Evening star., 1937-03-25
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Where Angels Fear.

nc Where Angels Fear.
In their zeal to pack the Supreme
Court for the valuation now" of New
Deal measures, some of the proponents
of that plan exhibit recklessness in
Their generalizations which leads them
to rush in where more deliberate angels,
with good cause, fear to tread.
Addressing the New York Economic
Club last night, Robert H Jackson, the
Assistant Attorney General, referred
sWeetly to the Presidents plan as one
designed simply to recondition the
court and its personnel" He devoted
most of the remainder of his speech to
a showing of why such reconditioning
is necessary, intimating that the JUS
tees are not only too DID, but that the
court itself has repeatedly blocked what
the New Dealers regard as progress.
Powerful interests" seek the court as
"wailing wall" Privilege and anti-social
forces seek the shelter of the court"
AS direct result of the courts decisions
In labor relations" and have no peace
ful technique for dealing with them"
And then this:
Our experience would have grown
with the problems, if the Supreme Court
of the United States had not, against
the protest of some of its most re-
spected members, arrested our develop
ment, Let us cite specific examples. In
1920 Kansas created Court of Indus
trial Relations to hear labor disputes and
fix wages and terms for future employ
nlent in certain industries. I do not
know whether it would have succeeded,
nor what facts its efforts would have
developed We were not permitted to
learn whatever lesson it had to teach.
The Supreme Court held that the law
violated the due process clause of the
Constitution. Who can say how valu-
able that experiment might have been
to us now?
The inference here, read with the
context, is that the Kansas Court of
Industrial Relations experiment was held
invalid against the protest of some of
its dhe courts most respected men,
DeIS but Gllt 1UuI uGClSlUllS Uy JIle
Supreme Court affecting the Kansas law
were unanimous decisions Justice
Brandeis wrote one of the minor deci-
sions. He and the late Justice Holmes
concurred in all of them. Five members
of the present court participated in the
early decisions, six members of the
present court participated in the last
one. And the last decision was twelve
years ago. The present justices who
participated were, in other words, twelve
years younger than they are today.
Mr.. Jackson is not candid in stating
the purpose of the Court of Industrial
Relations. Nor does he tell why the
law, in its applications considered by
the court, was found invalid. The
Kansas law was an experiment in COM
pulsory arbitration Of labor disputes.
does organized labor today favor COM
nllsory arbitration and denial of the
right to strike? Here is what the Kansas
law provided, in the words of the late
Chief Justice Taft:
Section Seven gives the industrial
court power, in case of controversy be-
tween employers and workers which
may endanger the continuity of service
dn certain industries), to bring the
employer and employe before it and,
after hearing and investigation, to fix
the terms and conditions between them.
The employer is bound by this act to
pay the wages fixed and, while the
worker is not required to work, at the
wages fixed, he is forbidden, on penalty
Of fine or imprisonment, to strike against
them and is compelled to give up that
means of putting himself on an equality
with his employer which action in con-
cert with his fellows gives him.
And later:
Under it they (the employer and
workers. have no voice in selecting the
determining agency or in defining what
that agency is to investigate and de-
termine. And yet the determination is
to bind them from agreeing on any
change in the terms fixed therein, unless
the agency approves.
Is that the sort of statute which Mr.
William Green and his fellows, painting
in their new found enthusiasm to pack
the Supreme Court, want to have de-
clared constitutional under Mr.. Jackson's
'reconditioned court" and reconditioned
personnel? Presumably So The action
of the court comes under Mr.. Jacksons
specific examples" of arrested de-