The Washington times., 1936-02-28
Human Side of News
By EdUin C.. Hill


waged by the corporations, q
new school of brilliant and re-
sOurceful men were finished and
tempered in the heat Of the con-
fIict. It was to their interest to
ampIify and cOmplicate the legal
issues--tO multiply laws, to
widen the field Of uncertainty.
"When the States fought back
against the 'rObber barOns,' in
land, utilities and railroad cases,
the Supreme Court hamstrung
the States. It was entrenched
in the federaliSt theories of Alex
ander Hamilton, who had re-
marked, The people is a great
beast and it was bitterly fought
by the States Rights Jeffer.
sOnian Democrats. When a
ruined economy left the States
impOtent they dumped the whole
wreck into the lap Of the Fed
eral Government.
"The Supreme Court then
crippled the Federal Govern
ment. The national Govern
men can't govern, and the
States can't govern. DeSper.
ateIy and defenSively, the Fed
eral Government marShalS new
armies of lawyers to fend off
attacks and to shepherd its new
ventures through the needles
eye Of the Constitution. That's
the opposing point of view, which
in varying forms will be stacked
up in the constitutional argu-
ments in this campaign year."
In Washington, the lawyers are
at it, hammer and tongs, in argu-
mentS which sound to a layman
as mystifying as the philosophical
debates of the medieval scholas-
tics.
The English chief justice, Lord
Coke, appointed by a Stuart king,
is getting a big workout after all
these years.
Justice Coke is fountain-head
Of authority for the contention
that the judiciary is supreme over
the legislature and that there is
in its ultimate announcements a
Sanctity which cannot and must
not be assailed.
The other side swings back with
the famous Blackstone quote re-
garding the supremacy of the par
lament over the judiciary:
'Were the judiciary the last
word, such a condition would
be subverSive to all govern
ment."
HISTORIC SEMICOLON
OF the 531 members of the
House and Senate, 327 are law.
yers. Like lot of track athletes
staging field day, they tear into
this constitutional argument-not
necessarily on the floor, but in
cloak rooms, in salons, at clubs,
particularly the Cosmos Club,
and wherever they meet.
Looming up bigger every day is
the battle Of the Semicolon. Leave
it to a lawyer to work big issue
down to a fine point. Roughly,
the dispute is this:
The defenders of congressional
authority against the Supreme
Court charge that the founding
fathers slapped in a nice big semi
colon of high visibility after the
words general welfare" in their
grant of powers to Congress.
That, say these statesmen, gave
Congress definite authority to
legislate for the general welfare,
which construction. if sustained,
would let ir the whole New Deal
program, but the later machina-
tions of a subservient Supreme
Court Justice, nicked the dot off
the semicolon. That slid gen
eral welfare" into the taxation
clause and conditioned the powers
hereunder to the taxation linita-
tions.
Certain it is that the campaign
year will see much ink and ora
tory expended over that historic
Semicolon, whether anything
comes of it or not.
It looks like a confusing year
for that long-suffering parsonage.
"the man in the street." Recall
ing the story of the old Negro
questioned by his Northern en-
ployer after the Civil War:
did you fight in the war,
SAM"
'NO, sub. When two dogs is
fightin' Ovah a bone, de bone
don't do no fightin'."
Copyright 1896. King Features