Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1937-03-12
THE POLITICAL
MILL
BY G. GOULD LINCOLN.

VI Iiiio oti usslc OVcI IIle proposal TO IN
crease the membership of the Supreme
Court. How long this legislative log
jam Will continue remains to be seen. In
the meantime, the Supreme Court is con-
siderlng the Wagner labor relations act,
and this fact may have something to do
also with delay on labor and other leg
islation
No one knows how long the court bill
will remain the key to the jam of legisla-
ton. The Senate Judiciary Committee
has opened it's hearings on the measure.
1t has heard two witnesses, the Attorney
General and Assistant Attorney General
Jackson, and today it will have before it
a third, Judge John Devenay of Mime
sofa, the first president of the new
National Lawyers Guild. Presumably
there is long list of witnesses yet to be
heard, and the hearings may run into
weeks. So far none of the opponents OF
the bill has had an opportunity to voice
his disapproval before the Senate COM
mittee.
X
The demand for constitutional
amendment to solve the trouble over the
Supreme Court is raising it's head more
and more. This is the course which the
President has turned against, feeling
that it would take too much time Yet
Senator OMahoney of Wyoming,
stanch Roosevelt supporter, is insistent
that only by constitutional amend
ment will it be possible permanently to
get away from hair-line decisions of the
court on the constitutionality of laws
enacted by Congress and by State Legis-
latures He has proposed an amendment
which would require two-thirds deci-
sion OF the highest court, or of any OF
the inferior courts, to invalidate law
1t is his contention that even If six new
justices were added to the Supreme
Court in accordance with the Presidents
plan, there would be no real assurance
that the court would not hand down
8-to7 decisions
OMahoney's demand for a constitu-
tional amendment may not mean that
he will oppose the Presidents bill
for an increase In the court. On the
other hand, 1t leaves strong suspicion
that the Wyoming Senator is by no
means enamored of the court bill. There
Is reason to believe that many of the
administration Senators down in their
hearts do not like the plan to increase
the court as presented by the President,
and If 1t were not for strong feeling
that they must go along with the Presi-
dent, they would be opposed to the meas
ure openly. OMahoney has frankly
warned the administration leaders that
some compromise measure, such as his
amendment, should be adopted unless
there is to be wide division in the ranks
OF the men and women who voted for
the President in the last election.
Attorney General Cummings and other
supporters Of the Presidents court bill
have called attention to the fact that
IN 1869 the House passed bill providing
Tor the appointment of additional
judges to the Supreme Court and other
courts where men who had reached the
retirement age failed to get off the bench.
There is, 1t seems nothing new under
the sun. The plan failed in 1869, some
68 years ago.
If the President had contented him
self with asking for a law to increase
the membership of the Supreme Court
to II, with two new places on the bench,
his proposal would have had far easier
going. When he asked the right to ap-
the request seemed to many merely a
demand to pack" the court with JUS
tees who would do what he wanted done
in the matter of interpreting the Con-
stitution. Looking into the future, if
the Presidents plan goes through, how
are the men selected for the new places
on the Supreme Court going to feel about
it? There will be the suspicion that they
have been picked because the President
has assurance they will vote his way as
members of the court. Such suspicion
may we'll be irksome to men who stand
high in the ranks of the legal profession,
or who already are on the bench in the
inferior courts
1t is one thing to appoint judge and
another to obtain from him a decision
which the Executive or Congress or any
one else may desire. And yet the Attor-
ney General, appearing before the Senate
Judiciary Committee. did not seem to
have any doubt that the required de-
cisions would be forthcoming If the
President were given the power to ap-
point the new justices.
X X X \
Robert H. Jackson, Assistant Attorney
General, in his appearance before the
Senate Judiciary Committee, presented
the most convincing statement that has
yet been advanced in any quarter in
support of the Presidents court bill It
is his contention that the Supreme Court
as now constituted is no more nor less
than super government, exercising
super legislative powers. It is so, he con-
tends, because 1t imposes upon the coun-
try its own notions regarding economic
questions and the Constitution. These
notions, he contends are opposed to the
ideas Of the great majority Of American
voters today, and to the ideas of the
President and the Congress. The Con-
stitution, however, is written document,
the fundamental law. The interpreta-
ton Of the fundamental law must rest
somewhere. The danger to the whole
American framework is to place the final
Interpretation in the hands OF a politi-
cally minded legislature or q politically
minded executive.
Two years ago it would have been q
bold man who predicted that organized
labor in the United States would in the
early part of 1887 be split into two great
warning camps. Yet such is the case,
with the American Federation of Labor
on one side and the Committee for In
dustrial Organization on the other. The
c. I. o. has made great strides in the
last few months under the leadership OF
John L. Lewis. The roots OF the A. F.
of l., 90 deem however and the end Ia