We got this sock in the back of the
neck for reasons that have no more
to do with age than a stone quarry
has to do with the rising of bread.
Unless we get at and stick to basic
truths about this business vested i'm
terests will keep on fooling us. The
only way to keep from getting fooled
is to know the difference between fact
and fiction, between what's so and
what's bunk.
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