Evening star., 1937-03-25
COURT PROPOSALS
FLAYED, DEFENDED
Burke and Jackson Debate.
La Toilette and Black
Talk in Gotham.
By the Associated Press.

NEW YORK, March 25.-In two
public forums here last night the
Presidents proposals to alter the per-
sonnel of the United States Supreme
Court were alternately attacked and
defended.
The Economic Club of New York
celebarted its thirtieth anniversary
listening to Senator Edward r. Burke,
Democrat, of Nebraska and Robert
r.. Jackson, Assistant United States
Attorney General, debate the issue
At Carnegie Hall the American
Labor party mustered it's trade union
followers to meeting addressed by
jackson and two Senators, Robert
La Toilette of Wisconsin and Hugo
M Black Of Alabama-all favorable
to the changes.
Paul D. Cravath, president of the
Metropolitan Opera Association and
director of financial and industrial
companies presided at the Economic
Club dinner, where Winthrop Aldrich,
head of the Chase Bank, and Ogden
L. Mills, Treasury Secretary in the
Hoover cabinet, were honored guests
They heard Senator Burke assail
the proposal as ''the most fragrant
example in American history of an
attempt to strip the people of the
right to say what powers they want
to vest in their Congress and in their
President"
Urges Decision by People.
Burke proposed that the people be
given chance to pass on the ques-
ton of whether there is to be q
new and undrsamed-of concentra-
ton of authority at Washington, so
that Congress and the President may
be free to direct the lives of l30 mil
lion people without check or restraint
Of any Kind"
He argued that Congress has "al-
most unlimited power" to approach
a solution of the Nations problems
"in a national way" and urged:
If there be such matters as regula-
ton of minimum wages, hours Of
labor and similar subjects, which the
trainers of the Constitution clearly did
not intend to vest in the Federal
Government, and if the people now
desire to place that power in Congress,
then let the people speak. Let us
not attempt to amend the Constitu-
tion without action by the people"
Jackson, defending the proposals,
told the Economic Club:
'The courts have lately been closing
the ways to political compromise Of
basic problems arising out of the de-
preston and out of troubled industrial
relations. The President is seeking,
in his policy and in his court proposal,
to open the highway to economic and
social peace. The closed road may
mean rough detour."
Addresses Conservatives.
In advocating the Presidents legis-
lation, jackson told the club members
that he addressed them as conserva-
tives who will probably disagree with
most that I say"
He invited conservatives to consider
whether their own interests have not
been injured by the over zeal of the
Supreme Court in times past and
not require some reform within the
present Constitution
He said time would make traditional
. retirement age of 10 in the courts
which would be las free from personal
implications as the present tradition
of presidential retirement after two
terms"
To the trade unionists of the Amer
1can Labor Party, who flocked to the
Presidents banner in its first test Of
political strength last November, Sen
ator La Toilette asserted that industry
was carrying on a huge sit-down
strike against American labor and the
rights guaranteed to workers by the
Federal Government
Employers, he said, were refusing to
bargain collectively with their en-
ployes on the theory that the Supreme
Court will invalidate the Wagner
labor relations act
In the labor strife sweeping across