Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1937-04-01

in the Senate press gallery summed
up the situation precisely when he
said, ITS the lawyer in the Senators
that turns them against the Presi-
dents plan and It's the politician in
them that makes them for it, and,
Brother, there's more politician in
them than lawyer"
This was just another way of say
ing that most Of the Senators know,
even as you and 1, that the people
to whom they must look for re-elec-
ion smoker at senility in high places
and have none of the awful respect
for courts and judges that John w.
Davis, Newton ID. Baker, Dave Reed,
Herbert Hoover, MoO-cow Borah, and
Carter Glass affect to have. Even
the tories so piously ranting in de-
Tense of the Supreme Courts sanctity
are completely aware that the cleo
torate is not on their side. Their des-
| perate efforts to keep the Liberty
| League and ALT Landon out of the
fight are a part of that realization
1t takes something worse than knave
from the republics beginnings judges
have been suspect with the men and
women who labor for a living. 1t
takes no mastery rhetoric from a
President to persuade organized labor
that judges are all too human; union
men and women and the non-union
men and women who work beside
them have built up through personal
experience the doctrine that the
courts are with the corporations.
Nor is it an exclusively proletarian
doctrine. Those very Nestors of the
bar who now assail the President
for treating the Supreme Court real
istically would fire any junior member
OF their law firm who failed to choose
a friendly" court for trial of an i'm
portant case. Every practitioner be-
fore the Supreme Court begins his ar
gument with an unspoken assumption
that nothing he can say will turn GER
tain of the justices there against his
client or win others over to his side
These notions are so widely held
that it is hard to see how defenders
of the status quo can hope to defeat
Roosevelt's plan by a resort at this
late date to sanctification of the courts
and dedication of the men who earn
their livings in them. Their efforts
to do so can only play into the Presi-
dents hands. AS in the campaign of
1896 he has only to sit back and let
his enemies win for him, and if he
were more or less a gentleman than
he is, he already would be installing
in the White House offices a battery
OF stenOgraphers sending out thank
you letters to all those publishers and
high-priced shysters who have invoked
the shibboleths and alignments of
1896 in another attempt to Lick him.
What. truth there is in their argument
cannot prevail against what most of
the electorate regard as greater
truth: that most of the judges of our
| courts do not belong on the bench.
And the truth is on Roosevelt's side.
| The important thing for liberals,
radicals, and progressives to size upon
is that, if the scareheads of the press
and the thunder of the tories brighten
them into unqualified support of the
Presidents program, they will have
lost another grand opportunity. 1t is
the opportunity to pry out of Roosevelt
as price for their support a pledge
committing him to fight for an amend
ment to the Constitution to safeguard
the public will against the prejudices
of the future Supreme Court majority.
| The opportunity will last only so long
as there is an element of uncertainty
about the outcome of his fight for
power to remold the court. l think
it is big enough at the moment to
allow not only a northumberland
| ment pledge to be obtained but also
some definite commitments on new
| legislation. That legislation must en-
compass more than a few frowsy en-
actmentS with respect to minimum
wages and maximum hours. There
must be a frontal attack on the cor
porate devices by which prices are
lacked up so that the wage earners
share in the fruits of his labor re-
mains stationary.