Evening star., 1936-03-20
SLIP IN RELIEF.
MESSAGE CHARGED.
Another Slap at Court by
Roosevelt Said to Be
Unfounded.
by DAVID LAWRENCE.

legaI ADVISERS OF Que 70 SllP OA
the pen. For Mr.. Roosevelt accused
the Supreme Court of the United
States Of having imposed limitations
on State powers to require shorter
hours of employment, when as
matter of fact. there have been no
such decisions in recent years. Here
Is the statement In Mr.. RooseVelts
message, verbatim;
But the public authority to re-
ouire shorter hours agreed upon has
been seriously curtailed by limitations
recently imposed by the Supreme
Court upon Federal as well as State
powers"
Now the only Supreme Court case
holding a State law unconstitutional
which attempted to regulate hours
was decided 81 years ago. 1t involved
q special aspect of the problem. Since
then in seven other cases, none OF
them recent, the State laws have been
upheld. Indeed the AdamSon law,
limiting railroad labor to eight hours
a day, was upheld nearly 20 years ago.
as a proper exercise of Federal power
with respect to businesses engaged in
interstate commerce.
Recent" Key to Contention.
Lawyers here have searched in vain
for a single opinion of the Supreme
Court that could remotely justify the
Presidents statement. but whatever
issues arose were decided long before
the New Deal came into power.
It may be that the President in
tended to omit the word recently"
and forgot it when he revised his
speech, but on the other hand, it Is
probable that a State law, properly
drawn, regulating the hours of labor,
would be sustained today. Certainly
no State law attempting it has been
before the Supreme Court Of the
United States since 1888.
In another part of his message to
Congress, Mr. Roosevelt pursued his
attack on the Supreme Court by
blaming the court for the loss OF
processing tax money to the Treasury.
When Mr.. Roosevelt in his message
Government had lost revenues by
reason the Supreme Court decision" "
it was believed the President had used
the expression without any particular
intent But in his second message on
relief, he has adopted the phraSeology
again. In one place, the President
spoke OF new revenues made neces-
sary by the Supreme Court invah-
dating the agricultural adjustment
act" and in another place he repeats
It this way-"to reimburse the
Treasury for processing taxes lost in
this fiscal year by reason Of the
Supreme Courts decision"
Court Foes Entrench.
At no point in either Of the two
messages does Mr.. Roosevelt concede
that the A. A. A. violated the Consti-
tuition and that the authors Of the act
collected revenues illegally. He does
not concede that the Treasury counted
on revenues which it never had had
right to gather, judging by the opin-
don Of the court.
, This point of view on the part
of the President has in it much
significance, for it forecasts the posi-
ton to be taken by the New Deal
as whole, which Is that the Supreme
Court is Just a group of individuals
expressing their personal opinions and
that if six of them decide one way and
three another way, then it is still
an individual matter, and the Pres1-
dent of the United States has no
obligation to accept the judgment of
the court as anything but personal
affair, which might as well have been
decided one way as another.
This impression Of casualness to-
ward constitutional law and practice
will be developed considerably more
by the New Dealers in the next few
months. For many Of them would
prefer to think of constitutional law
as something which can be changed
by personal judgments and hence this
paves the way for the appointment
of Judges who will decide questions
in the manner which the New Deal
wants them decided.
Parallels In Congress.
For many decades the majority
opinion Of the Supreme Court has been
considered conclusive, irrespective of
the fact that a minority existed. There
are differences of opinion in Congress,
too, but the citizen is not permitted
to disregard a law just because a
heavy vote was cast against 1t in
both Houses. The Supreme Court has
often had differences of opinion among
its members. Also there have been
times, though very rarely indeed,
when decisions have been apparently
overruled by subsequent cases, though
here again, it is matter of dispute
whether the case overruling a former
opinion stood exactly on the same
ground and had the same facts and
circumstances as the preceding case.
Mr.. Roosevelts intention to place
the blame on the Supreme Court for
the loss of revenues and not on his
advisers or on Congress for passing
a faulty law is becoming clearer with
every comment he makes. The new
agricultural law with the soil con-
servation program is believed to be
constitutional. There has been no
reason adduced why this statute
could not have been drafted in the
first instance. AS for the new or
substitute processing taxes, it will be
noted that even though the President
wants some taxes levied on agricultural
commodities, the Congress is now loath
to impose them. And this is not
because anybody in Congress thinks
the new taxes would be unconsti-
tutional, but because a majority of
members of both Houses are beginning
to admit that the taxes we're inequit-
able anyhow and soaked the poor.
who had them added to the cost of
living. As a matter Of fact, the Su-
preme Court, by its opinion invalidat-
ing the A. A. A., has saved the New
Deal many millions of negative votes
in sections of the country which were
greatly relieved when the Supreme
Court declared the taxes Illegal. The
court, Of course, is not concerned
with the wisdom Of the law, but