Evening star., 1937-03-30

Glass senior Senator OF Virginia IN
the Congress of the United States.
Never in my career until now nave
I ventured to debate before the pub
lie a measure pending in the Senate
and awaiting decision there; but the
proponents of the problem to which
shall address myself tonight have
seemed fearful of a deliberate con-
sideration of the proposal to pack
the Supreme Court of the United
States; they have defiantly avoWed
their purpose to take the discussion
into every forum, with the uncon-
cealed intention of bringing pressure
to bear on members of Congress to
submit obediently to the frightful
suggestion which has come to them
from the White House. The challenge
has been accepted by those who op-
pose the repugnant scheme to disrupt
representative government in the Ma
ton; and the battle is on to the END.
Confessedly I am speaking tonight
from the depths of soul filled with
bitterness against proposition which
appears to me utterly destitute Of
moral sensibility and without parallel
since the foundation of the Republic.
However, l am not speaking my own
mind alone; the character and intel
llgence of the Nation are aroused and
I am rejecting as best I can the in
dignant protests of thousands upon
thousands of individual citizens whose
kilograms and letters to me as single
Senator are on the desk before me as
,,Ncy iN., t,ct fol inc
in this time of extreme peril to that
charter of our liberties which Glad
stone pronounced "the most wonder
full work ever struck of at a given
time by the brain and purpose of
man"
There has been some talk about or
ganized propaganda against this un-
abashed proposition to pack the Su-
preme Court for specified purpose!
Propaganda was first organized in
behalf of the scheme right here in
Washington and has proceeded with
unabated fury from the White House
! fireside to nearly every rostrum in the
> country. Political jani2aries, paid by
the Federal Treasury to perform serv-
/, ices here and charged with no official
responsibility for determining ques-
tions affecting the Nations judiciary,
are parading the States in a desperate
effort to influence the public against
- the Supreme Court of the United
States. One of these visionary in
CendlarieS spoke recently in South
ern State and exceeded all bounds of
rational criticism in his vituperation
of the eminent men who have served
with great distinction on the supreme
bench. He is said to have been ap-
plauded by the audience Of his parti-
sans, which caused me to wonder If
they could have known the type OF
person to whose unrestrained abuse
of the Supreme Court and the great
jurists who constitute its membership
they approvingly listened. Did they
know that he recently reproached the
South for providing separate public
schools for the races; that he urged
repeal Of every statute and ordinance
of segregation; that he practically
committed the administration at
Washington to new force bill for the
, South, declaring that not since Lin
coins day has it better been realized
than now the necessity Of laws to
strictly enforce the three post-Civil
War amendments to the Constitution
which kept the South in agony for
years and retarded its progress for
we'll nigh half century? This in
furiated propaganda for degrading
the Supreme Court practically pro-
poses another tragic era of reconstruc-
. ton for the South. Should men OF
his mind have part in picking the six
proposed judicial sycophants very
likely they would be glad to see re-
versed those decisions of the court
that saved the civilization of the
South and in spite of the menace OF
, passionate partisans, with their vio-
;. lent threats to 'reorganize" the court,
prohibited the seizure and conflsca-
g ton, without pay, of the estates OF
:. private citizens. 1t was the Supreme
Court of the United States that vali-
dated the suffrage laws of the South
which saved the section from anarchy
and ruin in period the unspeakable
outrages Of which nearly all the Ma
ton recalls with shame.
Sectional Animosity
Is Seen Revealed.
This, however, is merely an Incl
dental aspect Of the case, rejecting
my intense personal resentment and
sharply revealing the sectional ami
mostly Of some of the fierce defamers
of the Suprem, Court. Infinitely
graver questions are presented. This
, entire Nation is aroused over the
many definite proposals to reverse
. the deliberate judgments of an in
dependent court and to substitute for
. them the previously pledged opinions
a of judicial Subalterns. With men of
= this undisguised radical type cam
paigning the country and freely ap
plying their wretched opprobriums to
the Supreme Court, those who resist
the shocking movement are imperti-
nently reproached with Organizing
propaganda" I challenge any pro-
ponent of this packing contrivance to
examine the thousands upon thou
sands Of personal letters and tele-
grams sent to me and find in them
anything but individual indignation
Rt the proposal TO make an executive
puppet OF our supreme judicial tri-
bunal For myself, 1 think we should
- right now have organized propa-
- ganda'-in the sense that the men
q and women Of America who value the
liberties they have enjoyed for $50
~ years should, with unexampled spon-
~ taneity, exercise their constitutional
right of petition and, with all the
{ earneStneSs of their souls, protest
I. to Congress against this attempt to
:, replace representative government
: with an autocracy.
: Aside from these observations, let
. us consider the glaring proposal OF
Z the White House to pack the Supreme
= Court Immediately with the Presi-
dents own legal adherents for a spe-
p,F