The Daily Alaska empire., 1937-01-28
The Ways of Democracy
lNem Ynrk Timesl

l. (NeW York IlmeS)
 It is interesting to recall that once before and in circumstances more dramatic than those which marked his message to Congress on Wednesday, the President affirmed his. faith that the problems of modern democracy can be solved within the existing framework of the Constitution The occasion his first inaugural He stood on the steps of the Capitol in March 1933 facing perpleXed and deeply troubled people. Depression had reached it nadr. Banks had closed their doors Panic in the air And in some quarters it seriously proposed that in this crisis Constitution be sheved temporarily and that the President be given dictatoria to deal with the emergency. To such proposals the President said then what in essence he said to Congress WedneS day that the Constitution is simple and prac tical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement, With out loss of essential form" That why, in his judgment of l933 constitutional system had proved itself the most superby enduring political mechanism" devised by modern nation
 It is worth while now to recall this earlier dec laraton made on the eve of his first Administration because the thought behind it parallels so closely the thought which the President has chosen to make the main theme of message sent to Congress on the eve of his second Administration. Again, as four years ago. MT Roosevelt expresses his belief that the Constitution is living document; that its authors fully that changing conditions would raise for a new Federal Government problems which they themselves could not foresee that they intended and expected that liberal interpretation of 1t in the years to come would give Congress the same relative powers national problems as they them selves gave Congress over the national questions Of their day
 It does not follow if this view be taken. that the Supreme Court is bound to subordinate itself to Con- gress does not follow that the court has inde pendent duty to perform It certainly does not follow that those measures of the first Roosevelt Adminstra ton which failed to meet the courts approval were properly conceived the best which could have been devised Serious mistakes made by the Roosevelt Administration The President frankly admits as much in the case of NRA What he tasks is not that the court condone plain ot method and of judgment but that means be found, if possible ito adapt legal forms and judicial
 interpretation the actual present national needs of the largest progressive democracy in the modern wor1" Properly viewed. this becomes a twofold responsibility. Of the Legislature it requires scrupulous care in the drafting of measures and greater respect for tradition which rests upon solid
 experience the courts it asks broad interpre
 taton of legislative powers it consistent with the 1 the Constitution
 The effort to achieve more effective cooperation
 between courts and Legislature without loss of possibility either side. is superbly worth making, because in very literal democracy is on trial In all parts of the world many men have lost patience with the ways of popular government They say that it cannot function effectively in crisis They rdicue it's sometimes bunderng efforts to translate the will of the electorate into policy of national faction. They scorn the elaborate system of cheeks and balances by which it attempts to per- lenge such skeptcism which only great democracy can only by giving the confident of per
 formance to those whose istinctve faith makes them
 wish to believe that the complex problems of the twen teth century be solved within the framework of free government under written Constitution