The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-04-22

VIII Be.
 Washington, April 22- Govern ment attorneys and private at torneys are confident that tht Supreme Court will take its first Social Security act decision by g vote of 5 to 4.
 They are not sure, however,
 what the decision will be. The an-
 swer to that, affecting about 18,-
 100000 persons now covered by unemployment insurance laws,
 seems to rest with Justice Owen
 JoSephus Roberts.
 The other justices, it is gath. cred from their questions and com ments during argument by counsel are split along familiar lines = witt Hughes, Brandeis, Stone and Car. dozo appearing to favor the federal state employment insurance system set up by the act, and the conserva- tive quartet of McReynolds, Butler Sutherland and Van Devanter ir opposition.
 If this correct, Roberts again will be in an all-powerful posi-
 tiOn--a One-man balance of pow
 CT, making vital interpretations of
 a constitution which governs na-
 tiOn of 130,000,0OO human beings.
 Roberts played that part in the in-
 validati0n of the New York mini-
 mum wage act and again in the
 opinions upholding the Wagner
 labor and Washington state mini-
 mum wage acts.
 There are signs that the re- SponSibility is beginning to wear on Roberts and high officials are suggesting in private conversation that he, the youngest of the nine justices, may be the first of the present bench to retire.
 He looks older and more care worn. Throughout recent argu- ments on the Alabama unemploy- ment insurance law and validity of the federal unemployment in- surance tax, Roberts seldom if ever looked at government coun- sel. He asked no questions.
 
 Two Memorable Phrases
 The rest of the court, however, was demonstrating that it func- tions much like a group of elderly gentlemen who violently disagree with each other. The backstairs gossip is that the four unyielding conservatives are especially bitter at Hughes, Roberts and Stone; at Hughes and Roberts because they have joined the liberal justices in recent decisions: and at Stone because he gave the courts critics two memorable phrases to quote enthusiastically - personal eco- homie predilections' in the New York minimum wage case, and "a tortured construction of the Con- Stitution" in the AAA case. The apparent attitude of Justice Mo- Reynolds toward the unemploy- ment insurance law was indicated when he asked:
 "WelL, didn't we get along with out this for 15O years"
 And Justice Butler at one time asked Assistant Attorney General Robert H. Jackson:
 Are you inviting us to consider this on the basis that there is no limit on the power that can be exercised by the federal govern ment?"
 Lawyers raised their eyebrows when the 80-year-old Brandeis Butler an implied rebuke. It was the alter who suggested that if the Social Security Board could regulate terms of state un- insurance laws, the time might not be far away when the federal government could set up educational requirements for states.
 We've got to decide whether this particular purpose and these particular limitations exceed the power of Congress" Brandeis in- terposed. "It is very interesting to see just where the line should be drawn, but difficult to see how it is involved"
 Hughes, Brandeis, Stone and Cardozo all participated in what in less dignified circles might be called heckling of corporation law yers attacking the act. The best reason for believing that Roberts will join them in upholding the act is the fact that when the court last fall failed to kill the similar New York unemployment insur- ance act in a four r-to-four tied decision. it was generally supposed that Roberts, Hughes, Brandeis and Cardozo had taken the liberal side. Stone was ill and absent.
 The old age benefits section of the Social Security Act is not yet before the court. But Attorney General Cummings is getting it there as rapidly as possible, fol- lowing the first circuit courts de- ciSion that the all-important tax provisions of that section were un- constitutional.
 Copyright. 1887. NEA Service, Incl