Evening star., 1939-08-09
Means to on End

President Roosevelt, in asserting
that the final objective of his court
reorganization plan has been reached,
made the following remarkable state
ment: THE country is naturally con-
cerned with the attainment of proper
objectives, rather than any one of
many possible methods for the &C
complishment of the end"
Since that observation was con-
tanned in a prepared statement, it is
only reasonable to suppose that the
President had considered his choice
of language and meant what he said.
If that assumption is correct, the
statement is indeed a significant one
not because it is a correct analysis
of the public's attitude but for what
it reveals of Mr.. Roosevelt's point of
view.
In effect, the President is contend
Ing that, given what he considers to
be a worthy objective, the public will
support him in any means he may
use to attain it. That would be 6an-
gerous brand of thinking if founded
in fact, and it is even more so when
the conclusion is demonstrably in
error.
Mr.. Roosevelt should know by now
that the public is concerned with his
choice of methods in seeking objec-
tives he believes to be proper. Up to
the time of the introduction of the
bill to enlarge the Supreme Court he
had enjoyed degree of power and
prestige denied to most Presidents.
But when the people realized that his
basic purpose in that measure was to
reverse the trend of judicial rulings
by appointing men to the court who
might be expected to decide constitu-
tional questions as the President
thought they ought to be decided,
thereby overruling the conservative
majority then on the bench, the
"court enlargement" feature of his
program was emphatically rejected,
principally as result of opposition
from loyal members of his own party.
And the force of that rebuke to the
President is not minimized, as Mr..
Roosevelt seems to believe, by the
fact that the court has since adopted
a more liberal attitude toward the
Constitution, for this change in judi
cial thinking has come about through
retirements and new appointments,
the manner in which judicial out
looks always have been altered in this
country, and not through the subju-
cation of the judiciary to the will of
the executive 1t seems almost in
credible that Mr.. Roosevelt should be
oblivious to this fact-that it was the
method by which he sought to secure
a more liberal Interpretation of the
Constitution and not the objective
itself that aroused most of the oppo-
sition to his bill.
To a large extent the same thing
was true of the adverse sentiment
aroused by the Presidents Inflated
effort to purge" his party of Demo-
Gratis who did not think as he thought
they ought to think A majority of
the voters simply refused to sanction
the dubious method he pursued in
that unWise adventure.
Mr.. Roosevelt's party today is torn
by the bitterest sort of internal dis
sension. And only few months ago
he could count on it's almost auto
matte support of his program. To
some degree the revolt which has
Spread among the rank and file is
attributable to dissatisfaction at this
time with New Deal objectives, but
to far greater extent it can be
traced to the Presidents past refusal
to recognize the fact that the end
does not always justify the means.
And if Mr.. Roosevelt continues to
concentrate his attention on objec-
tives, while closing his eyes to good
as against bad methods, he will have
little, if any, chance of regaining his
lost leadership.