The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1937-02-17
COURT ATTACK
COST TEDDY
ANOTHER TERM
.RoUGHRIDER" ADVOCATED
BEFORE CONVENTION RE-
CALL OF JUDICIAL oPIN.
IONS
By McRGAN M. BEATTY
GAP Feature Service Writer)

CAP Feature Service Writer)
WASHINGTON. Feb. H.
Ulysses S. Grant was the last
President who differed with the
Supreme Court on a major issue,
and carried the day.
Soldier though he was, Grant
used the arts of peace to beat
down opposition in the high tri-
bunai to the famous postwar
legal tender acts.
The trick appeared to be simple
enough. A couple of friendly
nominees for vacancies and an
agreeable congress paved the way.
In February, 1870, before the
vacancies were filled, the Supreme
Court decided. in effect. that
grenbacks we're not legal tender.
On the very day of the decision,
President Grant nominated Joseph
P. Bradley of New Jersey and Viii
liam Strong of Pennsylvania, rail-
road attorneys, and both nomina-
tions Immediately were confirmed
by the senate.
Grant Wins His Point
The question of the eonstitu-
tionality o. the greenbacks again
was raised, and within Is months
greenbacks were held constitu-
tionaI by the added votes of the
new appointees in their favor.
"Grant packed the court" OPP
ponents yelled, and the phrase
packing the court" still crops
up.
Six decades passed after Grant
beat back the Supreme Court be-
fore President Roosevelt slapped
a ahorse and buggy label on a
judicial opinion.
But before that mild epithet
was flung from the White House.
another Roosevelt, who had been
President and wanted the job
again, proposed to clip the SUI
preme Courts wings. He wanted
to give to the voters the one pow
er the judiciary has insisted on
from the DAYS of Washington and
Jefferaon. That was the right of
judicial review-the last word.
Roosevelt Strikes Judiciary
As President, Theodore Roose-
welt was a frequent and eaustic
critic of judicial interpretations
of the constitution, both federal
and state. But the heaviest i'm
pact OF his striking personality
and great popular following fell
against the Judiciary after he left
the White House.
On the same day that he de-
clared in Cleveland that his, hat
was in the ring for the Republi-
can Presidential nomination of
1912 against President Taft, Colo
mel Roosevelt advocated before an
Ohio constitutional convention the
recall of judicial opinions.
81 very earnestly ask you clear
ly to provide in this constitu-
tion," he said, "means which viii
!. permit the people themselves
by popular vote finally and
without appeal to settle what the
proper construction of any con-
stitutional point is.
each (judge) must follow his
conscience, even though to do so
cost him his place. But in their
turn the people must follow their
conscience, and when they have
definitely decided on given
policy they must have public SER
wants who will carry out that
policy"
Colonel Beats Himself
1t was on the heels of that
speech that Theodore Roosevelt
launched his candidacy to defeat
President Taft for denomination.
1t was because of that speech
that he lost the previously certain
support OF such Republican stall
warts as the late Senator Henry
Cabot Lodge, dominating figure
in Massachusetts, Republican poll
tics. The Massachusetts, delega-
ton was equally divided at the
convention between Taft and
Roosevelt.
Il