Evening star., 1937-02-11
Length of Time Required for
Constitutional Amend
ment, as on Child Labor,
Reason for Position.
CONFERENCES HELD
TO PUSH PROPOSAL
Senators and Farm Organization
Representatives Consulted at
White House-Voluntary Re.
tirement Bill Meet Executives
Favor.
BY G. GOULD LINCOLN.

President Roosevelt today continued
his efforts in behalf of his judiciary
reorganization bill, holding confer
ences at the White House with a
number of Senators and with repre-
sentatives Of a farm organization for
that purpose.
The Chief Executive was represented
as being absolutely opposed to any
compromise on his proposal to add
new members TO the Supreme Court
of the United States. Neither a plan
for a constitutional amendment nor
the House bill permitting voluntary
retirement Of the Supreme Court
justices will satisfy him.
The President, it was said. takes
the position that if it has been i'm
possible to get through a constitu-
tional amendment dealing with child
labor, after a score of years of effort,
the young men of today might be
gray boards or dead before an amend
ment giving Congress authority to
regulate labor and industry and agri-
culture could be put through.
For Retirement Plan.
The voluntary retirement bill for
Supreme Court justices, which the
House passed yesterday by a vote of
3l5 to rs. has the Presidents approval.
He said as much in his message to the
Congress on the judiciary, for after
discussing the need of having new
blood in the courts, the President
added, In this connection let me say
that the pending proposal to extend to
the justices Of the Supreme Court the
same retirement privileges now avail
able to other Federal judges, has my
entire approval"
Not all the House members who
voted for the voluntary retirement bill,
however, are in favor Of the Presidents
plans for the Supreme Court. Indeed,
a great many of them are not. Some
of them voted for the bill because they
thought it might make it more difficult
for the President to get any other
legislation regarding the highest court.
Others voted for it because they
hoped that, if enacted into law. sew
eral of the justices of the court, now
Of retirement age, would leave the
bench and thus make it possible to
add the new blood" to the bench
which the President desires without
additional legislation.
Not Satisfactory Substitute.
But while the voluntary retirement
bill has the Presidents approval, it
by no means is satisfactory to him as
a substitute for his plan regarding the
Supreme Court. He will insist upon
a law giving him authority to appoint
additional justices of the Supreme
Court whenever a justice of retirement
age fails to retire or resign.
The action of the House in passing
the bill yesterday was, in reality,
merely supplementary to the Presi-
dents plan. The Senate is likely to
put through the retirement bill, too,
it was said. Senator AShurst, chair
man of the Judiciary Committee, and
Senator Robinson, Democratic leader,
have both expressed their approval of
the measure which now goes to the
Senate for consideration; first, how
ever. by the Senate Judiciary Com
mittee.
The President held up yesterday
consideration by the House of Sec
ond bill reported favorably by the
House Judiciary Committee and which
the committee had planned to pass
without further delay. This bill would
authorize the Attorney General to in
tervene in any private suit in which
the constitutionality Of Federal law
lSee JUDICIARY. Page AL