Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1937-04-13
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The Wagner Decisions.

-Alliue1lced Ine decisions yesterday up
holding the Wagner act will always re-
main an academic question. There is
enough to support argument on both
sides.
But what has happened is more i'm
portant. The court has, for the second
time in two weeks, taken the wind out
of the court packing plan leaving it
fiat and debated. Proponents of the
plan have heard most of their argu-
ments answered by the Chief Justice.
And if, as 1t may be said with some
justification, the President has won
point, the graceful and beneficial sequel
to such a victory would lie in with
drawal now or abandonment later of
the court-packing plan. The interests
of the country demand that this be done.
Two weeks ago the court reaf1irmed,
but none the less strengthened and clari-
fed, the doctrine that the court is con-
cerned with procedure and not with
the substance of laws which have been
challenged as violating the due process
clause of the fourteenth amendment,
thereby reopening a field seemingly
closed to desirable extensions of social
legislation in the States and by the
States.
Yesterday the court broadened, with
out removing the limits, the field for
Federal regulation in industries affect
Ing, If not directly engaged in, inter-
state commerce. The court did not lay
down a new definition of interstate
commerce, but it did qualify its previous
dictum that manufacturing is not COM
merce by asserting the right of Congress
to legislate for certain ends where those
affected by the legislation exert a sub
stantial influence upon the movement
OF goods in interstate commerce.
In the Jones g. Laughlin Steel Cor
poration case the court recalled that
''the fundamental principle is that the
power to regulate commerce is the power
to enact all appropriate legislation for
Its protection and advancement" The
scope of this power must be considered in
''the light of our dual system of Gov
eminent and may not be extended to
embrace effects upon interstate commerce
indirect and remote. But the CLOSE and
intimate effect which brings the subject
within reach of the Federal power may be
due to activities in relation to produc-
tive industry, although the industry
when separately viewed is local"
Instead of being beyond the pale" of
Federal regulation promoting the rights
of workers to organize-and thereby to
prevent harmful interference through
labor disputes with the flow of interstate
commerce-the steel corporation case
presents in most striking way the close
and intimate relation which a manu-
featuring industry may have to interstate
commerce, and We have no doubt the
Congress had constitutional authority to
safeguard the right of respondents en-
ployes to self-orga IMITATION and freedom
in choice of representatives for collective
bargaining" 1--WE are asked" said the
court, "to shut our eyes to the plainest
facts of our national life and to deal with
the question of direct and indirect effects
(of interstate commerce) in an intellectual
vacuum" Such a vacuum the courts
majority abhorred in a realistic approach
to a realistic problem. "* Of what
avail is it to protect the facility of trans
portation, if interstate commerce is
throttled with respect to the commodities
to be transported"
The opinions emphasized once again
that the court is concerned not so
much with the potential infringe
ment of constitutional guarantees as
with the specific effect of the legislation,
as applied in the cases presented to it
for decision. The freedom of the press
argument in the Associated Press case
the court viewed as an "unsound general
ization"-not because the freedom of the
press might not in some case be at is
sue, but because in this particular case
there was not convincing evidence that
1t was directly involved.
The closeness of the decisions pointed
again to the cleavage which exists be-
tween sincere and honorable men on the
court as to the limits under the Con-
stitution they have sworn to uphold in
the extension of Federal powers. But
there are few who can but believe that
the majority decisions reflect public
sentiment as to what is desirable; that
they move with the current of public
thought and not against it and that they
are the decisions that are best for the
country. Certainly it is better that the
decisions were reached by an indie
pendent court than by court manned
by those selected for given purpose.
The effect of the decisions should be
not only to release a log jam in the
lower courts of an accumulation of cases
affecting the validity of the Wagner act,
but to clear the atmosphere and bring
to an end the uncertainty, both by en-
ployers and employees, as to where they
stand. Employers who have been await
ing this test of their constitutional rights