Evening star., 1937-06-16
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

Washington is destined for many a
day to reverberate with echoes of the
high explosive fired at the Roosevelt
court bill by the Senate Judiciary Com
mittee Not within the memory of any
living member has a committee of Con-
gress ever hurled a deadlier bombshell
at an executive proposal. That the ma
jority of the committee consists of men,
bers Of the Presidents own party makes
the episode all the more epochal and
sensational. While the generally hostile
nature of the report was, of course, fully
discounted, Capitol Hill did not expect
quite so stiff a knockout blow. The re-
port ranks as a masterpiece of political
disputation and one certain to go into
the books as an historic defense of an
independent judiciary. The terse 13
points raised against the bill in the
committees summary of its objections
doubtless will provide the high spots of
the oppositions case If and when the
ill-starred project reaches the stage of
Senate debate. They are held to be
about as unanswerable a set of argu-
ments as ever were launched against
legislative program in Washington.
&x Xxx
SCtldgol " OClllOCldl, Vi
wyoming, because he is the one profess
sional writing man on the Judiciary
Committee, gets the lions share Of credit
for the high literary flavor of its report.
Senator Burke, Democrat, of Nebraska
also is believed to have had major
hand in preparing the devastating docu-
ment. The Nebraskans leadership of
the fight against the Presidents bill
H. o,J11 Il n
has had to swallow. Three years ago,
during the congressional campaign of
1884, Mr.. Roosevelt publicly acclaimed
Senator Burkes eloquent epitome of the
New Deal as the finest definition of the
administrators purposes yet uttered in
any quarter. There was, of course, at
that time no intimation that the more
abundant life embraced plans for ''violat-
ing every sacred tradition of American
democracy" as the Judiciary Committee
in an annihilating passage pillories the
court scheme.
While Senate Democrats monopolize
the limelight of glory in the drive to kill
the judiciary bill-with Wheeler, Burke.
McCarran and OMahoney rated as field
marshals of the opposition army-its
understood that, behind the scenes, Re-
publicans Borah of Idaho and johnson
of California rendered yeoman service in
the field of strategy. AS battle-scarred
veterans of the League of Nations fight.
both of them know their onions in such
contest between Congress and the
White House as is now raging. It's ex-
pected that G.. o. P. Minority Leader
McNary of Oregon, another skilled tacti-
clan, also will sit in at councils OF war,
If it becomes necessary to invoke par
hamentary recourses to insure the bills
defeat. X
Little or no attention has been paid
to the attitude of the House in the court
fight. Members say the country is mis-
taken in believing that the bill would go
through the lower branch with whoop.
Current estimates are that while at the
outset 1t might have commanded ma
jority of 80 or 40, it's doubtful whether
it could be passed at all today, despite
the Democratic majority of more than
200. Fifteen out of the rs members of
Chairman Summers Judiciary Commit
tee are accounted unalterably antago-
nistic. There's said even to be doubt
whether there would be a majority in
the Rules Committee to take the bill
from the calendar should the Judiciary
Committee send it there with or with
out an adverse report. It's been sug-
Qested that Representative Pat DreWry